The Center for Practical Child and Adolescent Therapy Techniques

Dr. David A. Crenshaw, Director  

NEWS Upcoming Presentations (click)

"Heartfelt Feelings" Coloring Card Strategy.  Click here for details.                 

Read Dr. Crenshaw's articles in Play Therapy magazine by clicking on title: "Should I Be Worried?"  "Selective Mutism" "Preverbal Trauma" "No Time or Place for Child's Play" reprinted with permission of Play Therapy Magazine.

All books are now available at discounted prices in paperback. To order click on the book images below or simply call 1-800-462-6420.  Code # 4S6CRWEB

If you want to read reviews first, click on the book title under the book image.

Please note e-mail cannot be guaranteed to be confidential so do not send private information. Our shopping cart is through a secure connection.

You are invited to sign our Guest Book and include your special interests so we can contact you about future training programs and publications.  Your name and e-mail address are only for us to send information about your interests and will not be disclosed, disseminated, or used by anyone else.

"The Hidden Dimensions" 

By David A. Crenshaw, Ph.D., ABPP

     Dr. James Garbarino, Chairman of the Department of Humanistic Psychology at Loyola University, and I wrote a paper entitled, “The Hidden Dimensions: Unspeakable Sorrow and Buried Human Potential in Violent Youth."¹ The unspeakable sorrow derives from the invisible emotional wounds that Kenneth V. Hardy, Ph.D., Director of the Eikenberg Institute for Relationships describes as often unrecognized and even worse, sometimes devalued.  Hardy explains that emotional wounds do not receive the same attention or respect that physical wounds elicit.² If a colleague arrives for work with a cast on her arm, most co-workers will express concern, interest and curiosity about what happened to her. If a co-worker arrives for work feeling noticeably depressed it is unlikely to garner the same solicitude particularly the longer it goes on. The invisible emotional wounds of children exposed to violence are just as real and in some cases far more devastating than the physical wounds that may bear scars from injuries received during beatings in the past. The invisible wounds also are typically slower to heal and the healing process more complicated, especially the lacerations to the soul of a child. There is both unspeakable sorrow and rage associated with such deep injuries to the spirit of a child or a teen. 

     In addition to the hidden, invisible emotional wounds borne by youth prone to violence, another often unrecognized core feature is their talents and strengths. When turning points in the lives of resilient youth who overcame the adverse conditions of their early lives are reviewed, frequently they will name a teacher, a coach, a family member who refused to give up on them, who saw something good in them, something redeeming, a talent, a gift, an ability that could be cultivated and developed. As therapists we should just as aggressively pursue “what is right” with the youth we are treating as we do “what is wrong” with them. I have long challenged the pervasive influence of the training that most mental health professionals receive that “punctuates pathology” and “documents damage” but often overlooks the resources within our youthful clients for growth and change. The psychoanalyst, the late Walter Bonime, M.D, that I was privileged to learn from used to remind me often, “It is psychoanalysis, not pathoanalysis.”

Copyright © 2007 by David A. Crenshaw, Ph.D., ABPP.  All rights reserved.