Page Title

About Me:
                An Interactive Workbook
              for Children to Explore Their Feelings
            By
Randall Holland, Ph.D.

THE STORY BEHIND THE WORKBOOK.......Twenty-seven years ago
I was offered the opportunity of doing my Marriage and Family
Therapy internship with mostly school-age children at a county
mental health facility. I loved kids and was a very active father of two
boys and thought this would be a relatively easy entry into the field. I
soon learned that getting into children’s thoughts and feelings was
no easy task. I also quickly learned that these children would much
rather play than talk. They would easily draw, write and act out
stories, play with puppets and dolls, clay and paints, and go to
almost any length to avoid answering questions about their
“problems”. So I began looking for creative ways for children to
identify and express their feelings and thoughts, likes and dislikes,
and ways to make contact with their world. Along with other media, I
found that many children would disclose more about themselves by
writing and drawing than by talking. Along with my arsenal of home-
made clay, sock puppets, sand tray, crayons and paint, I started
making up little booklets with pages for them to write, draw and
places for personal information. I gradually included pages to draw
family, friends, school, and sentence completion pages about fears,
problems, hopes and dreams. The children seemed to like doing
the little workbooks that had their name on them and they were kept
in a special drawer in my office to be worked on each session. Often
the children I saw would reveal something significant in these
workbooks that was never talked about with anyone else. They wrote
about and drew detailed nightmares, fears, and described physical,
mental and sexual abuse along with their fantasies, hopes and
dreams. I also started to learn a great deal about how their families
functioned by how they used the workbooks. I began to realize that a
workbook could be used as a legitimate therapy tool, a means to
elicit personal information as well as a projective instrument.
Fortunately the agency had a copy machine and a saddle stapler. I
began making copies of the ten-page workbook and gave them to
my fellow interns, therapists, parents, child protective workers and
teachers. The response was very positive. Soon the demand for the
little workbooks expanded . I added several pages, had my 8 year old
son draw a cover, and soon the book was being used by several
agencies, private practitioners and the pediatric department at three
local psychiatric hospitals. The workbook went through several
changes and kept growing. I added pages about school, feelings
identification and expression and self-esteem. In 1986 I sent the
workbook to KIDSRIGHTS asking if they were interested in
publishing it. They liked the idea, published the workbook and
included it in their catalog. “About Me” workbook has been
successful in various forms since 1986. It has undergone significant
changes but the principle of the workbook remains the same: offer a
relatively simple, general workbook for children to easily identify,
validate and express their thoughts and feelings.

About the same time I was searching for a dissertation topic for my
doctoral program in clinical psychology. I proposed: “The
Development, Use and Effectiveness of a Therapy Workbook for
Children” to my dissertation committee who eventually accepted it.
After several years of research based on use of the workbook by 34
therapists working with school age children, the mountains of
computer generated statistics validated the use of the workbook with
a multitude of treatment modalities and diagnostic categories. To
quote the dissertation abstract, “It was concluded that the workbook
was found to be clinically useful by a wide range of clinicians for use
with a wide range of children.”
Last year I decided to revise the workbook which is currently
available from KIDSRIGHTS. With the grateful assistance of the
publisher, I have expanded the workbook overall, adding several
anger identification/management pages and organized the
workbook in sections: personal identification, socialization with
adults and friends, aspects of family and a section on feelings
identification and expression.
I am also very excited about my current project, the logical “next step”
for About Me called “About Me for Teens”. This is very exciting for
several reasons. While the content and use of the book is similar to
“About Me” for younger children, it covers a broader range of issues
age-appropriate to teens. “About Me for Teens” also contains a pre
and post questionnaire in the book. The questionnaire covers a
broad range of psychological indicators and can be used to assess
the effectiveness of the intervention-workbook combination
quantitatively. I felt this was an important addition to the book as the
need for outcome-based intervention is increasingly more important.
Sections of the book are being field-tested by teens from many
cultures from a wide range of geographical areas.
I welcome any and all feedback from teachers, parents and
professionals who have used the new, revised edition of the original
“About Me” or suggestions for “the “About Me for Teens” workbook
which will hopefully be available soon.o

MY MOM HAS MS, co-authored by M.S.
patient Denise Halbeisen, was written
for and about families who have a
parent diagnosed with Multiple
Sclerosis. Follow nine year-old
Shannon and her parents as they learn
how to deal with her mother's
diagnosis and every day family
difficulties. The book focuses on
common issues that affect school-age
children in M.S. families and helps
them identify and understand
problems, feelings and fears about
themselves and their parents. It is our
sincere hope that this book helps M.S.
families live, learn and grow together
despite living with a serious,
sometimes debilitating disease.

Page Title

Publications
by
Dr. Randy Holland

My Mom Has MS
Living with a parent with
Multiple Sclerosis

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Soon to be released 5th
Edition
of the ABOUT ME
workbook will be
published by
CreateSpace and
avaialble at
AMAZON.COM !!!