The Healing Power Of Play

This book describes how therapists can both facilitate constructive play therapy and intervene in posttraumatic play to help children who have been traumatized by abuse or neglect achieve a positive resolution. Traditional techniques of play therapy are reviewed for their application to this population. Throughout, numerous therapeutic aids are described to enhance the child's capacity to communicate verbally or symbolically. To help clinicians translate theory into daily practice, the book presents six detailed clinical vignettes that offer step-by-step guidelines for assessment and intervention in different situations of abuse or neglect.

Featuring in-depth case presentations from master clinicians, this volume highlights the remarkable capacity of traumatized children to guide their own healing process. The book describes what posttraumatic play looks like and how it can foster resilience and coping. Demonstrated are applications of play, art, and other expressive therapies with children who have faced such overwhelming experiences as sexual abuse or chronic neglect. The contributors discuss ways to facilitate forms of expression that promote mastery and growth, as well as how to intervene when play becomes stuck in destructive patterns. They share effective strategies for engaging hard-to-reach children and building trusting therapeutic relationships. This book will be invaluable to mental health professionals working with children, including child psychologists, social workers, play and art therapists, counselors, family therapists, and psychiatrists. It will also˜serve as a supplemental text in clinically oriented graduate-level courses.

Vocal health tips, stories from the tour bus, and action items to improve your voice and boost your self-confidence from an award-winning musician and life coach Performing with David Bowie, surviving the murky depths of the music business, enduring a painful divorce, and making the first music video in outer space, award-winning recording artist Emm Gryner has navigated through life’s highs and lows using a secret compass: singing. Her voice, and her desire to express herself in music, has been a constant: from the early days of playing in bands while growing up in a small town, to playing arena rock shows and stadiums. Across these years and on many travels, she’s discovered the human voice to be an unlikely guide, with the power to elevate and move people closer to authentic living. This book is about that discovery: part study in the art of singing, part guide to finding one’s voice, and part memoir. This book is a must-have for anyone who knows they should be singing.

A practical look at how play therapy can promote mental health wellness in children and adolescents Revised and expanded, The Therapeutic Powers of Play, Second Edition explores the powerful effects that play therapy has on different areas within a child or adolescent's life: communication, emotion regulation, relationship enhancement, and personal strengths. Editors Charles Schaefer and Athena Drewes—renowned experts in the field of play therapy—discuss the different interventions and components of treatment that can move clients to change. Leading play therapists contributed to this volume, supplying a wide repertoire of practical techniques and applications in each chapter for use in clinical practice, including: Direct teaching Indirect teaching Self-expression Relationship enhancement Attachment formation Catharsis Stress inoculation Creative problem solving Self-esteem Filled with clinical case vignettes from various theoretical viewpoints, the second edition is an invaluable resource for play and child therapists of all levels of experience and theoretical orientations.

Imagine your frustrated four-year-old calming her own anger with a few simple breaths. Picture your fourth grader visualizing an ice blue pillow to cool his hot headaches. Or your worried eleven-year-old improving her concentration by consulting a personal wizard to help with homework. The Power of Your Child's Imagination will show you how to empower your child with easy, effective, and creative skills for surviving-and thriving-in a stressful world. This indispensable guide provides nine simple tools to help children cope with stress and anxiety by tapping into their imagination to access their own natural strength and confidence. Dr. Reznick illustrates how each tool can be used every day to deal with problems such as: * Stress-induced headaches and stomachaches * Phobias, panic attacks, and social anxiety * Bed-wetting and sleepless nights * Separation anxiety and fear of the unknown * Coping with death, divorce, and other losses * Hurt, frustration, and anger * Trouble with schoolwork and concentration * Sibling rivalry and school-yard squabbles

From leading expert Eliana Gil, this book provides child clinicians with essential knowledge and tools for evaluating and working with posttraumatic play. Such play, which is often repetitive and disturbing, may help resolve traumatic experiences--but can also become toxic. The book guides the clinician to determine what is going on with a given child and intervene sensitively and effectively. Evocative case material is interwoven with up-to-date information on the developmental impact of trauma and ways to facilitate children's natural reparative capacities. A reproducible assessment checklist to help clinicians differentiate between useful and dangerous posttraumatic play can be downloaded and printed in a convenient 8 1/2" x 11" size. ÿ

Recent clinical studies show that exercise rather than rest may be the best therapy for someone undergoing cancer treatments. The Healing Power of Movement addresses this significant shift in care recommendations and clearly illustrates fifty specific exercises-from simply sitting up or moving in bed to walking or lifting light weights-for different stages of cancer treatments, and for many different types of cancers. Written in consultation with a leading oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Center in Manhattan and based on practical advice gleaned from the front lines of the author's physical-therapy practice, The Healing Power of Movement will be recommended and empowering reading for all cancer patients, whether they are undergoing chemotherapy or radiation, or are recovering from surgery.

Conventional wisdom has always held that when we help others, some of the good we do flows back to us. That satisfaction has always been thought to be largely emotional—feeling good when you do good. Now important, widely discussed research shows that helping others regularly produces significant health benefits as well—in fact, it has effects similar to those many of us experience when we exercise. It is almost impossible to read this book without wanting to do good. Both for those who are already volunteering and for those who are considering it, this valuable personal guide tells you how to choose an activity that’s right for you, how to maximize the health benefits, and how to overcome the main obstacle to getting started: lack of time. The Healing Power of Doing Good reaffirms and explains that when we care for others we care for ourselves. It is an important book for those suffering from chronic health problems as well as the health conscious, anyone interested in how our mind affects our body, and people in the helping professions. And it reminds us that never has there been such a need for caring as there is today.