Building on relational conceptualizations of enactment and on developmental research that attests to the role of embodied, nonverbal language in the meanings children impute to their experiences, Sebastiano Santostefano offers this compelling demonstration of effective child therapy conducted in the "great outdoors." Specifically, he argues that, for the child, traumatic life-metaphors should be resolved at an embodied rather than an exclusively verbal level; they should be resolved, that is, as they are enacted between child and therapist. To this end, child and therapist must take advantage of all the indoor and outdoor environments available to them. As they take therapy to nontraditional places, relying on the nonverbal vocabulary they have constructed together, they move toward enacted solutions to relational crises, solutions that revise the child's sense of self and ability to form new and productive relationships.

Building on relational conceptualizations of enactment and on developmental research that attests to the role of embodied, nonverbal language in the meanings children impute to their experiences, Sebastiano Santostefano offers this compelling demonstration of effective child therapy conducted in the "great outdoors." Specifically, he argues that, for the child, traumatic life-metaphors should be resolved at an embodied rather than an exclusively verbal level; they should be resolved, that is, as they are enacted between child and therapist. To this end, child and therapist must take advantage of all the indoor and outdoor environments available to them. As they take therapy to nontraditional places, relying on the nonverbal vocabulary they have constructed together, they move toward enacted solutions to relational crises, solutions that revise the child's sense of self and ability to form new and productive relationships.

Presented in a question answer format, this book brings together concepts and methods from psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive, and developmental perspectives.

Thirty five percent of persons who are provided psychotherapy do not benefit from treatment, or drop out of therapy prematurely because they fail to establish a working alliance with the therapist. To address this issue the volume presents a matrix of concepts and research illustrating how traumatic experiences during childhood result in the person developing rigid cognitive functions, emotional expressions and behaviors, interfering with the person participating constructively in relationships. Based on this research, the psychotherapy conducted with an adult, an adolescent, and a child are described to illustrate why and when the therapist should engage and participate with the patient in various body activities to stimulate particular meanings and emotions that promote flexibility in the patient's cognition, emotions, and behaviors. These cases illustrate how cultivating this flexibility enables the patient to establish a working alliance with the therapist and resolve past traumatic experiences. The volume also describes a therapeutic model of techniques a therapist should follow when adult and adolescent patients fail to establish a working alliance, do not benefit from discussing and free associating, and when child patients do not benefit from play therapy.

This is a comprehensive textbook on child and adolescent psychotherapy. It is suitable for students at graduate, postgraduate and advanced undergraduate levels. It will also serve to inform experienced practitioners about the latest developments in the field. Bringing together concepts and methods from psychodynamic, behavioural, cognitive and developmental perspectives, it provides an integrative conceptual model and therapeutic approach for conducting psychotherapy with children and adolescents troubled by a wide range of psychological and cognitive difficulties, including ADHD and learning disorders. The integrated model and rationale described seeks to stimulate students and experienced clinicians alike to step out of the present-day, conceptually segregated world of psychotherapy and into a world of psychotherapy unbounded by narrow theoretical orientations.