Child Therapy in the Great Outdoors by Sebastiano Santostefano

Child Therapy in the Great Outdoors by Sebastiano Santostefano

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.

"Santostefano has written a groundbreaking, brilliant, highly readable, and well-reasoned work in support of the argument that effective child therapy needs to move beyond traditional language-based modalities and into the arena of embodimentThis idea that thoughts, beliefs, desires, wishes, and affects arise from bodily interactions with the world has become increasingly central to developmental psychology, and Santostefano does a first-rate job of articulating its therapeutic implications, including the nonverbal interactions and enactments it entails. While the author speaks most directly to the child therapist, the book will be highly valuable for all change agents, including adult therapists, parents, educators, and most broadly, all students of human development."

- Willis F. Overton, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Temple University

“Santostefano's thinking, grounded in developmental theory and contemporary relational psychoanalytic ideas, emphasizes both the intimate involvement of the body in the child’s construction of meaning and the evocative power that different environments may have for a child. He is a skilled and creative clinician who anchors each step of his theory-building in the closely observed, richly described nitty-gritty of extended case illustrations.”

- Jay Frankel, Ph.D., Associate Editor, Psychoanalytic Dialogues

"Sebastiano Santostefano's charming book on the proper way to conduct child psychotherapy covers many pertinent issues that often arise in work with young children, and offers many rich theoretical ideas and promising therapeutic techniques. Santostefano delves into two clinical narratives of young children who progressed remarkably under his care. The narratives not only demonstrate the author's inventive technique, they also testify to his gift as a psychotherapist to children, his empathic understanding of their needs, thoughts, and perspectives."
—Psychologist-Psychoanalyst

Since 1992, Dr. Sebastiano Santostefano has been Director of The Institute for Child and Adolescent Development, Inc., a nonprofit organization established to provide programs in the community that serve children and their families who have witnessed tragedies and endured major life stressors. The Institute also provides training to mental health professionals and conducts research on the effects of life stressors on body image and cognitive and emotional development. Besides practicing clinical psychology and psychoanalysis, Dr. Santostefano has been an active investigator in the area of cognition in personality development and adaptation. He is the author of many articles and four books that focus on research, assessment, and treatment of developmental psychopathology relying on the integration of psychoanalytic, developmental, cognitive, and behavioral concepts.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780881634266
ISBN 10	0881634263
Title	Child Therapy in the Great Outdoors
Author	Sebastiano Santostefano
Series	Relational Perspectives Book Series
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Routledge
Year published	2004-11-12
Number of pages	258
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.