Child-Centered Play Therapy: A Practical Guide to Developing Therapeutic Relationships with Children

By Nancy H. Cochran, William J. Nordling and Jeff L. Cochran

"The authors . . . make child-centered play therapy readily understandable to those who wish to take advantage of its long history of helping children overcome problems and grow emotionally to a level of maturity difficult to achieve by any other approach."
—From the Foreword, by Louise F. Guerney, PhD, RPT-S

A comprehensive resource that thoroughly teaches the theory, methods, and practice of child-centered play therapy

Child-Centered Play Therapy: A Practical Guide to Developing Therapeutic Relationships with Children offers how-to direction and practical advice for conducting child-centered play therapy. Filled with case studies, learning activities, and classroom exercises, this book presents extensive coverage of play therapy applications such as setting goals and treatment planning, as well as recommendations for family and systemic services that can be provided along with play therapy.

This rich resource provides:

• A thorough introduction to the theory and guiding principles underlying child-centered play therapy

• Skill guidance including structuring sessions, tracking, empathy, responding to children's questions, and role-play

• Effective ways of determining what limits to set in the playroom and how to set them in a therapeutically effective manner

• Clear methods for monitoring children's progress through stages as well as external measures of progress

• Practical guidance in adjunct therapist tasks such as playroom set-up, documentation, ending therapy, and working with parents, teachers, and principals

Endorsed by Louise Guerney—a founding child-centered play therapy figure who developed the skills-based methods covered in this book—Child-Centered Play Therapy comprehensively and realistically introduces practitioners to the child-centered approach to play therapy and addresses how to incorporate the approach into schools, agencies, or private practice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Jun 22, 2010
• ISBN: 9780470634899

Reviews for Child-Centered Play Therapy

[unkletom_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm a middle-aged portly gentleman (my daughter's words) who never paid much attention to basketball until recently. A few years back, though, I made the mistake of checking out that 'March Madness' that was infecting all my friends. That was the year Cinderella team George Mason beat number 1 seed UConn to reach the Final Four. I was hooked. In case you missed it, the game is described on page 215 of this book as an explanation of why "so much excitement is generated in the latter half of March". In addition, my alma mater, Colorado, switched to the Pac 12 and promptly scheduled two games near where I live. How could I not go cheer them on?My problem was that before this started I knew next to nothing about basketball and was too old to play the ignorant newbie card and ask someone for help. What I needed was an easy source for basic basketball information that could answer my questions and wouldn't laugh at me.Phelps provides lots of valuable information for all kinds of basketball fans or players. Whether your game is NBA, college, high school, men's or women's basketball or international rules, it's covered in this book. It covers the history of the game, the fundamentals, the rules, statistics & bracketology. As with all books in the 'Dummies' series, it includes the 'Part of Tens'. This lists in this section include ten games that changed basketball history, ten basketball legends and even the ten best basketball websites.As with many books published these days, ‘Basketball for Dummies’ suffers from some sloppy editing. For example, the section on Michael Jordan (pp. 333-334) includes this head scratcher. “The Bulls have played in six NBA Finals, … none of which have not extended past a sixth game.” On page 332 it says that Wilt Chamberlain scored a record 100 points in one game claiming that “Nobody has come within 28 points of the …record” even though a chart of NBA top scorers on page 47 lists Kobe Bryant’s 81-point game in 2006.All in all, if you can tolerate Digger Phelp's cornball sense of humor, 'Basketball for Dummies' is a good reference for answering basic questions about the rules of basketball and as I mentioned before, it won't laugh at you.*Quotations are cited from an advanced reading copy and may not be the same as appears in the final published edition. The review copy of this book was obtained from the publisher via the Amazon Vine Program.