Ironically enough, play therapy and working with children were not on my radar when I entered into my graduate counseling program. I had other passions and populations I wanted to gain skills for during my time in school. However, one of my professors was a Play Therapist and she shared a statistic that rocked my world. She said that 3 out of every 10 clients is a child, but only 1 in 10 therapists are willing to work with children (1). I remember my heart breaking in that moment for the lack of resources children have. And it was in that moment that I decided even if children weren’t my “ideal” population, that I would at least develop skills of competency to prevent having to turn a child away. Let’s fast forward to a few months later when I took the play therapy class my school offered.
I still wasn’t sold on this whole “play therapy” thing. To be quite honest, it was so foreign I thought it was kinda weird. However, throughout that class and my own experience, I began to realize just how important and powerful play can be. I was pleasantly surprised to see how my love for play therapy and children grew. Now I couldn’t imagine not doing play therapy! So let’s turn to that now; what is play therapy?
Play therapy is a type of counseling that is developmentally appropriate for children aged 3-7 years (approximately). Children are often expected by those around them to verbally talk about how they feel and what is bothering them. However, words are not the first language of a child; play is. Therefore, play should be the avenue for children to work out difficult feelings and experiences. It is helpful to think of “play as a child’s language and toys as their words”(2). Just as adults come to counseling to find healing through the medium of talking, children come to find healing through the medium of playing.
I know many people may think (or even verbalize), “how is this helpful? My child is just playing!”. I would respond to that by saying during a play session a child is given space to communicate their feelings and experiences in a way that is natural to them. They are provided the opportunity to work through difficult emotions, make good decisions, learn to obey limits and take responsibility for their actions (3). Most importantly, just as in talk therapy with adults, the child is provided a therapeutic relationship they can use for their personal growth. Children are a lot smarter than we often give them credit for and when a child comes to the play room they learn lots of skills that translate into their everyday life.
I would encourage anyone interested in learning more about play therapy to visit this website: a4pt.org. If you click on “About APT” to the right of your webpage, click on “APT Youtube channel”. There you will find a video featuring a child named Andrew, who can provide you with more information on this therapeutic approach. As always, thanks for reading and happy playing!
1Dr. Davis. 2Landreth, G. L. (2002). Play therapy: The art of the relationship. New York, NY: Brunner-Ruttledge. 3Bratton, S., Ray, D., & Rhine, T. (2005). The efficacy of play therapy with children: A meta-analytic review of treatment outcomes. Journal of Professional Psychology Research and Practice, 36(4), 376-390.