Child Friendly Therapy: Biopsychosocial Innovations for Children and Families

A guide for clinicians working with children, this text presents a playful and creative family-centred treatment for today’s kids. It uses a biopsychological perspective to provide a framework for intervention not only across several therapeutic domains, but also across home and school environments. This approach results in rapid and long-lasting gains with children who may have social problems, interpersonal difficulties, learning disabilities or who suffer from a spectrum of related psychiatric problems, including internalization and/or externalizing disorders. The therapy described in this text aims to help the family understand the child’s difficulties from multiple perspectives and leads to fresh understandings of often misunderstood children. Family members work as a team, strategizing and collaborating in a child-friendly, systematically informed treatment. Action-orientated techniques are emphasized, which engage family members through right-brain learning, and include visual imagery, metaphor and imaginative play. The child is recognized as a person in and of him- or herself, is actively engaged and becomes a protagonist who learns in the presence of an along with the family. This guide contains case examples, innovative tools, multisensory skill-building activities and practical suggestions for setting up the therapy room and organizing sessions.