Building Creative Therapeutic Relationships with Children and Young People: The Playfully Serious Practitioner

This textbook elucidates core systemic ideas, methods and skills which are useful and effective in building creative therapeutic relationships with children and young people in family/systemic therapy and practice. The aim of the book is to invite practitioners and therapists working with this client population to extend their “repertoire” of skills and ideas towards better therapeutic outcomes. This book outlines key elements to help practitioners find useful, effective means to meet, engage and help children and their families, alongside illustrating a range of skills through vignettes and in-depth case studies to highlight creative possibilities underpinned by a clear conceptual framework. It also offers a condensed and accessible insight into what contributes to creative practice in meeting children and young people. This approach allows a degree of spontaneity in practice, centering therapy as a process of humanisation. The book also provides a detailed exploration of the practitioner’s style of work, ethics and an examination of the social, organisational and political aspects of the contexts of practice.