Publisher's Synopsis
Therapeutic Group Work with Children was first published in 1949. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.
This is an account of two significant projects in therapeutic group work with emotionally disturbed adolescents. In detailed and often dramatic reports of many group sessions, the author provides insight into the use of therapeutic group work methods.
In a preface to this second printing, Professor Konopka points out that when the book was first published the use of group therapy in the treatment of delinquent or emotionally disturbed youngsters was quite new. Now, the practice has proved its worth, and the book has become increasingly important as teaching material for social work students, as well as a guide for practicing social workers. It is also helpful to those in other professions who are concerned with the problems of delinquent or disturbed children.
The projects described involved a group of delinquent boys under observation by the Minnesota Youth Conservation Commission and a group of emotionally disturbed girls in a child guidance clinic. Through her account, Professor Konopka shows many kinds of situations which arise in group therapy and ways in which they may be handled by a trained social worker.
Reviewers have been generous in their appraisal of the book. Saul Bernstein said in Social Work Journal: "We have here a rich gold mine for promoting human adjustment." Harleigh B. Trecker, in Federal Probation, called it: "a vivid, clear, warm story of social group work in action."
There is a new foreword in this printing by Hyman S. Lippman, M.D., director of the Amherst H. Wilder Child Guidance Clinic, St. Paul, Minnesota.
