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Although mental health problems increase markedly during adolescent years, therapists often find it difficult to engage with adolescents. The majority of disturbed adolescents do not receive professional mental health care and of those who do fewer still will fully engage with the therapeutic process (Offer et al. 1991; US Surgeon General 1999). Personal Investigator (PI) is a 3D computer game specifically designed to help adolescents overcome mental health problems such as depression and help them engage more easily with professional mental health care services. PI is an implementation of a new computer mediated model for how therapists and adolescents can engage. The model has its theoretical foundations in play therapy and therapeutic storytelling and applies current research on the educational use of computer gaming and interactive narrative systems to these foundations. Previously demonstrated benefits of computer games and interactive narrative systems in education include increased motivation, increased self‐esteem, improved problem solving and discussion skills and improved storytelling skills (Bruckman 1997; Bers 2001; Robertson 2001; Robertson and Oberlander 2002; Bers et al. 2003; Squire 2003). PI aims to take advantage of these benefits in a mental health care setting. PI incorporates a goal‐oriented, strengths based model of psychotherapy called Solution Focused Therapy (SFT). By engaging adolescents, in a client‐centred way, it aims to build stronger therapeutic relationships between therapists and adolescents. PI is the first game to integrate this established psychotherapy approach into an engaging online 3D game. Results of trials of PI with four adolescents, referred to clinics for issues including anxiety and behaviour problems, attempted suicide, and social skills difficulties, are presented.

This article focuses on group work with children using a board game format. Combining the principles of group work and board games helps to engage and motivate children and adolescents to address and work through their difficulties. Lifegames are a series of six therapeutic board games developed for group work with children and adolescents who encounter adversity in their life as a consequence of bereavement, family break up, poor relationships, bullying, chronic illness or obesity. The games facilitate the understanding and disclosure of the complex feelings experienced by children and young people when they are confronted with traumatic life events. The games encourage and assist the participants to obtain and maintain behavioural change. Lifegames are a means to assist professionals in their group work with children and adolescents.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the skills involved in building therapeutic relationships, especially the therapeutic use of self, in clinical work can transfer in to teaching, making reference to the supporting education theory.

A review of relevant education and health literature was undertaken.

Mental health practitioners’ skills transfer with good effect to the classroom, therefore clinicians who deliver teaching to mental health colleagues can be seen to be highly effective in promoting excellent learning environments. The teacher, and their teaching, needs to be student focused in the same way that the clinician needs to be patient centred to build the best possible relationships to support development and change.

The therapeutic relationship is a fundamental element of mental health work and similarly, the relationships that the teachers develop with students are essential to the promotion of learning environments. However, what creates the teacher-student relationship has been little examined in the literature and this paper suggests that the core elements of the therapeutic relationship, especially therapeutic use of self, transfer to the teaching relationship to impact on learning for mental health staff.

In this chapter, I examine stories that foster care youth tell to legislatures, courts, policymakers, and the public to influence policy decisions. The stories told by these children are analogized to victim truth testimony, analyzed as a therapeutic, procedural, and developmental process, and examined as a catalyst for systemic accountability and change. Youth stories take different forms and appear in different media: testimony in legislatures, courts, research surveys or studies; opinion editorials and interviews in newspapers or blog posts; digital stories on YouTube; and artistic expression. Lawyers often serve as conduits for youth storytelling, translating their clients’ stories to the public. Organized advocacy by youth also informs and animates policy development. One recent example fosters youth organizing to promote “normalcy” in child welfare practices in Florida, and in related federal legislation.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the impact of capital investments on new capabilities development during competence‐destroying change. The moderating role of uncertainty is also explored.

This paper utilizes two distinct but related research streams; the literature on organizational capabilities and real options, to build the theory and hypotheses.

Data from a sample of 767 alliances between incumbent pharmaceutical firms and new biotechnology firms reveal that incumbent firms who increase capital investments in emerging technological domains despite the uncertainty present in them, are more likely to develop new products based on emerging technology.

The results encourage future research on the nexus of managerial cognition, capital investments, uncertainty and the adaptation process.

Extant literature implicitly suggests that capital investments are critical for developing new capabilities; yet no prior study has addressed the relationship between capital investments and new capabilities development during competence‐destroying change. This paper addresses this gap in the literature.

Based on ethnographic data and a textual analysis, this chapter highlights the process of “therapization” of Buddhism in Western countries, with a specific emphasis on Tibetan Buddhism in France. Referring to the paradigm of “political economy of health”, as developed in recent medical anthropology, it attempts to explore the relationships between two concepts – economics and health – that had previously been considered separately, in the context of Western Buddhism. Further, this chapter's aim is to expose a potential application of theoretical economic models in an anthropological approach of Buddhist diffusion and appropriation in the West.

