Play therapy

Play therapy is a method of meeting and responding to the mental health needs of children and is extensively acknowledged by experts as an effective and suitable intervention in dealing with children’s brain development. It is generally employed with children aged 3 through 11 and provides a way for them to express their experiences and feelings through a natural, self-guided, self-healing process. As children’s experiences and knowledge are often communicated through play, it becomes an important vehicle for them to know and accept themselves and others. Play therapy is a method of meeting and responding to the mental health needs of children and is extensively acknowledged by experts as an effective and suitable intervention in dealing with children’s brain development. It is generally employed with children aged 3 through 11 and provides a way for them to express their experiences and feelings through a natural, self-guided, self-healing process. As children’s experiences and knowledge are often communicated through play, it becomes an important vehicle for them to know and accept themselves and others. According to Jean Piaget, 'play provides the child with the live, dynamic, individual language indispensable for the expression of subjective feelings for which collective language alone is inadequate.' Play helps a child develop mastery over his innate abilities resulting to a sense of worth and aptitude. During play, children are driven to meet the essential need of exploring and mastering their environment. Play also contributes in the advancement of creative thinking. Play likewise provides a way for children to release strong sentiments making them feel relieved. During play, children play out undesirable life experiences by breaking them down into smaller parts, discharging emotional states or frames of mind that go with each part, integrating every experience back into the understanding they have of themselves and gaining a higher level and a greater degree of mastery. Play therapy is a form of counseling or psychotherapy that uses play to communicate with and help people, especially children, to prevent or resolve psychosocial challenges. This is thought to help them towards better social integration, growth and development, emotional modulation, and trauma resolution. Play therapy can also be used as a tool for diagnosis. A play therapist observes a client playing with toys (play-houses, pets, dolls, etc.) to determine the cause of the disturbed behavior. The objects and patterns of play, as well as the willingness to interact with the therapist, can be used to understand the underlying rationale for behavior both inside and outside of therapy session. Caution, however, should be taken when using play therapy for assessment and/or diagnostic purposes. According to the psychodynamic view, people (especially children) will engage in play behavior in order to work through their interior obfuscations and anxieties. According to this particular viewpoint, play therapy can be used as a self-help mechanism, as long as children are allowed time for 'free play' or 'unstructured play.' However, some forms of therapy depart from non-directiveness in fantasy play, and introduce varying amounts of direction, during the therapy session. An example of a more directive approach to play therapy, for example, can entail the use of a type of desensitization or relearning therapy, to change troubling behaviors, either systematically or through a less structured approach. The hope is that through the language of symbolic play, such desensitization will likely take place, as a natural part of the therapeutic experience, and lead to positive treatment outcomes. Play has been recognized as important since the time of Plato (429–347 B.C.) who reportedly observed, 'you can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation' . In the eighteenth century, Rousseau (1712–1778), in his book Emile, wrote about the importance of observing play as a vehicle to learn about and understand children. Friedrich Fröbel, in his book The Education of Man (1903), emphasized the importance of symbolism in play. He observed, 'play is the highest development in childhood, for it alone is the free expression of what is in the child's soul...children's play is not mere sport. It is full of meaning and import.' The first documented case, describing the therapeutic use of play, was in 1909 when Sigmund Freud published his work with 'Little Hans'. Little Hans was a five-year-old child who was suffering from a simple phobia. Freud saw him once briefly and recommended that his father take note of Hans' play to provide insights that might assist the child. The case of 'Little Hans' was the first case in which a child's difficulty was related to emotional factors. Hermine Hug-Hellmuth formalized the play therapy process by providing children with play materials to express themselves and emphasize the use of the play to analyze the child. In 1919, Melanie Klein (1955) began to implement the technique of using play as a means of analyzing children under the age of six. She believed that child's play was essentially the same as free association used with adults, and that as such, it was provide access to the child's unconscious. Anna Freud (1946, 1965) utilized play as a means to facilitate positive attachment to the therapist and gain access to the child's inner life. In the 1930s David Levy developed a technique he called release therapy. His technique emphasized a structured approach. A child, who had experienced a specific stressful situation, would be allowed to engage in free play. Subsequently, the therapist would introduce play materials related to the stress-evoking situation allowing the child to reenact the traumatic event and release the associated emotions.