PLAY THERAPY

                                      PLAY THERAPY

1.      THEORY:

·         Play therapy emerged in the early 1900s and has since developed new approaches and built on existing ideas. Cattanach (1994) suggests that play is a symbolic process through which the child can experiment with imaginary choices appropriately distanced from the consequences of those choices in real life.

·         It is children’s natural means of self-expression.

·         Play has also been considered to be a form of self-therapy for children, through which anxieties and conflicts are often resolved.

·         Play can help children resolve problems arising from stressful situations by means of connecting the safety of their dream world with the harsher realities of their life predicament (Lonie, 1974, cited in Doverty, 1992).

·         Play therapy can be directive, where the therapist may assume responsibility for guidance and interpretation (Axline, 1947), or non-directive, where the child directs his or her own activities and the therapist is seen as a facilitator of therapy (Wilson et al., 1992).

2.      DEFINATION:

·         A form of counseling or psychotherapy in which play is used as means of helping children express or communicate their feelings

3.      IMPORTANCE:

·         Play therapy is generally employed with children age 3 through 11

·         It provides a way for them to express their experiences and feelings through a natural self-guided, self-healing process

·         Children’s experience and knowledge are often communicated through play

·         It becomes an important vehicle for them to know and accept themselves and others

4.      GOALS OF PLAY THERAPY:

·         Help child become aware of feelings

·         Learn and practice self-control and alternative behaviors

·         Develop capacity to trust adults

·         Develop capacity to relate to an adult in an open ,positive ,and caring manner

·         Enhance child self-control, self –concept, and self-efficacy   

5.      THEORETICAL BASIS OF PLAY THERAPY:

·         Play therapy is based upon three critical theoretical principles

·         Actualization: human are motivated by an innate tendency to develop constructive and healthy capacities

·         The need for positive regard: All  people require warmth respect and acceptance from others especially from significant others

·         Play as communication:  children use play as their primary medium of communication, play is a format for transmitting chidren’s emotions thoughts ,values and perceptions

6.      TYPES OF PLAY THERAPY:

·         Play therapy can be divided into two basic types:

Ø  Non-directive: non directive play therapy is non-intrusive method in which children are encouraged to work toward their own solutions to problems through play  

Ø  Directive: directive play therapy is a method that includes more structure and guidance by the therapist as children work through emotional and behavioural difficulties through play.it often behavioural component and the process include more prompting by the therapist

7.      MODALITIES OF PLAY THERAPY:

7.1.Psychoanalytical play therapy

·         According to Gunn (1975),The psychoanalytical theory assumes that play has the need to repeat unpleasant experiences in a playful way, thereby reducing their seriousness and allowing for acceptance.

·         Freud (1940; cited in Clancy and Clark, 1990) argued that a motivation for play is to attempt to resolve conflicts in the absence of a realistic opportunity to do so (Clancy and Clark, 1990), and suggested that children create worlds of their own and arrange and order things of that world in a new way which pleases them better.

·         Clancy and Clark (1990) suggest that Klein and Anna Freud developed and refined Freud’s ideas of the creation of model play situations for the acquisition of skill mastery by a child, and applied psychoanalytical ideas to treatment of disturbed children through play

7.2.Object relations therapy

·         It is believed that a child’s natural form of communication is through play.

·         Winnicott (1971) believed that ‘to stop playing was to stop thinking’.

·         He felt that play is a way in which rapport is established and, given a trusting relationship in an environment that facilitates communication, the therapist invests in the child’s ability to express his or her inner world through play.

·         Jennings (1993) suggests that, although Klein introduced the technique of play through which interpretations can be made about a child’s unconscious world, it was Winnicott who recognised the importance of the creative and playful relationship between mother and child, therapist and client.

·         Winnicott’s theories are embedded in a classic Freudian framework and draw attention to the series of relationships that the child forms. Play in Winnicott’s view was ‘the means whereby the child manages the transition between the inner world of the psyche and outer reality’

7.3.Release therapy

·         According to Wilson et al. (1992), this form of play therapy is directed towards helping a child who has experienced some sort of traumatic event, to work through and gain control over feelings related to this. It is based on the psychoanalytical idea of re-enacting or experiencing a particular event, so that blocked-off feelings are released and eventually extinguished.

7.4.Structured play therapy or focused techniques

·         This has principally been developed by Oaklander (1988) working in a gestalt framework (Wilson et al., 1992). Oaklander (1988) believes that, whatever activity she engages in with a child, the basic purpose of a session is always, ‘to help the child become aware of herself or her existence in the world’

7.5.Drama-based techniques

·         Jennings (1993) has a background in drama and drama therapy and has always taken the significance of play as implicit in the development of drama.

·         She saw the play of children as the basis of both drama and the capacity for human beings to create and recreate.

·         Jennings (1990) developed a model of three evolving developmental stages from early infant sensation (embodiment play), when the child evaluates the immediate environment using the senses, through projective play with toys and objects, to the dramatic, social role-play of children. These stages can be worked through in play therapy to help the child progress emotionally.

·         The advantage of this approach appears to be that it enables children whose emotional needs have been inadequately met in the past to regress to re-experience earlier stages of emotional growth, before they can mature and move on (Bell et al., 1989).

7.6.Non-directive play therapy

·         Jeffrey (1981, cited in McMahon, 1992) suggests that 80 per cent of play therapy undertaken by occupational therapists is non-directive.

·         Axline (1947) described non-directive play therapy as being based on the fact that ‘play is the child’s natural medium of self-expression. It is an opportunity that is given to that child to “play out” his feelings and problems just as, in certain types of adult therapy, an individual “talks out” his difficulties’.

·         Non-directive play therapy is seen as a client-centred humanistic approach, based on the principles of the non-directive counselling techniques developed by Rogers in client-centred therapy for adults

·         Jennings (1993) suggests that non-directive play therapy emphasises that play in itself is a healing process, with which Jeffrey (1982) agrees, suggesting that the child plays out feelings rather than repressing them; the child then relaxes emotionally, realizes how he can direct his own life and matures.

8.      PRINCIPLES:

·         The therapist must developed a warm friendly relationship with the child

·         The therapist develops a feeling of permissiveness

·         The therapist unconditionally accepts the child

·         The therapist recognized the child’s ability feelings expressed in play

·         The therapist develops a feelings of permissiveness

·         The therapist respects the child’s ability to solve problems for herself

·         The therapist does not direct the child’s action

·         The therapist does not hurry the therapy

·         The therapist established only the needed limitations needed to anchor therapy to reality

9.      ADVANTAGE:

·         Better social integration

·         Growth and development

·         Emotional development

·         Play therapy can also be used as a tool of diagnosis