Children and Adolescents in Trauma ─ Creative Therapeutic Approaches

Eight mental health academics and practitioners from the UK contribute 13 chapters about using the creative arts to reach and appreciate the underlying psychodynamics of traumatized children and adolescents, especially those in residential children's homes, secure or psychiatric units, and special schools. The text offers mental health care professionals--particularly newer staff--educators, and students an alternative to the complex standard psychoanalytical and psychiatric frameworks to discuss the inner processes influencing young people's behavior. It combines materials examining aspects of trauma--the nature of traumatic experiences, their effects and management, continuity in the lives of traumatized youth, trauma neurobiology--with examples demonstrating the use of stories, film, biography, poetry, sculpture, painting, symbols, illustrations, metaphors, and analogies to treat traumatized children and adolescents. Three of the 13 papers appeared in The International Journal of Therapeutic Communities in 2004 and 2006. Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Chris Nicholson PhD, is a Lecturer in The Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex. Formerly Therapeutic Services Manager at Donyland Lodge, a therapeutic community in Colchester, he has worked in a range of children's services for over 10 years. Chris is a Trustee of the Charterhouse Group of Therapeutic Communities and a Fellow of the International Institute of Child and Adolescent Mental Health. He is a regular speaker at bi-annual conferences on the poet and author Robert Graves. Michael Irwin MA, BLit, is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Kent. Apart from his academic work, which has a particular emphasis on 18th and 19th century fiction, including books on Henry Fielding and Thomas Hardy, he has also published two novels and written, or translated, several opera libretti. Dr Kedar Nath Dwivedi MBBS, MD, DPM, FRCPsych, is a Visiting Professor at the London Metropolitan University and Director of the International Institute of Child and Adolescent Mental Health. Formerly, he served as a Consultant Child Psychiatrist at Northampton General Hospital and has edited or co-edited several books including Meeting the Needs of Ethnic Minority Children – Including Refugee, Black and Mixed Parentage Children; Promoting the Emotional Well Being of Children and Adolescents and Preventing Their Mental Ill Health; and Group Work with Children and Adolescents, all published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers .