Narrative Therapy In Wonderland: Connecting With Children's Imaginative Know How

Description

Children's innate inventiveness and self-knowledge are important resources for narrative therapy, in which therapist and client work to re-author the story of the client's life. This book teaches therapists to respect children's natural imaginative know-how, offering effective methods to help children draw on their own wonderment, opening new paths to healing.

Reviews

From the get-go, engaging prose makes this book fun yes, fun! to read. Vivid transcripts reveal the powers children have when their imagination, ingenuity, and sense of humor are engaged. Creativity is central to narrative therapy, as is moving past one-size-fits-all solutions. It is refreshing to learn how the creative capacities of each child and family can be channeled towards elegant and often unique resolution of the challenges they face, and to see the 'wonderfulness' of the individual child so centrally featured. This book affirms the effectiveness of collaboration between adults and children in the realm of imaginary know-how.--Jennifer Freeman, MFT, REAT, coauthor of Playful Approaches to Serious Problems"

Author description

David Marsten, LCSW, is the director of the Miracle Mile Community Practice in Los Angeles. David Epston, M.A., C.Q.S.W. is coauthor of Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends (1990) and Playful Approaches to Serious Problems (1997). He is a visiting professor at the School of Community Studies, UNITEC Institute of Technology in Auckland, and is the codirector of the Family Therapy Centre in Auckland. Laurie Markham, MA, MFT, is a practicing therapist and teaches in master's programs at Cal State University San Bernardino and Pepperdine University.