Kimberly J. Desmond

Using Creative Techniques With Children Who Have Experienced Trauma

Verbal and emotional forms of expression can be difficult for young children who have experienced trauma. Creative methods and approaches such as puppets, sandtray, letter writing, and art are therapeutic mediums that provide an outlet for a young client’s story of trauma to be told. Children can use puppets to depersonalize and share feelings with a counselor that would provide insight into their coping strategies. Similarly, sandtray is another nonverbal approach that gives children the opportunity to externalize their feelings safely and can be easily used with extroverted and introverted clients. Letter writing and art can empower children and give them hope for the future. In summary, creative techniques can allow counselors to help explore stories of trauma with young clients.

An Invitation to Between-Session Change: The Use of Therapeutic Letters in Couples and Family Counseling

Therapeutic letters (i.e., brief therapeutic messages that are sent to clients between counseling sessions) have been used since the days of Freud and have been shown to have beneficial therapeutic impacts. This article describes the use of therapeutic letters in couples and family counseling. The use of three types of therapeutic letter (letters of alliance, intensity, and meaning) are discussed. Ethical and legal issues pertaining to privacy and recommended practices for addressing such issues are reviewed.

The Use of Therapeutic Letters in Addressing Parent–Child Attachment Problems

This article describes the use of attachment theory in conjunction with therapeutic letters to facilitate conversations in family counseling pertaining to the role of attachment needs in the maintenance of parent–child relational problems. The authors explore how letters can be used to supplement therapeutic endeavors in addressing attachment related patterns associated with parent–child conflict. Therapeutic tasks related to the application of attachment theory and associated letters are discussed.

Intentional Practices in Supervision of Family Counseling: The Use of Supervisory Letters.

Supervisors perform various roles in helping to guide the supervisee through the challenging process of family counseling. The use of letters in supervision helps to focus the supervisory processes in family counseling. Following the discrimination model of supervision, three types of supervisory letters are suggested for intentional supervision practices: letters of teaching, letters of counseling, and letters of consultation.

Book Review: Put Your Mindset to Work: The One Asset You Really Need to Win and Keep the Job You Love

If one works with clients using a brief therapy model, one needs to be familiar with solution-focused theory. This model allows clients to focus on their strengths, find solutions to their problems, and focus on the future. This book, 1001 SolutionFocused Questions, was very well written and clearly explains how to integrate the solution-focused model. Drawing her expertise as a seasoned therapist of 30 years, Frederike Bannink presents solution-focused questions and protocols to help the reader understand how to implement a solution-focused model. 1001 Solution-Focused Questions presents an in-depth overview of how solution-focused therapy works. Throughout the book, Bannink presents numerous examples that help the reader understand how to integrate solution-focused skills with clients. The thought-provoking ideas presented in this book will certainly engage therapists into self-reflection about what helps clients to enact change and how to move from a problemfocused model into a solution-focused model. By focusing on solutions rather than problems, clinicians will learn how to help clients set specific goals that describe their future and find exceptions to their problems. This gives clients the understanding that there are times that things are already working in their lives and that they already have tools to grow and change. The book is divided into 13 chapters. In the introductory chapter, the author describes what solution-focused interviewing is. This chapter is followed by how to establish a collaborative relationship, as well as how to conduct the first therapeutic session, the subsequent sessions, and the concluding session. The author also discusses how to provide feedback to clients at the end of a session and how to give homework suggestions to clients. Giving homework can be helpful for therapists who want to extend the work of therapy outside the session. The intent of giving homework is to help the client find solutions to his or her problems and help with goal achievement. However, if the client does not want to do the homework, that in itself, is valuable information for the therapist. One of the author’s suggestions may be to tell the client at the end of the session, ‘‘Pay attention to what happens in your life that gives you the feeling that this problem can be solved’’ (Bannink, 2006). There are various examples in each chapter that bring to life the topic discussed. Other topics discussed include other solution-focused skills, how to work with other professionals, 1001 solution-focused questions, how to reflect on the session, solution-focused interviewing from start to finish, and solution-focused brief therapy as a form of cognitive behavioral therapy. At the end of the book, the author provides a compilation of appendixes that provide protocols for specific issues in therapy. Among them, the reader can find how to handle the first session, how to set a goal, how to find exceptions to the problem, how to formulate feedback, and how to externalize the problem. At times, therapists label clients as noncompliant when they do not progress in therapy the way we think they should. It is not uncommon for therapists to blame the client when the treatment plan is not followed. This attitude comes from a medical model that sees the professional as the expert and the person who knows what is best in terms of treatment. This book brings a new perspective for therapists to consider, the idea that clients are doing the best they can to change, even at times when they are labeled ‘‘resistant.’’ If we listen to all that clients are telling us (with words and actions) and convey the idea that they are the experts of their own life and how it may unfold, there is more likelihood to align with the client rather than become adversarial. Thus, the author dispels the idea of resistance in therapy and presents a new perspective of how to conduct therapy. This book will be a wonderful and useful resource for new therapists who want to understand how solution-focused therapy works and for seasoned clinicians who want to brush up their skills while using a solution-focused model. Students would highly benefit from this book since it is a how-to-use solution-focused therapy and is clearly illustrated with case examples. Furthermore, the protocols and questions provided will be extremely helpful for those who are trying to learn how to implement a solution-focused approach with individuals, groups, and couples.

Book Review: Teens Who Hurt: Clinical Intervention to Break the Cycle of Adolescent Violence

ners to become aware of what clients may consider useful to foster their sense of wellness. Perhaps what makes this book attractive to mental health practitioners, other than social workers, is the bio-psychosocial emphasis that challenges physicalistic diagnoses and treatment practices. This emphasis is bound to bring practitioners together to converse about the importance of clients’ experiences in medication management. The ethical concern for promoting clients’ well-being is evident throughout the pages, despite the use of exclusive language (e.g., pharmacological terms) necessary to express conceptual concern for the apparent gap between medicine therapy and talk therapy. Certainly, the proposals presented in this book raise critical questions about the conceptual validity of medications vis-à-vis clients’ emancipation and participation in their own treatments. Five positional articles and two research outcomes are sure to provide practitioners in helping relationships with enough material to generate reflective-based best practices that may contribute to the overall promotion of client welfare, the ultimate goal of all therapeutic enterprises.