Working with hard-to-engage children and teens: I don’t wanna talk about it

Understand what drives therapeutic resistance and learn creative, play-based ways to engage children and teens in therapy.

Engaging children and teens in therapy can be challenging, particularly when young clients are reluctant to talk or participate. Strengthen your ability to build rapport, understand therapeutic resistance and use creative interventions to support meaningful engagement.

Working with hard-to-engage children and teens can be frustrating, even for experienced clinicians. Young clients may fear attending therapy, feel they have little control over the decision to participate or believe they are being blamed for family difficulties. A lack of motivation and developmental factors can also make traditional talk therapy challenging.

Understanding the reasons underlying therapeutic resistance is an important first step. The next is finding ways to engage children and teens in the therapeutic process.

In this live webinar, Liana Lowenstein, MSW, RSW, CPT-S explores the factors that contribute to therapeutic resistance. Participants will learn creative interventions to build rapport, engage reluctant clients and maximize opportunities for therapeutic change.

The training emphasizes play-based and expressive arts techniques, including therapeutic games, art and stories. These approaches can be used in both in-person and online therapy sessions to support children who find it difficult to express their thoughts and feelings verbally.

Learning objectives

By the end of this training, participants will be able to:

• Describe the factors underlying therapeutic resistance.
• Implement creative interventions to facilitate rapport-building with children.
• Implement play-based and expressive arts techniques with clients who are reluctant to verbally articulate their thoughts and feelings.

Explore practical ways to engage hard-to-engage children and teens in therapy and expand your use of creative interventions to support the therapeutic process. Reserve your spot now.

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