The authors describe their success with narrative therapy, a lighter, playful approach to the serious problems encountered in child and family therapy. They provide case vignettes in the first two sections which show how children who might have been labeled belligerent, hyperactive, anxious, or out of touch with reality are found to be capable of taming their tempers, controlling frustration, and using their imaginations to the fullest. They address the helpful role of family members, as well. The third section of the text offers five extended case stories. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Ann Cattanach explains how children's stories and narratives, whether they are about real or imagined events, can be interpreted as indicators of their experiences, their ideas, and a dimension of who they are. She uses examples of children's stories from her clinical experience.

Showcasing approaches as creative and playful as young clients themselves, the book presents therapy as a dialogue of discovery. Through transcripts and compelling case examples, contributors illuminate how drama, art, play, and humor can be used effectively to engage with children of different ages, and to honor their idiosyncratic language, knowledge, and perspective.

Narrative Play Therapy is a highly effective play-based psychological intervention that enables therapists to help children communicate difficult experiences and complex emotions through co-constructed stories. This is the definitive guide to the approach, offering both a coherent theoretical outline and a clear explanation of its practical applications. Beginning with detailed accounts of the theory and history that has shaped the approach, this book provides necessary background knowledge for the successful application of Narrative Play Therapy. It looks at different client circumstances, including children experiencing adoption, parental separation or abuse, and demonstrates how the approach can be used in practice to support each client group therapeutically. The professional expertise of leading practitioners in the field is brought together to present a comprehensive framework for Narrative Play Therapy drawn from theory, understanding and practice. This is an essential resource for students of play therapy, play therapy practitioners, and all other professionals working with children therapeutically.

Narrative Therapy provides an introduction to the theory, history, research, and practice of this post-structural approach. First developed by David Epston and Michael White, this therapeutic theory is founded on the idea that people have many interacting narratives that go into making up their sense of who they are, and that the issues they bring to therapy are not restricted to (or located) within the clients themselves, but rather are influenced and shaped by cultural discourses about identity and power. Narrative therapy centers around a rich engagement in re-storying a client's narrative by re-considering, re-appreciating, and re-authoring the client's preferred lives and relationships. In this book, Stephen Madigan presents and explores this versatile and useful approach, its theory, history, therapy process, primary change mechanisms, the empirical basis for its effectiveness, and recent developments that have refined the theory and expanded how it may be practiced. This essential primer, amply illustrated with case examples featuring diverse clients, is perfect for graduate students studying theories of therapy and counseling, as well as for seasoned practitioners interested in understanding how a narrative therapy approach has evolved and how it might be used in their practice.

Narrative Therapies with Children and their Families introduces and develops the concepts and principles of narrative approaches to therapeutic work and demonstrates how narrative based approaches to practice provide a powerful and client friendly framework for engaging and working with troubled children and their families. Using clinical examples, each chapter develops a methodology around narrative practice and gives practical advice on working with narrative therapy in a variety of settings. Covering a broad range of difficult and sensitive topics, including trauma, abuse and youth offending, this book succeeds in illustrating the wide application of these principles in the context of the particular issues and challenges presented when working with children and families. This practical, practice based book will be welcomed by any professionals in the field of child, adolescent and family mental health who want to explore the benefits of employing narrative based approaches in their work.

This book provides important insights into narratives and young children. It is structured to help others learn more about the importance of narrative approaches and early childhood education. The first section of the book explores the concept of narrative across the current research field. The second section explores a range of different narrative methods related to young children.