Therapeutic Practice in Schools Vol 2

Cosmoses White X (negative) — Cosmoses White X (Negative), courtesy of the artist, Neeta Madahar

Therapeutic Practice in Schools Vol 2: The Contemporary Adolescent

23rd June 2023

In common with Therapeutic Practice in Schools: Working with the Child Within (Routledge 2012), this second volume serves as a practical handbook for school-based counsellors, psychotherapists, arts therapists and play therapists working with young people. Written in accessible language, it is eminently applicable to the practice of both qualified and trainee therapists.

Therapeutic Practice in Schools: The Contemporary Adolescent begins with an overview of key psychoanalytic ideas informing our understanding of adolescence before moving on to focus on life circumstances and issues which commonly bring young people to the therapist’s consulting room in the school. Dedicated chapters on key themes including identity, relationships, sex and sexuality, anger issues, self-harm, bereavement and bullying aim to deepen our understanding of the adolescent experience while also providing the therapist with invaluable insights into what one might say in the ‘here and now’ of the session. Chapter authors, all with considerable experience in the field, discuss approaches to sustaining the therapeutic relationship in the face of ambivalence or defiant resistance as well as thinking about the impact of social media on all aspects of adolescent development. The advantages and limitations of working with adolescents in the educational setting where school staff will have their own reasons for referring students for therapy, while the young people themselves might come with a very different agenda, are also covered.

It is widely acknowledged that engaging troubled or troublesome adolescents in therapy can make an enormous difference to their lives. This book ensures that both trainee and qualified therapists are supported in the often daunting yet ever stimulating and enlivening task of working with young people in the school setting.

The authors convey so clearly the essential ingredients of psychoanalytically influenced therapy – being open- minded without preconceptions, listening both to the adolescent’s feelings and those brought up in themselves, providing opportunity for expression and understanding and opening up the possibilities of different ways of looking at things. Intended primarily as clinical workbook for counsellors, psychotherapists and arts therapists, there is more than enough in this book to engage anybody interested in young people.
Peter Wilson, Founder of Young Minds and Clinical Advisor for The Place2Be, from the Foreword.

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Editors

Lyn French, Director of A Space

Lyn first trained in art (MA Goldsmiths) with a focus on conceptual art practice before completing an art therapy training followed by the Birkbeck MSc in Counselling & Psychotherapy with Children and Adolescents and then a psychoanalytic psychotherapy training. She was a staff member on the Birkbeck MSc course for over 10 years and has taught and supervised therapists at A Space as well as in the community. Along with Reva Klein, Lyn co-edited Therapeutic Practice in Schools: Working with the Child Within, Therapeutic Practice in Schools: The Contemporary Adolescent and Bringing our Histories into School-based Therapy: How our backstories enrich our work with children and adolescents, all published by Routledge.

Reva Klein, Senior Supervisor, A Space

Reva isa child and adolescent counsellor and adult psychoanalytic psychotherapist who supervises therapists at A Space and sees clients and supervisees in private practice. Previously a freelance journalist, writer and editor, Reva taught journalism at Goldsmiths College for many years. She is the author of three books on education: Defying Disaffection, Citizens by Right and We Want our Say and is the co-author of Reluctant Refuge: The Story of Asylum in Britain. She twice won the Commission for Racial Equality’s Race in the Media Award for her writing in the Times Educational Supplement and she founded and edited The International Journal on School Disaffection, an Anglo-American publication now in its second decade. In the 1990s Reva sat on the Secondary School Reform Committee of Unesco. Along with Lyn French, Reva co-edited Therapeutic Practice in Schools: Working with the Child Within, Therapeutic Practice in Schools: The Contemporary Adolescent and Bringing our Histories into School-based Therapy: How our backstories enrich our work with children and adolescents, all published by Routledge.

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