Creative Arts-Based Group Therapy with Adolescents

Craig Haen, Ph.D., RDT, CGP, LCAT, FAGPA treats children, adolescents, and adults in private practice. He is faculty at New York University and Lesley University, and co-founder of the Kint Institute. His books include Handbook of Child and Adolescent Group Therapy and Engaging Boys in Treatment: Creative Approaches to the Therapy Process.Dr. Nancy Boyd Webb, DSW, LICSW, RPT-S is a leading authority on play therapy with children and adolescents who have experienced loss and traumatic bereavement. Dr. Webb is a clinical social worker and Distinguished University Professor Emerita at Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service where she held an endowed Chair in Child Welfare Studies and where she founded, directed, and taught in the Post-Master’s Certificate Program in Child and Adolescent Therapy for 22 years. Dr. Webb has published 15 previous books.

"This ambitious, engaging volume makes an adolescent-wise, evidence-based, and very compelling case for group arts therapies—art, music, drama, dance/movement, play, and writing—as a preferred treatment for some of the toughest customers around: reluctant, disconnected, and dysregulated teens. Descriptive chapters include attention to theory and development, lively interventions, practical tips, vivid case vignettes, and—best of all— candid reflections from practitioners on the humor, flexibility and self-awareness they rely on to get energy back on the rails when a group session appears to be headed for the hills. This book offers a window into the innovative arts-based world of group treatment, beyond the confines of individual talk therapy, where distressed and challenging adolescents can connect to their hearts, to peers, and to competent, caring, creative adults." Martha B. Straus, PhD, professor of clinical psychology, Antioch University New England; author, Treating Trauma in Adolescents: Development, Attachment, and the Therapeutic Relationship"Haen and Boyd Webb have assembled an impressive team of international creative arts therapists to add to the literature an academic text on group therapy with teens, which includes chapters on complex neurobiological aspects of group work, to the symphonic healing melodies afforded through music therapy. Highly recommended!" Eric J. Green, Ph.D., faculty associate, Johns Hopkins University School of Education; author, Handbook of Jungian Play Therapy

• Section One: Overview Foreword Preface: The Stresses and Challenges Facing Adolescents in the Second Decade of the 21st Century 1. Engaging Adolescents in Group Work: Principles for Effective Practice 2. Creative Arts-Based Approaches to Adolescent Group Therapy: The State of the Art 3. A Neuroscience Perspective on Creative Arts Therapies and Adolescent Groups Section Two: Creative Arts Therapies in Action 4. Adolescent Group Art Therapy 5. Bibliotherapy in Adolescent Groups 6. Dance/Movement Therapy with Groups of Teens 7. Adolescent Group Drama Therapy 8. Music Therapy in Adolescent Groups 9. Group Poetry and Writing Therapy with Adolescents Section Three: Clinical Applications Creative Arts-Based Approaches to Working with Adolescent Resistance 11. Arts-Based Approaches to Fostering Adolescent Affect Regulation 12. Who am I to You? Using the Creative Arts to Build Interpersonal Relationships: A South African Perspective 13. Teen Bodies: The Problem of Adolescent Embodiment, and How the Arts Can Help 14. Thinking Critically, Working Creatively: Dancing, Songwriting, and Re-writing Sexualities with Young People ‘At the Margins’ 15. The Benefits and Challenges of Using the Creative Arts in Adolescent Groups