Play therapy is a therapeutic discipline and intervention technique that can provide a secure environment to the client to make sense of their own world through playing with a therapist. Play therapy can be practiced by different mental health professionals such as counselors, psychologists, social workers, marriage and family therapists to help troubled children. As age increases, clients might choose different therapy styles such as Dialectical- Behavioral Therapy (DBT) Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and Psychoanalytic therapy that allows them to express themselves verbally. Most children don’t have the same vocabulary as adults do; so it is harder for them to understand their feelings, define the difficulties and communicate what is desired and acknowledged and as a result, restructure their environment as wants and needs of them are expressed in healthy manner. Play is used as the main medium of communication in play therapy since children can’t express themselves through direct verbal communication as well as adults do in these and other therapy techniques. Rather than sitting with a client and communicating verbally, therapist allows client to play during sessions. Through playing with a therapist, child’s wants and needs would be expressed as the therapeutic relationship between them develops.
The therapeutic relationship between therapist and child is built on trust and care. Therapist allow troubled child to communicate through play at his/her own level and pace in given time for self-expression. The main role of a play therapist is to provide therapy, help parents or parental figures to The therapy room is a place that child and therapist shares a session with and should be easy to clean up yet let a child to be messy, predictable, safe and orderly. Sessions can last from 30 to 50 minutes. In these sessions, children can use different type of toys and materials such as puppets to play-out the family dynamics or such as sand to relieve stress and anxiety.
There are many types of toys and materials from different categories that should be available for a child to use in therapy room such as
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Real- life related/ Nurturing toys such as doll houses, dolls and doll family, baby bottle, puppets, kitchen food, cars, cash, etc.
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Creative- artistic expression/ emotional release toys such as paints, sand, Play-Doh, clay, musical instruments, paper and pencils, magic wand, etc.
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Acting-out, Aggressive toys such as toy soldiers, guns (plastic and colored), foam sword, rubber knife, handcuffs, aggressive looking animals such as sharks, etc.
Every toy should not be allowed in a therapy room. Toys should be simple and easy to use, durable and fun. Toys also should have a purpose to be in there. Different toys have different purposes. Some of the purposes of chosen toys is to allow a child to
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Encourage the exploration of himself/herself and others
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Explore real life experiences such as roles and values
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Express the needs and wants symbolically
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Express variety of ranges of emotion
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Create.
Given the basics, play therapy is an ever-growing and dynamic field of therapy. Discovery of new techniques will be cooperated in and new researches will allow play therapists to implement the new techniques, toys and materials for expression of troubled child.
