Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Play Therapy
Play Therapy
INTRODUCTION
• Play Therapy is a method of meeting and responding to the
mental health needs of children.
• Scary/Pretend/Fantasy Toys:
• Used as a metaphor for working through effects of negative persons or
circumstances contributing to poor mental health.
• Examples: Snakes, ghosts, costumes, villain figurines
• Sandtray:
• “[Sandtray therapy] is often used with children, but can
be applied to adults, teens, couples, families, and groups
as well. Sandtray therapy allows a person to construct his
or her own microcosm using miniature toys and colored
sand. The scene created acts as a reflection of the
person’s own life and allows him or her the opportunity to
resolve conflicts, remove obstacles, and gain acceptance
of self.”
TECHNIQUES USED
• The Mad Game
• The Mad Game, developed by Patricia Davidson and described
by Hall, Kaduson, and Schaefer (2002), can be used to show
children that it’s okay to feel anger and to encourage them to
express it in a healthy way.
• Positive Postings
• This talk therapy technique from Jacqueline Melissa Swank will help the therapist
assess and improve the child’s sense of self-esteem and encourage positive self-
talk.
• This technique can also be adapted for use in group and family therapy sessions.
THERAPY WORKSHEET
• Small Talk Family Discussion Cards Handout
• Anger Stop Signs Worksheet
• My Changing Family Worksheet
• Dealing with Bullying Worksheet
• Emotion Faces Handout
• About Me Sentence Completion Worksheet
• Why I’m Grateful Worksheet
• Using Rewards and Punishments Handout
• Goal Sheet Worksheet
• What is Worry? Worksheet
• My Fears Worksheet
PRAISING CHILDREN
• I’m grateful for you.
• You don’t have to be perfect to be great.
• This family wouldn’t be the same without you.
• I’m excited to spend time with you.
• Seeing you happy makes me happy.
• I learn new things from you every day.
• Watching you grow up is the best.
HOW CAN AN EMOTIONAL CHILD
BENEFIT FROM PLAY THERAPY?
PLAY THERAPY FOR ADULTS
• For adults, play fosters adaptive behaviour such as
• Creativity
• Frey (1983) describes four categories of children’s play:
physical, manipulative, symbolic, and games. Adult
activities in each of these categories hold enormous
creative potential.
• Jung believed that the key to unlocking his creative
potential was to engage in the constructive play he had
particularly enjoyed as a child.
• Role Rehearsal
• Children bandage imaginary hurts; spend hours
pretending to cook, shop, travel, and go to school; and
be everything from a firefighter to ballet dancer.
• Adults do the same thing in much subtler ways.
• Example:, Halloween , Loud conversation with oneself
before an interview.
• Mind - Body Integration
• Play is a holistic experience in that it invites our total being
into the process.
• It uses both hemisphere of our brain
• The left, analytical, side is essential in deciding what to do
next, which strategies get us the win etc
• The right, artistic, side allows us to enjoy the experience -
When we are laughing, singing, moving about happily, or simply
engrossed in a pleasant diversion (i.e., play), we tend to take
fuller breaths, thus getting a better oxygen exchange.
• General muscle tension is eased which reduces fatigue and
generalized body aches and stiffness.
SHOULD PLAY THERAPY BE
CULTURALLY SENSITIVE?
• Play behaviour of children, not universal across different
cultures
• Therapists should be able to differentiate between
pathological and cultural play variants
• Play therapy focuses on expression of emotion through
play: however certain cultures favour indirect and subtle
forms of communication
• Lesser structure in play therapy, makes parents from
certain cultures like Asians believe that the therapist is
only “playing” with the kid, as they focus more on
achievement and goal orientation
CULTURALLY SENSITIVE PLAY
THERAPY
• Having culturally sensitive materials in play rooms
• Culture-neutral items and culture-specific items (eg-
homes that are representative of all levels of
socioeconomic families; dolls of varied ethnicities etc)
• Use of multicultural artifacts
• Play therapists described the need to be aware of the
child, the culture of the child, and the awareness of
differences
INTEGRATION OF PLAY THERAPY
WITH OTHER THERAPIES
• Cognitive Behavioural Play Therapy
• a developmentally sensitive treatment for young children that
relies on flexibility, decreased expectation for verbalizations by
the child, and increased reliance on experiential approaches