A Handbook of Play Therapy with Aggressive Children

, by Crenshaw, David A.; Mordock, John B.

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ISBN: 9780765705792 | 0765705796
Cover: Paperback
Copyright: 11/9/2007

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Written by two authors with a combined experience of more than fifty years in the residential treatment of severely aggressive-and often traumatized-children, this book has proven invaluable to new as well as seasoned child practitioners. The chapters cover the nuts and bolts of play therapy with this extremely challenging clinical population, including the therapeutic alliance, aims of play therapy with aggressive children, setting limits on destructive and obtrusive behaviors, typical play themes of aggressive children, and developing distancing and displacement through playful action and through teaching, modeling, and structuring action play. Other chapters cover such topics as: how to create more mature defenses and calming strategies; the role of interpretation; the use of spontaneous drawings as a bridge to fantasy play; specific drawing techniques to create access to the inner world of children; how to teach and model pro-social skills and the language of feeling; and how to facilitate affect expression and modulation, contained reenactment of trauma, and children's ability to mourn tangible as well as intangible, unacknowledged, and invisible losses. Later chapter's cover the therapeutic process and techniques to facilitate termination. The authors introduce the Play Therapy Decision Grid, which is intended to guide the therapist into the levels of therapy best suited for the child at any given point based on the child's resources and the anxiety engendered by the therapy.

