What to Do When Children Clam Up in Psychotherapy ─ Interventions to Facilitate Communication

Therapists who work with children and adolescents are frequently faced with nonresponsive, reticent, or completely nonverbal clients. This volume brings together expert clinicians who explore why 4- to 16-year-olds may have difficulty talking and provide creative ways to facilitate communication. A variety of play, art, movement, and animal-assisted therapies, as well as trauma-focused therapy with adolescents, are illustrated with vivid clinical material. Contributors give particular attention to the neurobiological effects of trauma, how they manifest in the body when children "clam up," and how to help children self-regulate and feel safe. Most chapters conclude with succinct lists of recommended practices that therapists can immediately try out in their own work with hard-to-reach children. 

Cathy A. Malchiodi, PhD, ATR-BC, LPCC, LPAT, REAT, is an art therapist, expressive arts therapist, and clinical mental health counselor, as well as a recognized authority on art therapy with children, adults, and families. She has given more than 400 presentations on art therapy and has published numerous articles, chapters, and books, including Understanding Children’s Drawings and Handbook of Art Therapy, Second Edition. Dr. Malchiodi is the founder and executive director of the Trauma-Informed Practices and Expressive Arts Therapy Institute. She has worked with a variety of community, national, and international agencies, particularly on the use of art therapy for trauma intervention, disaster relief, mental health, medical illness, and prevention. She is the first person to have received all three of the American Art Therapy Association's highest honors: Distinguished Service Award, Clinician Award, and Honorary Life Member Award. She has also received honors from the Kennedy Center and Very Special Arts in Washington, DC. A passionate advocate for the role of the arts in health, she is a blogger for Psychology Today. Dr. Malchiodi is coeditor (with David A. Crenshaw) of Guilford's Creative Arts and Play Therapy series.

David A. Crenshaw, PhD, ABPP, RPT-S, is Clinical Director of the Children’s Home of Poughkeepsie, New York, and Adjunct Faculty at Marist College. He has taught graduate courses in play therapy at Johns Hopkins University and Columbia University and has published widely on child and adolescent therapy, child abuse and trauma, and resilience in children. A Fellow of the American Psychological Association and of its Division of Child and Adolescent Psychology, Dr. Crenshaw is Past President of the Hudson Valley Psychological Association, which honored him with its Lifetime Achievement Award, and of the New York Association for Play Therapy. He is currently Chair of the board of directors of the Coalition against Sexual and Domestic Abuse and a member of the professional advisory board of the Courthouse Dogs Foundation and of the Dutchess County Task Force against Human Trafficking. He is coeditor (with Cathy A. Malchiodi) of Guilford's Creative Arts and Play Therapy series.