Healthy Attachments And Neuro Dramatic Play

Sue Jennings introduces the concept of 'Neuro-Dramatic-Play', exploring the sensory experiences that take place between mother and child during pregnancy and the first few months after birth. She explains how this interaction is of crucial importance for the infant to develop a healthy brain, strong attachments and future resilience.

Breaking new ground in the areas of attachment and child development, Sue Jennings introduces the concept of 'Neuro-Dramatic-Play' exploring the sensory experiences that take place between mother and child during pregnancy and the first few months after birth. She explains how this interaction, that is essentially 'dramatic' in nature, is of crucial importance for the infant to develop a healthy brain, strong attachments and future resilience. Based on sound experience and observation, this book consolidates current theories of neuroscience, attachment and therapeutic intervention and challenges commonly held psychoanalytic ideas of child development. By expanding on the often narrow view of what is understood by attachment, this book makes a strong case for early years inclusion of play and arts therapies. Neuro-Dramatic-Play is also discussed in relation to fostering and adoption, teenagers and young adults, and children with developmental or cognitive disabilities. This accessible text will interest all therapists and practitioners who work with children and teenagers, including child psychotherapists, psychologists, social workers, paediatric and perinatal nurses, paediatricians, child psychiatrists and play and arts therapists, and post-graduate students.

All cultures have children and young people whose emotional wellbeing requires attention and whose behaviours give them, their peers and those who care for them challenges in how to meet their needs. Developing good practice across work with children and young people with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties relies on both professional practice and theory. The chapters in this book are taken from those presented at the International Conference organised by SEBDA in 2010 around the theme ‘Transforming Troubled Lives’, with each contributor addressing issues of policy, practice or provision whilst exploring an essential question: is what we are doing effective? This critical reflective question is essential if interventions – be they in provision, policy or practice – are to lead to positive outcomes for the children and young people concerned. This book was originally published as a special issue of Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties.

Children experience growth and change throughout their lives. This book explains how this reorganising process can be used in play therapy to help children dealing with social, neurological, developmental, health and family issues. Theory and examples are used to show how to apply the practice with a range of clients.

Routledge International Handbook of Play, Therapeutic Play and Play Therapy is the first book of its kind to provide an overview of key aspects of play and play therapy, considering play on a continuum from generic aspects through to more specific applied and therapeutic techniques and as a stand-alone discipline. Presented in four parts, the book provides a unique overview of, and ascribes equal value to, the fields of play, therapeutic play, play in therapy and play therapy. Chapters by academics, play practitioners, counsellors, arts therapists and play therapists from countries as diverse as Japan, Cameroon, India, the Czech Republic, Israel, USA, Ireland, Turkey, Greece and the UK explore areas of each topic, drawing links and alliances between each. The book includes complex case studies with children, adolescents and adults in therapy with arts and play therapists, research with children on play, work in schools, outdoor play and play therapy, animal-assisted play therapy, work with street children and play in therapeutic communities around the world. Routledge International Handbook of Play, Therapeutic Play and Play Therapy demonstrates the centrality of play in human development, reminds us of the creative power of play and offers new and innovative applications of research and practical technique. It will be of great interest to academics and students of play, play therapy, child development, education and the therapeutic arts. It will also be a key text for play and creative arts therapists, both in practice and in training, play practitioners, social workers, teachers and anyone working with children.

This second edition is fully updated and addresses ways in which we can apply stories and storytelling with children who are troubled. Stories can empower children to take action and ask for help, including help with changes and life-plans. Stories provide a secure structure with endings and closure. The book develops the following topics: Stories for assessment Stories for understanding emotions Stories for exploring the senses Stories for managing loss Stories for ritual and drama There are new and revised stories, in particular addressing trauma and abuse. This book is written for all those people with the welfare of children as their priority.

This edited volume explores the singularity of embodiment and somatic approaches in the healing of trauma from a dramatherapy, theatre and performance perspective. Collating voices from across the fields of dramatherapy, theatre and performance, this book examines how different interdisciplinary and intercultural approaches offer unique and unexplored perspectives on the body as a medium for the exploration, expression and resolution of chronic, acute and complex trauma as well as collective and intergenerational trauma. The diverse chapters highlight how the intersection between dramatherapy and body-based approaches in theatre and performance offers additional opportunities to explore and understand the creative, expressive and imaginative capacity of the body, and its application to the healing of trauma. The book will be of particular interest to dramatherapists and other creative and expressive arts therapists. It will also appeal to counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists and theatre scholars.

This book considers the relevance of ritual theatre in contemporary life and describes how it is being used as a highly cathartic therapeutic process. With contributions from leading experts in the field of dramatherapy, the book brings together a broad spectrum of approaches to ritual theatre as a healing system.