Theraplay: Helping Parents and Children Build Better Relationships through Attachment-based Play

This book is essentially a 600-page, serious look at restoring playfulness and joyfulness to the lives of children who have not made secure attachments as infants.

Theraplay is a methodology for working with children with attachment difficulties and their parents. It uses play to focus on the relationship in an attempt to reconstruct a healthy attachment. Developed in the 1960s and enhanced by recent developments in neuroscience, attachment theory is increasingly relevant amid talk of "broken Britain" and with growing numbers of children raised in fragmented or reconstituted families.

Theraplay focuses on the four domains essential to healthy attachment: nurture; engagement; structure; and challenge. As well as suggesting practical ways in which parents and professionals can mend insecure attachments, the book explains how theraplay can help families, children who have experienced fostering and adoption, adolescents, and those who have complex needs or who have experienced sexual abuse. There are also sections showing how the technique can be adapted for group work and for use with adults with learning disabilities and with older people.