This qualitative study was an exploration on the process of self-reflection on identity. The purpose of this paper is to see how mirrors could be used as a therapeutic tool and a meta-physical bridge to one's inner consciousness.

An intergenerational expressive arts group (n=12) was organized around the question of identity. Following an open-discussion around the topic of identity, participants were asked to decorate a mirror with words, images, and/or symbols while reflecting on the question, “Who am I?” A post-session interview was conducted regarding participant's experiences during the creative process.

The results indicated that mirrors can be used to connect to one's inner thoughts and feelings on the question of identity. Three core themes in the process of self-reflection on identity were revealed which included introspection and self-concern, connection and attachment to something or someone other than self, and taking action to help others.

This study was limited not only in size, but also in cultural diversity and disparity of age range. Although this study was limited, it provided a useful indicator for identifying core themes in the process of self-reflection on identity.

While there have been no studies on the therapeutic use of mirrors as a tool for self-reflection and limited intergenerational studies with pre-adolescent and adolescent students and older adults, results from this study will add to the body of expressive arts literature by providing a new metaphor for mirrors as a therapeutic tool for self-reflection on identity.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the clinical assessment of children and the development of a multi-disciplinary team in an established residential school for children aged five to 12.

Using clinical examples the paper describes how assessment can identify different levels of therapeutic need, and then how the decision is made whether or not to offer milieu therapy, music therapy, dramatherapy or psychotherapy.

The paper suggests that children who have early histories of abuse and trauma have differing clinical needs.

The implication is that children will engage better with the therapy if the level of intervention is sensitive to their state of mind, which in turn will help them make better use of the environmental provision of the school.

The paper offers an original perspective on the possibilities and limitations of psychotherapeutic work with extremely vulnerable damaged children in a residential therapeutic setting, the Mulberry Bush.

The aim of this study is to undertake a systemic literature review (SLR) of horticultural therapy and to explore whether its inclusion in a healthcare programme can enhance hospitalised children's well-being.

An empirical study was developed using a mixed methods approach to monitor stakeholders' perceptions of horticultural therapy. Specifically, hospitalised children (N = 31) and their families (N = 21), as well as medical and nursing staff (N = 3), were engaged in the empirical study. Qualitative and quantitative surveys were developed, involving two paediatric units in an Italian hospital.

The authors’ findings show a significant improvement of children's mood and psycho-physical well-being following horticultural therapy. The authors found positive effects of interactive horticultural therapy on hospitalised paediatric patients and their parents. Parents perceived a positive influence on their mood and found the therapy very beneficial for their children. Qualitative analyses of children's and parents' comments (and related rankings) revealed the helpful support role of horticultural therapy in dealing with the hospitalisation period. There is a very limited number of studies that have inspected co-therapy implementation in paediatric hospitals, and to the best of the authors' knowledge, no study has yet examined the effect of horticultural therapy in such a context. The practice of horticultural therapy with children in health settings has been documented in some Italian hospitals, but its effectiveness has not yet been well established in the literature.

The authors’ findings could provide useful insights to clinicians, health managers and directors in creating and sustaining a successful group co-therapy programme under the managed healthcare system.

In the early to mid-twentieth century, psychiatrist-led occupational therapy departments emerged in Irish psychiatric hospitals. This marked a transition towards establishing rehabilitative services in institutional settings. This paper aims to examine the development of occupational therapy in Grangegorman Mental Hospital and its auxiliary hospital, Portrane Mental Hospital from 1934-1954.

Historical documentary research methods were used to analyse primary source data from Grangegorman Committee Minutes, Inspector of Mental Hospital Reports, Boroughs of Mental Hospitals, Department of Foreign Affairs documents and newspaper archives. The archival data was analysed using both a chronological and thematic approach.

The main key event emerged in 1935 when four Grangegorman nursing staff were sent to Cardiff Mental Hospital to undergo a six month training course in occupational therapy. The following themes emerged – “establishing occupational therapy in Grangegorman and Portrane”; “the role of short-course trained nursing staff in providing occupational therapy services” and “therapeutic rationales vs hospital management rationales”.

This study throws light on the early practitioners of occupational therapy in Grangegorman and highlights the complexities of occupational therapy’s role origins in mid-twentieth century Ireland. In line with contemporaneous psychiatric hospitals, the occupational therapy activities promoted in Grangegorman were mainly handicraft or productivity based. The absence of patients’ voices means there are limitations to determining the therapeutic nature of this early occupational therapy service.