The Handbook of Gestalt Play Therapy: Practical Guidelines for Child Therapists

Front Cover
Jessica Kingsley Publishers, Jul 15, 2006 - Psychology - 248 pages

This book sets out a clear theoretical framework for Gestalt Play Therapy, giving examples of questions the therapists might ask the child at certain stages, and offering the whole gamut of play therapy and travelling through the therapeutic journey.'

- Dramatherapy

This book is an introduction to gestalt play therapy a technique which combines the principles of gestalt theory with play techniques, so that children are able to use play to address their needs and problems.

Research has shown that this approach can be applied successfully in children with different types of emotional problems in order to improve their self-support and self-esteem.

The Handbook of Gestalt Play Therapy provides the reader with an explanation of gestalt theory, a practical explanation of the gestalt play therapy model and also a wide range of play techniques that can be applied during each phase of the therapy process. It also features case studies throughout which illustrate how the techniques work in practice.

 

Contents

Foreword
13
Preface
15
Part One Introduction to Gestalt Play Therapy
17
Part Two Gestalt Play Therapy in Practice
49
Part Three Gestalt Play Therapy with Grieving Traumatized and HIVAIDS Children
179
Part Four Appendices
235
About the Author
242
Subject Index
243
Author Index
247
Copyright

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Popular passages

Page 35 - Experiment 12 : Investigating Misdirected Behavior To retroflect means literally "to turn sharply back against." When a person retroflects behavior, he does to himself what originally he did or tried to do to other persons or objects. He stops directing various energies outward in attempts to manipulate and bring about changes in the environment that will satisfy his needs; instead, he redirects activity inward and substitutes himself in place of the environment as the target of behavior. To the...
Page 4 - . . .an excellent, stimulating read with a manageable style and numerous sensitive insights into the world of play for the child and how it can become a therapeutic process where children 'play out' their perception of their own experiences...
Page 38 - ... feels as an alien body it wants to disgorge. In projection, the neurotic is convinced as by sensory evidence, where the concentrating self feels a gap in experience. In retroflection, the neurotic is busily engaged where the concentrating self feels left out, excluded from the environment. In egotism, the neurotic is aware and has something to say about everything, but the concentrating self feels empty, without need or interest.
Page 41 - Instead of avoiding extremes of personality, passion or propensity, Gestaltists seek to discover, accentuate and acknowledge the widest possible differences between people and within one particular person. Phenomenologically, Gestalt seeks not to deny difference but to bring polarisations, if not into reconciliation, then into dialogue.

About the author (2006)

Rinda Blom PhD is a part-time senior lecturer in social work at the University of the Free State in South Africa and is also a Company Director for the Foundation for the Development of Emotional Intelligence in Children (WiseChild). Since studying Social Work and Gestalt Play Therapy at the University of the Free State and the University of Pretoria she has worked in private practice specialising in child therapy and parental guidance. She has studied Gestalt play therapy in the USA under its founder Dr Violet Oaklander and now runs her own short courses in South Africa on emotional intelligence, parental guidance and play therapy.

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