See My Pain! Creative Strategies and Activities for Helping Young People Who Self-Injure [Paperback]

Susan Bowman (Author), Kaye Randall (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2006

This book provides a collection of strategies and activities to help children and adolescents who deliberately self-injure. A variety of hands-on creative arts approaches are featured that can be used in private practice and school settings. When working with youth who self-injure it is helpful to have a variety of creative approached at your fingertips. The approaches and activities in this book can be used with individuals or with a small group. The activities help children/adolescents to express their feelings, understand why they self-injure, engage in a healing process, explore new methods of coping and prevention, and find new meaning and purpose in their lives.

This book provides a description of self-mutilation in young people and its underlying causes. Then, an overview of therapeutic approaches is presented along with suggestions for the professional counselor/social worker/psychologist, teachers and parents. Sample assessment questions and activities are included. The following 15 strategies with activities are reproducibles are featured:

- Crucial Communication Skills
- Personal Strength Coaching
- Visual Arts
- Sand Tray
- Story Telling
- Creative Dramatics
- Prayer Power
- Clay
- Creative Journaling
- Relaxation/Guided Imagery
- Metaphors
- Music
- Tactile Diversion
- Animals and Nature
- Mentoring

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: YouthLight, Inc.; 2nd edition (June 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1889636622
• ISBN-13: 978-1889636627
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #128,132 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Best for Preteens, November 26, 2006

By 

Brian Palmer "J. Palmer" (salt lake city) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: See My Pain! Creative Strategies and Activities for Helping Young People Who Self-Injure (Paperback)

I was very disappointed when I received this book. This book has activities that would be appropriate for preteen adolescents or children. When I read the title and it had "helping young people who self-injure" in the description, I thought it would be geared more toward adolescents... not children and preteen- I guess that was my mistake. Most activities are too juvenile to be used for adolescents over the age of 13. If you are working with younger adolescents/children you would probably be happy with the activities.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Handouts!, August 9, 2006

By 

M. Bowser (Ohio USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: See My Pain! Creative Strategies and Activities for Helping Young People Who Self-Injure (Paperback)

This activity book was a great resource! I used it for a group processing course and was able to get some awesome handouts that you are able to reproduce. Completely recommend this activity book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good basic book for younger kids, January 31, 2009

By 

Trixie "Trixie" (USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: See My Pain! Creative Strategies and Activities for Helping Young People Who Self-Injure (Paperback)

As someone else mentioned this book is best for kids who are (or developmentally) under 14. This book has lots of basic information someone would appreciate if they have never dealt with or treated self-harmers. I was excited by the prospect of this book but disappointed to see it was all information I've known for years and I already use or plan to use many of the activities. There were a few things I hadn't thought of that were clever. Also, this is a "Christian" take on curing self-harm. They don't flat out say it, but it's pretty clear. Prayer is used as a method of healing. They tried to make it generalized by putting pictures of a boy in a yarmulke and kids in Muslim garb along with the Christian kid, but all of the examples of prayer/God are definitely the Christian methods. Either way, this book is good for beginners in this subject but if you've had a good deal of experience it's not going to be much new info. I also found the format in general to be a bit juvenile, but that's just my style.