Windows to Our Children Paperback – Import, 1 January 1989

Absolutely lovely book. I’m training to be a therapist, and this book has helped me not only connect more deeply with my child clients, but also with myself. Violet Oaklander has so much wisdom to offer and the examples provided are so helpful and make this engaging and easy to read. As a result, I’ve been feeling so inspired and better prepared to drop into the imaginal and experiential realm in both my clinical work and inner work.

Fantastic

Probably one of the key texts for anyone completing direct work with children. This is a hard but excellent read and covers so many useful aspects of how we can gain an insight when working with vulnerable children.Excellent book, well worth the investment.

As a clinical social worker, children love working with me and love coming back time and again. But I admit that I have much more of a knack for working towards change with adults, despite loving working with children. I am a relational/experiential psychotherapist in the camp of Dr. Fosha's approach, and I love Gestalt therapy as well. To try and find congruent approaches to work with youth and make what I do actually therapeutic has been a struggle.That is why I feel such a sense of coming home with this book. It is exactly the way I have been dying to find that I didn't know existed. I have studied the play and art methods outlined in this book but she has a particular Gestaltean approach that reorients these methods to be much more experiential, emotion and growth focused and fun. Gestalt therapy is simply made for children! It's so imaginative, spontaneous, and playful. Children just resonate with it fantastically!And the author's passion and love of children is profoundly heart warming and touching.The book is pretty process oriented and not always linear in presentation, which may put some people off. But feels like that off the wall Gestalt expression such as in the early Gestalt writings. Has many great transcripts with real sessions. Extremely helpful in learning the approach.I am in debt to this great human being for such a transmission of a lifetime of devoting to children's well being. I also bought her other book.Best approach I've come across since Daniel Hughes

This is one of those life changing books, even if you aren't studying to be a therapist. Violet Oaklander's warm humanity and down-to-earth ideas and -especially- her jargon-free way of writing make Windows to Our Children a joy to read. Don't be put off by the words "Gestalt Therapy" - Violet's book is just brimming with compassionate love for children of all ages and everyone can get something from it.