Therapeutic adventures with autistic children: connecting through movement, play and creativity
This is a remarkable book, even its title shows us the adventure that we will experience by reading it. The author, who is a dance movement therapist, as well as being trained in martial arts, mindfulness and yoga, has worked for 30 years with autistic children. He has a wide lens in his approach, to children as well as methods and he emphasises how important it is to respond to the very individual needs of autistic children. 'Whether I am drawing, talking or playing with glove puppets, I am also trying to stay with the "felt experience" that is, what the body senses. (p. 16 original emphasis) He integrates all the arts in his approach, emphasising how the children 'rediscover themselves in the art form' (p. 16) Each chapter focuses on an individual child and their adventure in therapy. There are insights to reflect on and a summary of salient points, entitled Practical possibilities, in each chapter. The author is very clear about why he made a particular intervention, when he chose to be more directive and the rationale. Chapter titles include: In the Moment: Stepping on Sunlight, Upside Down Elevator Ride, 'Teach Me to Meditate' Puppets to the Rescue, TheWay of the Warrior, Yoga: Going Inside to Get Outside. These chapters illustrate the breadth of the author's approach and his creative view of the child and their landscape. The chapter on working with puppets is both practical and immediate. The author has two main puppets, Foxy and Lamby and using them, together with some Lego, he has been able to facilitate the addressing of life issues that were controlling the life of the child. We are reminded that 'soft toys tend to bring out the soft emotions (sadness, kindness and worry) and hard toys, the hard ones, (anger, revenge and triumph) (p. 97) As someone who has used sword fencing with teenagers with autism and also learning difficulties, I was fascinated to read the chapter called The way of the warrior. As the author says, some might question, if, when working with individuals who show violence and can explode in anger, fight techniques increase the violent potential. This is often asked by parents and teachers. I have always maintained that the reverse is usually the case. Through martial arts or sword fighting, the individual is learning to put limits on their anger; learning new ways to set limits which they internalise. The method takes over from the feeling. Jonas Torrance describes his work with one individual through the use of martial arts, plus the careful use of sticks. Having used conventional martial arts moves, the addition of sticks changed everything at a deep level: