Reading and Expressive Writing with Traumatised Children, Young Refugees and Asylum Seekers: Unpack My Heart with Words

Marion Baraitser is an award-winning, performed and commissioned London playwright and published short story writer. She was given the British Council Travel Award to foster peace in the Mediterranean as a playwright in 1997, and has founded her own small press, Loki Books, which 'voices the voiceless.' Marion is the writer in residence at the Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile, and she lives in London with her husband, four children and grandchildren. marionbaraitser.com

Drawing on the author's work with young asylum seekers and refugees, this book explores how literature can be used to help children and young people who have been victims of violence overcome their experiences and regain self-worth. It covers all aspects of implementing the therapy, including the theory behind it and practical advice.

Foreword by Sheila Melzak. Introduction. Part 1. Terror and Telling: Entering the Young Asylum Seeker's World. 1. War trauma, abuse, and the interrupted narrative. 2. Linking external and internal worlds. 3. Self-narration and identity: therapeutic writing that reconstructs and connects. 4. 'I am neither here nor there': living in two cultures. Part 2. Mapping the Terrain. 5. Healing words have history. 6. Approaches. 7. Processes. 8. The key: selecting books. 9. Core competencies: training and organisations. 10. Ethics and good practice. Part 3. Derring-do: Entering the Symbolic World. 11. Trauma and word-play. 12. Accessing trauma through images, symbols, and metaphors. 13. Dreams and fantasies in trauma. 14. Fairy tales and myths: therapeutically 'storied pain'. 15. Using poems and stories in developmental reading/writing. Part 4. Social Dynamics. 16. The value of commonality and community. 17. Group skills. Part 5. Brain Works: Putting your Mind to It. 18. The creative brain: trauma, memory, and narrative. 19. The brain, literature and trauma. Part 6. Mapping the Research: the Efficacy of Writing on Trauma: an Evaluation. 20. Controlled laboratory studies and 'real world' projects. 21. Interapy: therapy online, future research.