Child-Focused Practice

Jim Wilson is a UKCP registered systemic psychotherapist with over thirty years experience in working in mental health and social care fields in the UK. He provides provides training, consultation, and practice projects in the UK, Europe, and the Far East. He is also a regular presenter at national and international conferences in mental health services and is known for his creative approaches to therapy and social practices with families. His articles and books are popular and prescribed texts texts in many training courses in family therapy, and related disciplines in the UK and elsewhere.

'I first met Jim Wilson about twenty years ago, when he was on his way to see a family therapy workshop, and I remember being captured by his warmth, humility, inventiveness, and humour. At that time, he was working in a child guidance clinic in his native Scotland and was in awe of the workshop leaders he was going to see, yet despite that he was very open about his own work. He felt he didn't need to 'mimic' slavishly the work of 'gurus' in his own work. He was then, as he is now, a professional who is playfully respectful of those he regards as the experts in the field. It is this playfulness that comes through in his book and, in a time when theory often seems to dominate, adds a refreshing dose of the practical, in which he takes traditional and contumacy theories and plays fully with them in the context of how he works with children and, perhaps more importantly, how children work with him.'- John Burnham, from his Foreword'While focusing on work with children in a systemic context, Wilson's conceptual framework and case examples highlight some of the key components of any effective therapy. These are: a secure base; empathic rapport; playfulness; creative communication; respect; validation; a supportive compatible approach to problem-solving; attention to attachment issues; and an ability to set the therapy in its wider context.'This book will inform and challenge a wide audience and deserves to be read by practitioners, teachers, consultants, reviewing officers' and case managers both within and beyond the family therapy field.'- Sue Richardson, Community Care

• Editors’ Foreword , Foreword , Introduction , A framework for child-focused practice , The child in the therapeutic context: convening and consulting with the significant people , Making a connection: the first encounter , Child-focused questioning , Playful dramas for serious problems , Forms of writing in therapy with children , Preoccupying questions , Children’s views , End notes , Appendix