This text sets out the main theoretical and practical approaches of dramatherapy. Beginning with the notion of play and its importance for children, the author discusses how children use play as a method of investigation and rehearsing for reality. Role play is then illustrated as a means of discovering a child's intellectual and emotional development. Chapters specifically on abuse and trauma throw light on how children develop particular responses and behaviour patterns as a result of being abused, with 'victim' and 'controlling' behaviour revealed as the most common. Therapeutic work is covered in detail including practicalities such as the place where therapy is conducted, the equipment used, and the people or person most suitable for working with a particular child or children.;There are chapters on working with children of different ages, gender, race and culture, and on the need to work with the families of these children. The books ends with an evaluation of the research done around the world using methods from psychodrama and dramatherapy.

At a time when expectations and assumptions about the delivery of services to children and adolescents are being reconfigured - for example, around the rights of children and adolescents as young citizens - adults are seeking to ensure that they deliver services in creative and empowering ways, ensuring that the opinions of young people are actively solicited and encouraged. Action methods - communication methods using the body as well as speech - provide non-threatening ways of communicating which can be understood by children of all ages and from many cultures. This book places action methods in a theoretical, technical and political framework and documents examples of good practice. Discussion of the application of action methods to work with young people focuses on differing issues and populations, for example children and adolescents who face life-threatening illnesses, or those involved in peer counselling in schools. Contributions from several different countries emphasise the wide potential of action methods for use with young people. This book provides a comprehensive and wide-ranging resource for those interested in exploring and understanding why action methods are particularly useful when working with young people.

Bonnie Meekums presents creative group work strategies and techniques for professionals working with women who have experienced child sexual abuse. The practical strategies have been developed from an understanding of the complex process of recovery, and are informed by the voices of women who have been abused in childhood themselves. The book is divided into two parts. The first looks at the theoretical issues, exploring the nature of abuse and patterns of recovery and also considers the debate about `false memory syndrome'. The second part of the book presents practical group strategies, detailing a full sequence of creative exercises for the sessions. The author outlines how to set up the group, how to establish the group and how to manage group endings. The material in the book has been successfully trialled in a variety of professional settings, including a specialist multi-modal arts therapy program with a group of fourteen women. Creative Group Therapy for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse will enable professionals and students to understand and support women through the difficult process of recovery from childhood sexual abuse.

As a probation officer and social worker, Anne Bannister has successfully used creative therapies with abused children for 25 years. Combining her practical experience and recent doctoral research she reflects on how and why these therapies actually work in the healing process. She shows how in 'the space between' children and their therapists, the child and adult can each use their creative skills to aid developmental processes, reverse negative brain patterns and affect positive behavioural changes to heal the damage caused by severe abuse in childhood. The author presents a practical model called the Regenerative Approach to use when assessing and working therapeutically with traumatised children. Her research has implications for those working in the field of children's development and learning, and provides an important new approach for social workers, creative therapists and all those who work with traumatised children.