Figures	p. xv
Preface	p. xvii
Play Therapy, the Child's Expectation and Psychodynamics, and the Therapeutic Alliance	p. 1
Play Therapy	p. 2
The Child's Initial Expectations of Therapy	p. 2
The Contribution of Play Therapy	p. 4
Efforts to Facilitate Verbalization in Play Therapy	p. 5
The Psychodynamics of Gorilla-Suit Wearers	p. 6
The Therapeutic Alliance	p. 10
Difficult Alliances: Children in Gorilla Suits	p. 12
Three Efforts That Aid in the Formation of the Alliance	p. 13
Attend to Their Visible and Invisible Wounds	p. 13
Convey Profound Respect	p. 15
Highlight Their Strengths	p. 15
Signs of a Developing Alliance	p. 16
A Case Example	p. 18
Aims of Play Therapy with Fawns in Gorilla Suits	p. 21
Increased Capacity for Sound Judgment Making	p. 22
Clarifying Intention and Motivation	p. 26
Reduction of Excessive and Unrealistic Self-Preoccupation and Increased Understanding of Self	p. 27
Developing New Perspectives	p. 30
Increased Understanding of the World of Feelings	p. 31
Increased Understanding of Choices and Consequences	p. 32
Fortification of Weak Defenses and Easing of Rigid Defenses	p. 33
Stronger Relationships with Caregivers	p. 33
Finding Meaning and Coherence	p. 33
Facilitating a Vision of a More Hopeful Future	p. 34
Countertransference Feeling Can Aid Treatment	p. 34
Setting Limits on Destructive and Controlling Behaviors	p. 36
Limit Therapy to the Therapy Room	p. 36
Limit Destructive Behaviors	p. 37
Silent Limits	p. 41
Humorous Limits	p. 41
Limit Controlling Behaviors	p. 42
Limit Physical Involvement	p. 45
What Limits Achieve	p. 48
Setting Limits on Other Obtrusive Behavior	p. 49
Limit Efforts to Anger	p. 49
Limit Seductiveness	p. 50
Limit Projections	p. 51
Limit Unproductive Play	p. 51
Limit Dilution of the Therapy Relationship	p. 52
Limit Undisciplined Behavior outside Therapy	p. 53
Limit Comparisons with Other Therapists	p. 55
Limiting Perseveration	p. 56
Limiting Institutional Practices That Distract from the Total Treatment Program	p. 57
Limits Are Not Forever	p. 58
Limits Set in Later Phases of Therapy	p. 59
Limit Defiance, Both Obvious and Disguised	p. 59
Limit Adoption Fantasies	p. 60
A Decision Grid for Play Therapy	p. 62
The Invitational Approach	p. 65
The Coping Approach	p. 70
Differential Decision Making	p. 75
Switching Approaches in Midstream	p. 75
Therapeutic Expectations	p. 77
Orientation to a Positive Future	p. 78
Typical Play Themes of Fawns in Gorilla Suits	p. 79
Control, Dominance, and Power	p. 79
Threat	p. 81
Abandonment and Rejection	p. 82
Separation and Loss	p. 84
Guilt and Shame The: Need for Punishment	p. 85
Deprivation	p. 86
Need for Nurturance	p. 88
Symbols of Healing: Caring for the Wounded and Fixing Broken Things	p. 89
Developing Distancing and Displacement through Playful Actions	p. 91
Clay	p. 93
Harmless Destruction!	p. 94
Reaming Them Out!	p. 95
Knocking Down the Walls of Anger!	p. 95
The Mad Game	p. 96
The Anger Bucket!	p. 96
Having a Field Day with Magic Markers!	p. 97
The Anger Balloon	p. 97
Drawing Strategies	p. 98
Volcano Pictures	p. 99
Storm Pictures	p. 103
Fire-Breathing Dragons	p. 103
Anger Thermometer	p. 105
Encouraging Communication of Violent Fantasies	p. 107
Conclusion	p. 109
Developing Displacement and Distancing by Teaching, Modeling, and Structuring Action Play	p. 111
Getting at Preverbal Concepts	p. 115
Structuring Memory	p. 115
Development of Displacement and Distancing	p. 117
Playroom Toys	p. 121
The Fair Trial	p. 123
Rage toward Others and toward Victims	p. 124
Creating More Mature Defenses and Calming Strategies	p. 126
Developing and Supporting Defenses	p. 127
Splitting	p. 128
Binding and Compartmentalization	p. 129
Dissociation	p. 131
Grandiosity	p. 131
Negativism	p. 131
Development of the More Mature Defenses	p. 132
Encouraging Sublimation and Reaction Formation	p. 134
Calming Activities	p. 135
Rewarding Mature Defenses	p. 138
When to Begin to Interpret Defenses	p. 139
Conclusion	p. 139
The Role of Interpretation: Elementary Concepts	p. 141
Empathetic Interpretations	p. 143
Dynamic Interpretations	p. 144
Preparation	p. 145
Attention Statements	p. 145
Reductive Statements	p. 146
Situational Statements	p. 147
Interpretation of Defenses	p. 148
Step-by-Step Progression	p. 150
Interpretation within the Metaphor	p. 151
Wording the Interpretation	p. 152
Conclusion	p. 155
Making Interpretations: Advanced Concepts	p. 156
Seven Stages	p. 156
Interpretation and Response	p. 157
Working Through	p. 158
Insight	p. 159
Generalization, Externalization, and Projective Identification	p. 160
Transference Interpretations	p. 163
Interpretation of Wishes	p. 166
Conclusion	p. 168
Windows into the Inner World: Spontaneous Drawings as a Bridge to Fantasy Play	p. 169
Windows into the Inner World: Specific Drawing Techniques	p. 176
Boat in the Storm	p. 177
Family Doing Something Together	p. 183
A Safe Place	p. 187
Color Your Life	p. 189
The Magic Key	p. 193
Your Place	p. 196
Draw the Problem	p. 198
Draw the Worst Experience of Your Life	p. 200
Teaching and Modeling Pro-Social Skills with Special Emphasis on Empathy	p. 204
Becoming More "Likable"	p. 205
Appropriate Self-Assertion	p. 205
The Importance of Empathy	p. 207
The Empathy Picture and Story Series	p. 207
Film Clips	p. 211
Empathy Practice Scenarios	p. 211
Empathy for the Healer	p. 215
Teaching the Language of Feelings	p. 217
Basket of Feelings	p. 218
Gingerbread Person/Feelings Map	p. 221
Affect Recognition Pictures and Stories	p. 223
Feelings Charades	p. 229
Facilitating Affect Expression and Modulation	p. 230
Empowerment Play	p. 231
Psychodrama	p. 233
Garbage Bag Technique	p. 233
A Cautionary Note about Timing and Pacing	p. 234
Facilitating Contained Reenactment of Trauma	p. 236
Why Undertake Trauma Work?	p. 237
The Meaning Given to the Experience	p. 238
Secondary Trauma: The Silent Bond	p. 239
Intervening in Posttraumatic Play	p. 240
Crucial Cues from the Child	p. 241
Reflections of Affect and Motives	p. 245
An Illustrative Case	p. 246
Enactment of Trauma as a Result of Unpredictable Triggering	p. 252
Dynamic Flexibility and Titrating the Approach	p. 254
Helping Children to Mourn Tangible Losses	p. 255
Children Grieve in Steps	p. 256
Treatment over Time	p. 257
Acknowledged Losses	p. 258
Dramatic Play and Tangible Losses	p. 261
Structured Activities to Help Express Tangible Losses	p. 262
Memory Book or Album	p. 262
Poems, Songs, and Journal Writing	p. 263
Photographs and "Linking Objects"	p. 263
Reliving Funerals and Memorial Services	p. 264
Family Therapy Sessions	p. 265
Helping Children to Grieve Unacknowledged, Intangible, and Invisible Losses	p. 267
Denial of Loss	p. 267
Conflicted Relationships and Loss	p. 270
Insecure Attachments	p. 272
Divorce and Loss	p. 273
Finding New Meaning and Shaping a Narrative Memory	p. 275
Shaping a New Perspective	p. 275
Structured Activities to Access Feelings Associated with Intangible Losses	p. 275
Structured Drawings	p. 275
Re-Create the World	p. 277
Two Memory Books	p. 277
Evocative Aids: Color-Coded Time Line	p. 278
Evocative Aids: Selected Video Clips	p. 281
Conclusion	p. 282
The Process	p. 283
The First Stage: Anxiety Management	p. 284
	p. 284
	p. 285
	p. 285
Later Sessions	p. 286
Revelations in the First Session	p. 286
Violent Play and Identification with the Aggressor	p. 287
The Second Stage: Conflict Resolution	p. 289
Increased Negativism	p. 290
The Third Stage: Productive Play	p. 293
The Reemergence of Anger and Chaos	p. 296
The Struggle with Confusing Parental Ties	p. 297
The Fourth Phase: Counseling about Present Concerns	p. 297
The Last Phase: Termination	p. 298
Ending Therapy	p. 299
The Process of Ending Therapy	p. 302
Prior Losses Revisited	p. 303
Rehearsals for Ending	p. 304
Specific Techniques for Preparing the Child for Termination	p. 305
The Talk Show Interview	p. 306
The Year Book	p. 306
Jose and Pete on the Mountain	p. 307
Expanding the Circle of Trust	p. 307
The Countdown to Termination	p. 308
Planning Together the Final Sessions	p. 309
One Final Conversation about Words Unspoken	p. 309
Some Concluding Remarks	p. 309
Jose and Pete on the Mountain	p. 310
Bibliography	p. 315
Index	p. 327
About the Authors	p. 337
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A Handbook of Play Therapy with Aggressive Children

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

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