This engaging text delves into the process of play therapy from beginning to end. We designed the book to help students and practitioners use play therapy with children, adolescents, and adults who are struggling with emotional or behavioral problems or life challenges. With an equal emphasis on theory and practice, we describe skills and techniques for building relationships with clients; exploring their clinical issues and underlying dynamics; developing and working toward clear treatment goals; and collaborating with parents and teachers.

BOOKS

How to Talk So Gamers Will Listen and Listen So Gamers Will Talk: Using the Language of Video Games in Play Therapy and Counseling

This timely book (written by Terry Kottman, expert in counseling and play therapy, and Neal Petersen, Jacob Kottman, and Beth Lavenz, experts in gaming) is a guide to all things “gamer.” It will help you learn the vocabulary you need to talk to gamers and provide you with questions to ask (that sound like you know what you are talking about) and activities to use for helping gamer clients.  With descriptions of more than 80 currently popular video games, explanations of how to play each of them, questions to ask about each game, and activities to suggest using the language and metaphors from specific games, this book is your guide for interacting effectively with gamers.   $35 + $6 US S&H, Version 1.08,  198 pages ($1 S&H on additional books) International shipping extra

Using Tabletop Games in Play Therapy

This entertaining and practical book will refresh and re-calibrate your ideas about tabletop games and teach you a plethora of new (and old) games you can use in play therapy and counseling.  The authors will provide you with lots of information about playing games as a fun way to help clients (children, teens, adults, families, groups) learn and practice social skills, anger management strategies, stress management skills, self-regulation, and organizational skills.   $25 +$5 S&H to US, 89 pages ($1 S&H on additional books)  International shipping extra

Partners in Play: An Adlerian Approach to Play Therapy (3rd ed.)

This is the definitive book on Adlerian play therapy, written by Terry Kottman, the “inventor” of Adlerian play therapy, and Kristin Meany-Walen, the person who conducted the research study that led to Adlerian play therapy being declared an evidence-based approach for working with children who exhibit externalizing behavior problems.  Find this book at The Self Esteem Shop and the American Counseling Association.

Terry is also the author of Play Therapy: Basics and Beyond (2nd ed.) and Active Intervention for Kids and Teens (written with Drs. Jeff Ashby and Don DeGraaf). Possible sources for these two books are The Self Esteem Shop and the American Counseling Association.

Adlerian Play Therapy Interventions for Telehealth Trying to come up with play therapy interventions that will work via a telehealth modality can be overwhelming and exhausting. This volume of interventions is a compilation of 73 activities written by 17 Adlerian play therapists who are working to adapt Adlerian play therapy to the telehealth delivery system.  For each of the intervention techniques, you will get a list of possible objectives and the phase of therapy for which they are designed, a description of the materials needed, a step-by-step set of instructions for doing the technique, and a explanation of any variations we  think might be helpful.  Be playful, planful, and effective in your telehealth play therapy sessions.

PDF file.  Link to file emailed (allow 48 hrs)   $29

245 page spiral bound book   $40 + $6 S&H for US       (International shipping extra)

MORE BOOKS

PDF file.  Link to file emailed (allow 48 hrs)   $29

184 page spiral bound book   $35+ $6 S&H for US       (International shipping extra)

Bibliotherapy:Using Books in Play Therapy

There are SO many amazing children’s books out there in the world!  And…some of them make incredible material for using bibliotherapy in your play therapy sessions.  And…figuring out which books are appropriate candidates, deciding how to use those books to meet your therapeutic goals for specific clients, and generating activities for meeting those goals can be a bit overwhelming!  That’s where this handy book comes into play.  We have gathered some simply lovely children’s books and provided you with ready-made therapeutic objectives matched to the content of the books, along with suggestions for play therapy activities designed to help meet those objectives with your play therapy clients.