Play Therapy Today: Contemporary Practice with Individuals, Groups and Carers

Play Therapy Today brings together the work of renowned practitioners and academics currently working and researching in therapeutic play and play therapy, and presents a range of ground-breaking methods for practising with groups, individuals, and parents and carers.

Providing an overview of new or revitalised topics in play therapy, each chapter presents the relevant theoretical underpinnings and principles of practice, a guide to implementing the method and case study vignettes of the approach in practice. The three sections include chapters on:

• the Therapeutic Touchstone model and the development of the therapeutic relationship, an overview of the use of individual play therapy techniques with children in a hospital setting, and an overview of Yasenik and Gardner’s Play Therapy Dimensions Model with an in-depth exploration of the dimension of consciousness from both a theoretical and practical, play-based orientation.
• Jennings’ Embodiment-Project-Role model and its implementation in group work, the practical use of puppets in educational and therapeutic settings, the therapeutic value of working with groups in the outdoors, and the use of play in groups for children with a variety of sensory, intellectual and physical disabilities.
• Stagnitti’s adaptation of the ‘Learn to Play’ programme for parent/carer use, Group Theraplay with peer groups and parent/child dyads and how a neurosequential approach supports case conceptualization and play therapy practice with families.

The book provides practitioners with up-to-date, effective and practical techniques that they can put into immediate use in their clinical work with children and their families. It is an important resource for trainee, newly qualified and seasoned play therapists, play therapy supervisors and trainers. It will also be of interest to social workers, teachers, psychologists, child psychotherapists and other health professionals.

Eileen Prendiville is a Course Director at the Children’s Therapy Centre in Co Westmeath, Ireland. Eileen has worked with children for over thirty-five years and now specialises in the field of play therapy training. She was a founder member of the Children at Risk in Ireland Foundation and was their National Clinical Director until 2004. She is the current Chairperson of the Irish Association of Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy.

Justine Howard is an Associate Professor and Postgraduate Programme Manager at the Centre for Children and Young People’s Health and Wellbeing at Swansea University, UK. She is a Chartered Psychologist and specialist in Developmental and Therapeutic Play.