Therapists of any discipline, engaged in work with children and parents, are likely to share some ideas about their interactions. The educational therapist maintains a focus on children's learning, and also enables parents to think about how their own educational experience could be affecting that of their children. The practice of educational therapy includes some didactic teaching, otherwise children will feel cheated because it has been publicly agreed, either in family and/or school meetings, that they will need help with their school work. The practice also makes use of the metaphor, in stories, drawing or modelling, to enable children to express, understand and acknowledge their feelings about the skills they have "lost". The first seven chapters of the book are written by educational therapists who are qualified teachers, some of whom became educational psychologists and/or psychotherapists. Their additional professional training in educational therapy includes being members of multi-disciplinary teams and undertaking personal therapy.
They may work with an individual child or adult, with small groups, or with families, although the latter group is not covered in any detail in these chapters. The work includes liaison with schools and other agencies who are concerned with the children referred to them. The chapters demonstrate the authors' teaching and therapeutic skills, and their deep understanding of the interactive process. Following a link chapter - written by an educational therapist who shares her thinking with teachers - which introduces the application of a therapeutic approach to classroom teaching, the remaining chapters are written by mainstream or specialist teachers, and one classroom assistant. All these authors have undertaken a diploma course focusing on the techniques of educational therapy with an introduction to some theory and practice. They are not members of multi-disciplanary teams, nor have they undertaken personal therapy. Their work with families is on an informal basis whenever the need arises.
These chapters describe how the teachers' own learning, while working with individual children, enables each of them to reassess some of their previously held assumptions about classroom behaviour and to value theoretical concepts as a means of understanding their interactions with children and colleagues.
- ISBN10 1897635931
- ISBN13 9781897635933
- Publish Date 15 January 1996
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 14 June 1999
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher John Wiley and Sons Ltd
- Imprint Whurr Publishers Ltd
- Format Paperback
- Pages 180
- Language English