A Handbook of Play Therapy with Aggressive Children is an invaluable resource for both new and seasoned child practitioners. This comprehensive compilation of specific and practical techniques provides child and play therapists with the tools they need to address the challenges of treating aggressive children.

Authored by David A. Crenshaw and John B. Mordock, who together bring over fifty years of experience in the residential treatment of severely aggressive and often traumatized children, this book covers the essential elements of play therapy. Key topics include:

• The therapeutic alliance and aims of play therapy with aggressive children.
• Setting limits on destructive and obtrusive behaviors.
• Typical play themes of aggressive children and developing distancing and displacement through playful action.
• Teaching, modeling, and structuring action play.
• Creating more mature defenses and calming strategies.
• The role of interpretation and the use of spontaneous drawings as a bridge to fantasy play.
• Specific drawing techniques to access the inner world of children.
• Teaching and modeling pro-social skills and the language of feeling.
• Facilitating affect expression and modulation, contained reenactment of trauma, and children's ability to mourn tangible as well as intangible losses.

The authors also introduce the Play Therapy Decision Grid, a tool designed to guide therapists in selecting the most appropriate level of therapy for a child based on their resources and the anxiety provoked by the therapy process.