Routledge The Practitioner's Guide to Child Art Therapy: Fostering Creativity and Relational Growth

Even in the face of challenging conditions, art therapy treatment offers meaningful opportunities for growth. It’s not always easy, though, to navigate the complex interplay of art processes, relational states, and developmental theories. For any clinician looking for guidance on the ins and outs of using art therapy with children, there is no better resource than The Practitioner’s Guide to Child Art Therapy. Both graduate students and professionals will find its pages replete with strategies for developing engaging and effective tools for understanding children’s creative expression and applying this understanding toward treatment. Clinically relevant and theoretically sound, this book synthesizes the best of the literature on art development, art therapy and child development, while emphasizing the powerful role of art media in fostering creativity and relational growth. Compelling case material and numerous art examples illustrate psychosocial, neurobiological, and attachment theories as well as practical applications, including working with attachment disruptions, anxiety, grief, parental conflict, economic poverty, chemical dependency, child abuse, and autism spectrum disorder. Review "This is a beautifully written and wonderfully illustrated book dripping with clinical insights that are sure to help therapists do their work better, not just by imitating elegantly described clinical work but also by understanding a great deal better what they do and why they do it. The book is a triumph of the productive integration of theory and practice in art therapy."―Peter Fonagy, PhD, FBA, PhD Medical Research Council Fellowship, University College, London "This is a wonderful book! For those who work therapeutically with children or are interested in doing so, it is a treasure chest of theories, techniques, and art examples relating to children. Although the book takes a point of view, it is broad enough that child therapists of all persuasions have much to gain from keeping it handy in their consulting rooms. And if all this weren’t enough, the many examples with illustrations make it a joy to read!" ―Frances F. Kaplan, MPS, DA, ATR-BC, author of Art, Science, and Art Therapy "Annette Shore weaves a very sophisticated tapestry of child art expression, attachment theory, and a psychodynamic framework that offers an invaluable help to both students and practitioners. Excellent clinical examples illustrate the merger of theory and practice. This text is sure to be a landmark in art therapy literature." ―Arthur Robbins, EdD, professor emeritus, creative arts therapy, Pratt Institute "It is a great pleasure to welcome Annette Shore to the small but dedicated group of authors who have written about art therapy with children. Her familiarity with recent literature in psychoanalysis and trauma therapy informs her many clinical vignettes and they, in turn, bring the process alive for the reader." ―Judith A. Rubin, author of Introduction to Art Therapy and Child Art Therapy About the Author Annette Shore, MA, is an art therapist, supervisor and a faculty member for Marylhurst University’s Graduate Program in Art Therapy Counseling, Marylhurst, Oregon. She maintains a private practice in Portland, Oregon and currently serves on the editorial review board for Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association. With over 25 years of clinical experience, she has lectured and written about the creative process of art therapy from a developmental and relational perspective.