Healing in Action: Adventure-Based Counseling with Therapy Groups is a practical guide for therapists wanting to integrate interactive games and challenges into their work. It provides current research supporting using ABC with trauma survivors and those recovering from addictions, as well as its efficacy with a broader population. Twelve activity-based chapters take the reader through various one-hour sessions of activities based on a particular theme or material used, complete with 50 descriptive photos of groups in action. Therapists will be able to use these activities to help their patients experience in vivo the joy, freedom and playfulness that are the hallmarks of sound mental health. With its combination of sound theoretical material and practical application, this book is a valuable resource for practitioners and graduate students alike.

A pioneering physician reveals how childhood stress leads to lifelong health problems, and what we can do to break the cycle.

Psychodrama and other action methods are especially helpful in the treatment of the classic eating disorders as well as dieting struggles, body dissatisfaction and associated issues of fear, sadness, silence and shame. This book provides clinicians with sound theoretical information, practical treatment guidelines and a wealth of clinically-tested action structures and interventions. The authors describe how they have introduced action methods to work with a diverse range of clients, and suggest ways in which psychodrama practitioners, experiential therapists and others may integrate these methods into their practice. Offering fresh ideas for tailoring psychodramatic standards such as The Living Newspaper, Magic Shop and the Social Atom to eating disorder issues, they provide extensive examples of psychodrama interventions - classic and specially adapted for eating disorders - for both the experienced practitioner and those new to experiential therapies. They also explain how psychodrama can be used in combination with other expressive, holistic and complementary approaches, including family constellations, music, art, imagery, ritual, Five Element Acupuncture, yoga, Reiki and other energy work. This pioneering book is essential reading for practitioners and students of psychodrama, drama therapy, experiential psychotherapy, cognitive and expressive arts therapies and mental health professionals, as well as professionals interested in complementary health modalities.

Don't move until you've read this book. Whether you have lower back pain or you're trying to prevent it, motion is the answer. Back in Action will help you prepare your body for motion and enhance your quality of life. Demonstrated in easy-to-follow photographs and videos, the gentle movements in this book lubricate your joints, reduce inflammation, invigorate your muscles, and protect your spine. Avoid unnecessary drugs or surgery. Improve your body's biomechanics and prevent the build-up of scar tissue from inflammation and injury. Try the exercises in this book and, after two weeks, you'll be back in action!

An essential tool for healers, therapists, activists, and trauma survivors who are interested in a justice-centered approach to somatic transformation The Politics of Trauma offers somatics with a social analysis. This book is for therapists and social activists who understand that trauma healing is not just for individuals—and that social change is not just for movement builders. Just as health practitioners need to consider the societal factors underlying trauma, so too must activists understand the physical and mental impacts of trauma on their own lives and the lives of the communities with whom they organize. Trauma healing and social change are, at their best, interdependent. Somatics has proven to be particularly effective in addressing trauma, but in practice it typically focuses solely on the individual, failing to integrate the social conditions that create trauma in the first place. Staci K. Haines, somatic innovator and cofounder of generative somatics, invites readers to look beyond individual experiences of body and mind to examine the social, political, and economic roots of trauma—including racism, environmental degradation, sexism, and poverty. Haines helps readers identify, understand, and address these sources of trauma to help us bridge individual healing with social transformation.

This revised text describes the theory substantiating adventure therapy, demonstrates best practices in the field, and presents research validating the immediate and long-term effects of adventure therapy. A leading text in the field of adventure therapy, outdoor behavioral healthcare, and wilderness therapy, the book is written by three professionals who have been at the forefront of the field since its infancy. This new edition includes fully updated chapters to reflect the immense changes in the field since the first edition was written in 2010. It serves to provide information detailing what is occurring with clients as well as how it occurs. This book provides an invaluable reference for the seasoned professional and is a required source of information and examination for the beginning professional. It is a great training resource for adventure therapy practices in the field of mental health.