How Does Child Therapy Work? Child Therapy, i.e., Play Therapy is a mental health, educational, or developmental intervention designed to help children grow up as happy and well-adjusted as possible. It involves using play to communicate with children and help them learn to solve problems and change their negative behaviors. Sometimes it affects the entire family. At first, you might wonder why anyone would suggest play as a way to overcome children’s problems. Play Therapy is often recommended for children: Play is the primary way children… • Learn about the world • Understand how different things work • Express their thoughts and feelings • Develop their physical skills • Develop their mental skills • Develop practical social skills and bonds As children grow, their use of language becomes more sophisticated, but throughout childhood, they usually express much more of themselves in their play. We can understand our children better if we understand their play. By watching children play, we often learn more about their thoughts, feelings, motivations, and struggles than by talking with them! Play has been called the language of childhood, so if we re-learn that language, it can help us build even stronger relationships with our children. Play is not something trivial; on the contrary, it is one of the most critical elements of healthy child development! Perhaps you've seen some nature programs on television that show animal babies playing with each other or their mothers as they develop their hunting and survival skills. Scientists generally agree that play fosters the healthy development of young and adult animals alike. A long-term study of animal play in the wild reported in National Geographic (December 1994) suggests that play is a Rehearsal for the challenges and ambiguities of life. These types of play rehearsals lead to greater strength, increased physical and mental skills, improved judgment, greater security, and stronger social bonds, characteristics that contribute to success as the animal grows. The same is true for human children and adults. Playfulness and humor are closely related to mental health, intellectual development, creativity and problem-solving, and even productivity on the job! Although we sometimes think of play as trivial, it is actually one of the most vital supports for coping, learning, reasonable adjustment, and productive activity! Play Therapy is often used as a tool for diagnosis. A therapist observes a client playing with toys to determine the cause of the disturbing behavior. The objects and patterns of play and the willingness to interact with the therapist can be used to understand the underlying rationale for behavior inside and outside the session. According to the psychodynamic view, people (especially children) will engage in play behavior to work through their interior obfuscations and anxieties. In this way, play therapy can be used as a self-help mechanism as long as children are allowed time for free play or unstructured play. From a developmental point of view, the play has been determined to be an essential component of healthy child development. Play has been directly linked to cognitive development. Efficacy of Play Therapy Play Therapy is a technique whereby the child's natural means of expression, namely play, is used as a therapeutic method to assist them in coping with emotional stress or trauma. It has been used effectively with children who have an understanding level of a normal three to eight-year-old, who are; distraught due to family problems (e.g., parental divorce, sibling rivalry), nail biters, bed wetter’s, aggressiveness, social underdeveloped, or victims of child abuse. It has also been used with special education students whose disability is a source of anxiety or emotional turmoil. Practitioners of Play Therapy believe that this method allows the child to manipulate the world on a smaller scale, something that cannot be done in the child's everyday environment. By playing with specially selected materials and with the guidance of a therapist who reacts in a designated manner, the child plays out their feelings, bringing these hidden emotions to the surface where s/he can face them and cope with them. In its most psychotherapeutic form, the therapist is unconditionally accepting of anything the child might say or do. The therapist never expresses shock, argues, teases, moralizes, or tells the child that their perceptions are incorrect. An atmosphere should be developed in which the child knows that s/he can express themselves in a non-punitive environment. Yet even though the atmosphere is permissive, certain limits such as restrictions on destroying materials, physical aggression toward others, or going beyond a set time limit may have to be imposed. How is Play Therapeutic? Play Therapy creates a safe atmosphere where children can express themselves, try new things, learn more about how the world works, learn about social rules and restrictions, and work through their problems. Play therapy gives children an opportunity to explore and open up more than usual. When we, as adults, encounter a challenging problem, we often think about it for a while, look at it from different angles, determine our options, and sometimes talk about it with someone we trust. When things go wrong for us, we might mentally review what happened and think about how we might handle the situation in the future. During play therapy, children do these same things using their imaginations. Play therapy provides the tools (toys and activities) and the atmosphere to help children express themselves, work on their problems, Try on different solutions, and learn more effective coping methods. What happens in Play Therapy? Actually, there are many different types of play therapy, so what happens in a session can be quite varied. The common aspects are that the therapist holding the session will know how to systematically use play or playful activities to communicate with the child. The specific activities will differ. Here are some of the things that might happen. Sometimes therapists take children into a playroom that has a wide range of carefully selected toys. The toys are chosen because they help children express a variety of feelings and problems. The therapist allows the child to select the toys and the ways they want to play with them. The therapist pays close attention to the child's actions, and feelings, sometimes engaging in imaginary play with the child, and setting limits if the child's behavior gets out of line. In this type of play therapy, called child-centered play therapy, the child's problems or issues usually come out naturally in their play. For example, a girl whose mom had kidney failure and needed a transplant eventually made a small kidney out of modeling clay and performed an imaginary transplant on a stuffed animal in a play session. Over the course of several sessions, it became clear that the girl was quite worried about her mom, wanted to help her mom get better, and was playing in a way so that she (the child) wouldn't feel so helpless. Shortly after these sessions, she began to talk more openly with her mom about the upcoming surgery and her fears. Part of the therapist's training involves knowing how to interpret the meaning of children's play. Uncovering this information can help the therapist discuss the root causes of the problems with the parents and develop possible strategies that are more likely to work.