By Larry Shapiro for ChildsWork/ChildsPlay
There are tens of thousands of professionals who help children with emotional and behavioral problems, and yet only a small percentage would describe themselves as play therapists.
Play therapy was the first psychological technique that acknowledged the special way that children think and relate to adults. Before the introduction of play therapy in the 1930's and 1940's, children were most often treated as "little adults" when they went for treatment of an emotional disorder. It was assumed that they could develop insight into their problems through techniques such as word association and dream analysis, and that this insight would alleviate their emotional conflicts.
But pioneers in the field of child psychotherapy, such as Anna Freud and Melanie Klein, realized that children do not have the cognitive ability to think and talk about their problems the way that adults do. They saw that children "play out their problems," through dolls and puppets and other toys, and they reasoned that this would be a better channel of communication than conventional talk therapy.
But in spite of the interest in these new techniques, play therapy was not widely practiced. Rooted in psychoanalytic theory, you needed years of training in this highly theoretical method of helping children, and it was presumed that it might take many months, if not years, for children to show any progress.
In the 1960's and 1970's, play therapy took a much more practical direction. Paralleling the development of humanistic and client-centered therapy, a new non-directive approach to play therapy was developed by therapists like Virginia Axline and Clark Moustakas. Believing that the relationship between the therapist and child was the paramount therapeutic vehicle, non-directive therapy de-emphasized the need for theoretical interpretation of a child's play. The goal of play therapy was seen as providing experiences where children could resolve past conflicts and learn new, more appropriate behaviors.
In the last 30 years, we have seen an expansion in the techniques that are considered play therapy, making it accessible to an ever-growing number of children. The emphasis has been on more directive techniques, like game therapy, as well as on training other people in the child's life to use play therapy techniques. For example, Filial Therapy was developed by Bernard and Louise Guerney to teach parents basic play therapy techniques. The Primary Mental Health Project, developed at Rochester University in New York, has demonstrated that play therapy techniques can be taught -- in a relatively short period of time -- to paraprofessionals, who in turn can make a significant difference in preventing emotional problems in at-risk children.
Yet in spite of all of the exciting ways that play therapy techniques are being used to treat children, many counselors still associate play therapy with its early roots. They may think that play therapy needs to be done in a well-stocked play room, and that it requires years of specialized training. They may see it exclusively as a long-term process, impractical for the vast majority of today's children. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Play therapy techniques can be utilized anytime and anywhere, because children like to play anytime and anywhere. Play is a way that children relate to others, and it is not confined by time or place.
Once could easily argue that play, in and of itself, is therapeutic. Many studies have shown that humor in any form is beneficial to the body and the mind. When we laugh, our immune systems become stronger, stress bio-chemicals such as cortisol are reduced, our attitude improves and we become more optimistic and even more friendly. It would certainly seem likely that play would have these same results -- and not just for children. Play has the same health and mental health benefits for adolescents and adults, as well as for children.
As counselors and therapists, our challenge is to bring play techniques into all of our work. Don't think of play therapy as a single modality, the way that it was practiced thirty or more years ago. It is simply a tool to communicate with children. When you play with children, you are establishing a relationship with them on their terms. When you play with children, you are helping them find the joy in living, no matter how serious the problems they must face. When you play with children, you are finding your own pleasure in your work.
I once heard a story about a child psychiatrist, who dressed for work every day in a clown suit. I don't know whether the story is true, but I like to think about what it would be like to be a depressed child and have a clown for a therapist. Or what it would be like to be an ADHD child and go to someone for help who did not judge me because I was having problems in school, or because I frequently lost my temper? What would it be like to step into a world of play, even for one hour a week, where the true joy of childhood was never forgotten?
I am not advocating that you go out and by a clown suit. There are subtler ways to tell children that you will share your sense of fun. There are simpler ways that you can tell children that you will enter their world of imagination, and share a view of the world where life is not just one problem after another. There are hundreds of techniques that can be used to help children through play and playfulness. Just remember that you never need a reason or an excuse to play.
