Counseling Services of Barbara Reade, L.C.P.C.
Bel Air, Maryland 21014

Phone: 410-803-1510

Email: reade.lcpc@yahoo.com  

Play Therapy

WHAT IS PLAY THERAPY?

"Play gives children the opportunity to search for and experiment with alternative
solutions to their problems." Jerome Singer

”The majority of a child's social skills come as a result of play. During this stage, through play, your toddler will learn to form relationships and will begin to imitate adult actions and experiment with social activities.” KidsHealth.org

As a result, using play in therapy helps the child express the way he understands social relationships, problems, and resolution. To a child, this is the most natural way to express the way he sees the world, and what the world means to him. (Barbara Reade, LCPC, 2004) 

The natural language of children is play. A child can express his thoughts and feelings,
conflicts, confusion, and curiousity, safely through the vehicle of play. Because children
lack the cognitive maturity to benefit from talking through their problems play therapy
gives children a natural form of expression. They can begin to learn the feeling of
empowerment as they use the activity of play to resolve inner tensions. In a play
therapy session, the child is the director and rule maker. A child creates a world he can
master, practices social skills, overcomes frightening feelings, and symbolically
triumphs over the upsets and traumas that have stolen his sense of well-being.

A trained play therapist understands the symbolic meaning of a child's play, and strives
to help the child express his needs and discover solutions in a safe, therapeutic
environment. Play is the child's natural method of learning, developing, and expressing
his feelings. Play Therapy offers children the opportunity to use the power of their own
natural creativity and imagination to heal and grow.

Play therapy can offer healing to a young child like no other type of therapy can
accomplish.
______

Play Therapy's mission is to encourage the unique development and emotional growth of children through the process of play therapy, a dynamic interpersonal relationship between a child and a therapist trained in play therapy procedures. The therapist provides the child with selected play materials and facilitates a safe relationship to express feelings, thoughts, experiences and behaviors through play, the child's natural medium of communication.

_______

The Child-Centered Play Therapy Model...Child-Centered Play Therapy (CCPT) is the method of play therapy developed by Virginia Axline, an associate of Carl Rogers. CCPT follows the principles of Client-Centered Therapy of creating a non-judgmental, emotionally supportive therapeutic atmosphere, but with clear boundaries that provide the child with psychological safety to permit the learning of emotional and behavioral self-regulation. Research has validated that this is a powerful method for decreasing a wide range of child problems, for overcoming traumatic experiences, for developing expressive freedom and creativity, and for building self-esteem and more mature, pro-social behaviors. CCPT is based on eight clear cut principles applied in a systematic way to equip the therapist with a method uniquely capable of handling the many challenges of playing therapeutically with children and achieving predictively positive results.

 

Symptoms That Can Be Helped by Play Therapy
Many problems can be resolved in approximately fifteen play therapy sessions.

The types of problems you may observe include:

• aggressive behavior

• fears & anxieties

• nightmares

• difficulties with peers

• separation problems

• speech problems (i.e. stuttering...)

• temper tantrums

• sadness

• toilet training complications

• sleep disturbances

frustration intolerance

·         distractibility

·         withdrawn behavior

·         impulsivity

·         Attention Deficit Disorder (requires longer work; play therapy helps prevent the onset of ADHD, ADD)

·         adjustments to death, divorce, new baby...

·         trauma (physical or sexual abuse; accidents; family violence) (requires longer term work)

What You Can Expect from Play Therapy

FOR THE CHILD:  improved self esteem better capacity for decision making symptom relief better able to negotiate peer relationships emotional growth

FOR THE FAMILY: increased awareness regarding the developmental stage of your child, and strategies for meeting his/her needs appreciation of how family dynamics connect with the child's symptom an opportunity to work on deeper issues in the family to ensure lasting relief of the child's symptom

The Course of Play Therapy
Five stages:

1.      The child explores the environment and becomes familiar with the materials of the play therapy room.

2.      Limit setting is established by the therapist.

3.      The child has the trust of the therapist and expresses metaphorically through the play his/her deepest problems and needs.

4.      Integration occurs and is marked by noticeable changes in the outside life of the child, empowerment and growth of self esteem.

5.      Termination of play therapy.

How Play Therapy is Healing for the Child

For children, the medium of play is the most natural means of self expression. Language is too cumbersome for them when their need is to divulge deep feelings of jealousy, hate, love, fear, rejection, etc. The therapist, who has slowly gained the trust of the child, witnesses the child's expression of these feelings as the child plays and accepts totally the full range of emotions.

In the playroom, the child is in charge and chooses whatever toys or materials suit his/her need. A battle may be enacted by small figurines in the sandbox or a school yard scene may be dramatized with puppets. In either case, intricacies of the child's relational world will be metaphorically revealed.

Although the child is "playing", s/he knows on a deep level that s/he is being heard, accepted and understood, and this in itself is healing. The child experiences growth as various emotions surface, are controlled, andare released.

Book Recommendations: Child Centered Play Therapy, with Dr. Garry Landreth

Does your child need therapy?

"I do not view a child's behavior, displeasing
as it may sometimes be, as sickness. I view it as the child's evidence of strength and survival."
Violet Oaklander

Although many childhood upsets are healed without the intervention of therapy, play therapy offers children a natural, safe, and non intrusive method to hasten recovery from common distressing events as well as major traumas.

Parents sometimes believe that seeking therapy for their child would indicate parental failure. Although some children have been traumatized by events within the control of parents, many youngsters can benefit from play therapy who experienced situations over which their parents had no control, or were compelled to initiate for the child's benefit, such as medical procedures. Additionally, many children who have experienced no trauma of which their parents are aware can dramatically enhance their self-esteem through play therapy. In any case, obtaining the benefits of play therapy for a child is an indication of deep love and concern rather than failure.

Indications that a child may benefit from play therapy include:

·         Low self-esteem

·         Excessive anger, worry, sadness, or fear

·         Behavior which is immature for the child's age

·         Failure to learn or other school problems

·         Behavior which interferes with making friends

·         Problems with eating, sleep, or elimination

·         Preoccupation with sexual behavior

·         Physical symptoms such as headaches and stomach aches which have no medical cause

·         Difficulty adjusting to family changes

·         Talking about not wanting to live

·         Excessive shyness

·         Experiencing trauma such as:

·         Chronic illness

·         Illness or injury of a family member

·         Divorce or separation of parents

·         Death of a close family member or friend

·         Disasters such as accidents, fires, or flooding

·         Hospitalization

·         Birth Trauma

·         Painful or frightening medical procedures

·         Physical, emotional, or sexual abuse

·         Witness to domestic violence  Witness to abuse of other children