22 Facts About Play therapy

Play therapy refers to a range of methods of capitalising on children's natural urge to explore and harnessing it to meet and respond to the developmental and later their mental health needs.

Play therapy is extensively acknowledged by specialists as an effective intervention in complementing children's personal and inter-personal development.

Play and play therapy are generally employed with children aged six months through late adolescence and young adulthood.

Play therapy likewise provides a way for children to release strong emotions.

Play therapy's 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.

Play therapy can be divided into two basic types: non-directive and directive.

Non-directive play therapy is a non-intrusive method in which children are encouraged to play in the expectation that this will alleviate their problems as perceived by their care-givers and other adults.

In contrast, directed play therapy is a method that includes more structure and guidance by the therapist as children work through emotional and behavioural difficulties through play.

The hallmark of non-directive play therapy is that it has minimal constraints apart from the frame and thus can be used at any age.

Play therapy has been considered to be an established and popular mode of therapy for children for over sixty years.

Critics of play therapy have questioned the effectiveness of the technique for use with children and have suggested using other interventions with greater empirical support such as Cognitive behavioral therapy.

Recent play therapy researchers have worked to conduct more experimental studies with larger sample sizes, specific definitions and measures of treatment, and more direct comparisons.

Results from all meta-analyses indicate that non-directive play therapy has been shown to be just as effective as psychotherapy used with children and even generates higher effect sizes in some studies.

Parental involvement in play therapy sessions has been shown to diminish stress in the parent-child relationship when kids are exhibiting both internal and external behaviour problems.

Directive play therapy is guided by the notion that using directives to guide the child through play will cause a faster change than is generated by nondirective play therapy.

In directive Play therapy games are generally chosen for the child, and children are given themes and character profiles when engaging in doll or puppet activities.

Cognitive behavioral play therapy was then developed to be used with very young children between two and six years of age.

In 1973 Moustakas continued his journey into play therapy and published his novel The child's discovery of himself.

Play therapy's stages start with the child's feelings being generally negative and as they are expressed, they become less intense, the end results tend to be the emergence of more positive feelings and more balanced relationships.

Play therapy is an evidence based approach for children that allows them to find ways to learn, process their emotions, and make meaning of the world around them.

Play therapy can be used for several reasons including trauma, autism, behavior, attachment, and language.

Filial Play therapy has been shown to help children work through trauma and resolve behavior problems.