Personal Process in Child-Centred Play Therapy provides a very specific exploration of the play therapy process from the personal perspective of the play therapist.
This volume examines the personal challenges, opportunities, losses and gains, and numerous obstacles that one has to negotiate through the course of both training to become a play therapist and working as a qualified clinician with children who have complex life difficulties. The book aims to offer a forum within which the role, function and process of the "personal" within play therapy can be explored. Bringing together a number of experienced play therapists, the book shares often deeply personal accounts of their experience of training and clinical practice. Chapters challenge the unspoken therapist taboos of shame, childhood trauma, vulnerability and grief, shining a light on the more hidden areas of therapist experience. Clinical issues around the unconscious process are also explored, but once again from the personal position of the play therapist, rather than the child.
With a unique and distinct perspective on the therapeutic process, this book is specifically intended for both trainee and experienced play therapists, but will be relevant to all psychotherapists involved in working therapeutically with children and young people.
Table of Contents:
1. ‘The child is the father of the man’: paternal patterns of countertransference and empathy, David Le Vay; 2. Thresholds and transitions: from trainee to therapist and trainer, Elise Cuschieri; 3. The stories we tell about ourselves, Lauren Shaw; 4. A hero’s journey: finding gold at the end of the rainbow, Sarah Zehetmayr-McCall and Lisa Gordon Clark; 5. Shame: healing and beyond, Francesca Wright; 6. Present without presence: supporting the dissociative child in play therapy, Genene Grubb; 7. I see you; you see me. The personal process of a play therapy clinical supervisor, Simon Kerr-Edwards; 8. The artisans of the relationship: an exploration of trainee vulnerability, Maria Victoria Aralde; 9. Self-care: another important relationship, Sue Topping; 10. The art of witnessing: exploring the interplay between play therapy, theatre and supervision, Ann Marie John; 11. Tremor: shaken and stirred, David Le Vay; 12. When we say goodbye: a reflective account of endings in the therapeutic relationship, Martine Wheeldon
About the Author :
David Le Vay is a qualified social worker and registered play therapist, dramatherapist and sandplay therapist. He has worked with children, who have experienced significant loss, trauma and abuse, as well as with their families and carers. He is also Senior Lecturer at Roehampton University and an approved BAPT play therapy supervisor.
Elise Cuschieri is Senior Lecturer and convenes the MA Play Therapy programme at the University of Roehampton. She is a BAPT-registered play therapist and works in the NHS and other sectors with children and their families who have experienced life-limiting illness, loss, trauma and abuse.
Review :
This book is a treasure chest of stories about play therapy written by practitioners who combine self-awareness, skilled and sensitive therapy and a gifted narrative sense. The chapters are easy to read and each has something important to teach, both for beginning and more experienced practitioners.
Graham Music (PHD), Tavistock Centre, London, author of Nurturing Children
This valuable book explores the personal process of play therapists and how life experiences impact on their clinical work. The contributors courageously reveal the challenge of managing profound feelings of shame, loss, and anger as clinicians, arising from current and early trauma. They describe how the understanding they have gained in processing these feelings has aided their development as therapists, supported by supervision and personal analysis. This book would greatly benefit those involved in therapeutic work with children as well as their teachers and supervisors.
Deirdre Dowling, Child psychoanalytic psychotherapist, teacher and supervisor on Independent psychoanalytic child psychotherapy training.
This is a sensitive, intelligent and inspiring book which explores the play therapist’s internal processes with honesty and integrity. The editors are highly respected in the field as both clinicians and trainers and have brought together a group of authors whose contributions will undoubtedly enrich the development of the profession. The book speaks to the robustness needed by play therapists without sacrificing the need to name and pay attention to therapists’ own vulnerability. It offers insightfulness which might also provide companionship in the challenging times we are living through. I highly recommend it.
Anna Seymour PhD, Professor of Dramatherapy, University of Roehampton, London
Frequently moving and thought provoking, this book makes an important and unique contribution to the child centred play therapy literature, exploring the relationship between our own internal processes, our use of self, and our work with children and families. Written with honesty, creativity, and in places, humour, the text combines research findings with practice experience to explore some important new themes as well as some familiar challenges. As such this will have relevance for both play therapy trainees and experienced practitioners.
Pete Ayling, Senior Lecturer, University of Worcester
This book is a wonderful resource of depth, reflection, and exploration. Le Vay and Cuschieri have curated a collection of chapters that honestly and bravely encourage therapists to consider the impact of their experiences and emotions in the therapeutic process. Each chapter invites the reader to stop, breathe and sit with those moments in the past and present that colour our work, whether as therapists, students, or supervisors. It is an invitation that proves most moving and inspiring.
Henry Kronengold, Ph.D. Adjunct Assistant Professor & Clinical Supervisor, Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology, City University of New York.
