How is Play Therapeutic for My Child?

Each of us comes with our own perceptions of what therapy is and what it looks like, and most adults experience the therapeutic process through talking and reflecting with a licensed therapist. Knowing this, it’s no wonder that play therapy can be riddled with misconceptions! 

Although the early roots of play therapy start back in 1909, it took decades for play therapy to be recognized as a widely used research-based, evidence-based, peer-reviewed practice. Having the term “play” in the name naturally brings up characteristics like fun, pleasurable, creative, free, spontaneous - all things we enjoy, but not what we often associate with the depth of examination and intensity required to be doing the work and healing in therapy. However, Play Therapy is not the everyday play we witness our children engaged in, it is a systematic and therapeutic approach. 

“Play is a child’s natural medium for self-expression. It is an opportunity which is given to the child to “play out” their feelings and problems just as in certain types of adult therapy, an individual “talks out” their difficulties.”

- Virginia Axline

Sometimes caregivers come to us confused about how playing in therapy is any different than the play they see their children already doing at home or school. This naturally brings up such questions as: 

• Why am I paying you to play with my child? 

• Why can’t they just do talk therapy? 

• How is play therapeutic for my child? 

The most effective agent of change in psychotherapy is the therapeutic relationship. Play itself is the source of change, not the moderator or the medium. The Association for Play Therapy (APT) defines play therapy as “the systematic use of a theoretical model to establish an interpersonal process wherein trained play therapists use the therapeutic powers of play to help clients prevent or resolve psychosocial difficulties and achieve optimal growth and development.”  

So, what does that really mean?  

We are giving our child clients the opportunity to "talk" through their use of play in a developmentally appropriate way that they understand and that is helpful to them. 

“We do not learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience.”

- John Dewey

Play therapy is a modality that serves children based on their most effective form of communication - play! While we are supportive of children talking in our sessions, having a direct conversation about their struggles isn’t the end goal in a play therapy session. We recognize that a child does not need to explicitly verbalize her or his feelings to benefit profoundly from therapy. 

There are many types of play therapy, and each of our clinicians has specialized training in multiple approaches in order to help support your child in a way that works best for their personal growth. Here are some examples of the models we regularly utilize in our offices:

• Child Centered Play Therapy - a child-led approach that is commonly used with children who have faced adverse childhood experiences in order to self-actualize their potential and growth

• Adlerian Play Therapy - a semi-directive approach focused on building courage, connection, capability, and counting in their worlds

• Gestalt Play Therapy - a directive model that assists the child with finding aspects of themselves they have lost, helping them heal and reset so they can achieve optimal growth

• Cognitive Behavioral Play Therapy - a directive model that uses play to evaluate thoughts in an effort to change feelings and behaviors while teaching skills to support growth

• Experiential Play Therapy - a child-directed approach that is collaborative in regaining empowerment through practice in the moment

• Synergetic Play Therapy - a non-directive or directive approach that provides a neurological foundation for understanding a child’s play, models effective emotional regulation, and build’s a child’s connection to self

Now that we have more insight into different types of play therapy, let’s jump right into the 20 therapeutic powers of play from the research of Dr. Charles Schaefer and Dr. Athena Drewes. The therapeutic powers of play are specific change agents in which play initiates, facilitates, or strengthens their therapeutic effect. Play actually helps produce the desired change in a child!

Play Facilitates Communication.

1. Self Expression - Play provides children with the opportunity to express their feelings, thoughts, and to make sense of their experiences

2. Access to the unconscious - Play expresses the language of the right hemisphere of our brain, allowing children to rework their earlier emotional responses and associated memories through projection, displacement, and symbolization in a safe way

3. Direct teaching -  In play, children are actively involved in the learning process through receiving instruction, observing their clinician model a skill, and participating in guided practice paired with encouragement

4. Indirect teaching - Play allows children to tell their stories through a metaphor, allowing themes to emerge that are directly related to how they originally processed an event

Play Fosters Emotional Wellness.

1. Catharsis - Play gives children an opportunity to purge their negative feelings (like anger or aggression) in order to obtain a calm psychological state

2. Abreaction - Play helps children recreate experiences in an attempt to assimilate unexpected and uncontrollable experiences that have confused, overwhelmed, and disempowered them

3. Positive emotions - Play creates a space that gives children permission to have fun, be joyful, smile, laugh, be silly, and feel happy

4. Counter conditioning fears - Play reduces a fearful or anxious response by helping children learn an incompatible positive response to be matched with it (systematic desensitization)

5. Stress inoculation - Play helps children learn and manage feelings related to future events that are likely to be stressful by providing toys and materials related to the stressor that allow a child to play out what might happen

6. Stress management - Play facilitates cognitive, physical, and emotional opportunities for children to decrease stress through self-soothing/relaxing play, fantasy/pretend play, social play, and exploratory play

Play Enhances Social Relationships.

1. Therapeutic relationship - Play allows children to experience a sense of security and trust in the therapy process and feel comfortable with an attuned clinician that embodies the characteristics of a healthy caregiver-child relationship/attachment

2. Attachment - Play helps reorder and organize a child’s internal experiences through attuned and responsive interactions with a clinician so that the automatic feelings and behaviors that arise will become more coherent and satisfying

3. Social competence - Play helps children improve communication skills, self-control of impulses, reciprocity & empathy, and recognition & control of emotions

4. Empathy - Play allows for repetitive, relational experiences that are met with authenticity, genuineness, and warmth from a clinician

Play Increases Personal Strengths.

1. Creative problem solving - Play allows children to generate ideas, stories, and emotions from scratch, which improves divergent thinking, flexibility in problem solving, gains in insight, and use of new coping skills

2. Resiliency - Play reduces risk factors and increases protective factors through providing a new perspective of oneself in a nonjudgmental environment where vulnerability can thrive

3. Moral development - Play gives children opportunities to place different values on rules and weigh these values relative to their developmental level

4. Accelerated psychological development - Play provides opportunities to practice and develop a multitude of skills cognitively, linguistically, socially, and emotionally

5. Self-regulation - Play helps children improve their executive functioning by practicing the mental processes that allow them to delay gratification through independent and assisted skills

6. Self-esteem - Play therapists enhance a child’s self-esteem through acceptance and caring, consistent positive feedback, cognitive restructuring, empowerment training, modeling, and opportunities for practice

In summary, numerous reviews of play therapy outcome research have shown that play therapy is effective. As numbered above, inherent in play behaviors are multiple active forces that produce behavioral change. Children are not one-size-fits-all and they require a clinician who is thoroughly trained in multiple play therapy theories and techniques in order to select and integrate several powers of play in a therapeutic session. 

References:

• The Association for Play Therapy www.a4pt.org 

• Schaefer, C. E., & Drewes, A. A. (Eds.), (2014). The therapeutic powers of play: 20 core agents of change (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Interested in booking a session with us?

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WRITTEN BY JACLYN SEPP, MA, LPC-S, RPT-S™, NCC, RYT® 200 (SHE/HER/HERS)

Jaclyn believes that all human beings, no matter how small, deserve a place to be accepted for who they are, which drove her to establish Ensemble Therapy in 2015 with the mission to bring high quality therapeutic services to children, teens, and their families in Central Austin. Jaclyn is a Licensed Professional Counselor Supervisor (LPC-S), Registered Play Therapist Supervisor™ (RPT-S™), National Certified Counselor (NCC) and Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT® 200).  She received her Master’s Degree in Professional Counseling from Texas State University (CACREP Accredited Program) and her Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology with a Minor in Applied Learning & Development from The University of Texas at Austin.