What is Play Therapy?
Play Therapy
Sometimes it’s difficult to put our feelings into words. This is the same for children, only sometimes they do not have the vocabulary to talk about what is going on for them.
This is where play comes in. For children, play is one of the most powerful ways of communicating and working things out.
Play therapy enables the child or young person to explore their difficulties and understand them. Play therapy provides the space for and freedom for the child to express their felt sense of their world and gives me a window to how they are experiencing it.
Children are like a pendulum and and eventually they will find balance because the playroom setting allows them to take the lead and practice new skills.
Who can benefit from Play Therapy ?
Play Therapy is appropriate for children and young people but is most often used with children between 4 and 14 years.
It is recommended for children who have experienced:
- Bed wetting and sleep disturbances
- Separation anxiety and school refusal
- Emotional or behavioural difficulties
- Loss through bereavement, family breakdown or relocation
- Illness, hospitalisation, and disability
- Being a witness to violence or substance abuse
- Cutting and self-harm
- Abuse or neglect
- Trauma due to single incident or prolonged trauma
- Bullying and bullying others
What is a Play Therapist?
Play Therapists are graduates with experience of working with children e.g. teaching, social work or psychology. To be registered as a Play Therapist they must have met the following criteria:
- completion of a Post Graduate Diploma in Play Therapy (Leeds Beckett University) and 200 hours of clinical experience
- on-going clinical supervision of their Play Therapy practice plus regular CPD
- DBS enhanced disclosure
Play Therapists draw on an extensive repertoire of neuroscience, attachment and child led, non-directive techniques to more focused interventions to enable the child work through their difficulties.
The Play Therapy Tool-kit
Play Therapy uses a variety of methods to encourage a child to explore their inner world and feelings.
Puppets, masks and drama enhances social relationships and self-care, enabling the safe release of fears, aggression and frustrations.
The creative arts and clay promote self-expression and provide methods to safely explore stressful or traumatic experiences.
Music, dance and movement enhances communication, improves social skills, and reduces stress.
SandStory® Therapy gives expression to non-verbalised emotional issues and provides a positive sensory experience.
Creative Visualisation helps to create new, positive beliefs, attitudes and behaviours.
Storytelling encourages creativity and allows the story within to find its voice.
Play therapy & Neurodivergence
How Play Therapy can help
Children don't come to see me because they have a diagnosis of ADHD or Autism, but they do come if they are experiencing difficulties that are interrupting their everyday functioning and sense of wellbeing.
Play therapy involves children engaging in play activities of their choice. The play therapy environment gives neurodivergent children opportunities to express themselves in ways that are most comfortable to them. Unlike many behavioural interventions, the play therapist’s job is participating in a relationship with the child through play.
Instead of the therapist leading therapy, children are in charge of the pace, direction, and content of their therapeutic journey.
In play therapy, the therapist enters the world of the child and uses the relationship as an intervention, rather than training children to engage in specific behaviours that may conflict with their natural ways of being.
The theory behind play therapy makes it suitable in addressing some of the core difficulties exhibited by neurodivergent children, such as difficulties with social interactions, emotional regulation and communication.
With play therapy, children have the opportunity to develop trust with the therapist and feel comfortable. Once a child feels safe, he or she may be motivated to engage socially with the play therapist, eventually expanding his or her skills to home and school environments.
Play therapy does not teach children to play but allows children to explore their own mode of playing at their own pace . Great importance and value is placed on a child's special interests.
In the playroom the child can can make decisions about the lighting and heating levels. They can choose from a range of chairs to sit on. A wide selection of sensory tools are available to fiddle with too.
Play therapy also helps to expand a child’s understanding of their emotional world and their identity.
SUPPORTING A CHILD'S EMOTIONAL REGULATION
How Directive Play Therapy can help
Children live in their emotional world so we meet them there. I begin by helping your child identify the feelings they are experiencing using toys, games or art.
Children can act out their feelings in a playful setting which gives them a a sense of control over their feelings rather than being overwhelmed by them.
Explaining emotional regulation to children using Interoception-based activities is a great way to help children connect with their feelings and learn to manage them.
Interoception is the sense that helps us feel what's happening inside our body—like when our heart is beating fast, or when we feel hungry or tired.
Some children may benefit from a more direct, therapist led, approach to their play therapy sessions.
Teaching children about Interoception can help them better understand their emotions and how to express how they feel.
By helping children become more aware of their body and the feelings it’s sending them, we are giving them tools to understand and manage their emotions in a healthy way.
I draw from a number of tried and tested activities, each playful and light hearted, to help children tune into themselves.
All the activities work by helping children develop emotional awareness and coping mechanisms to understand and manage their emotions in a healthy way.
How I work with older children
Tweens and Teens
Play and the Creative Arts Therapy and SandStory Therapy® are approaches which really suit tweens and younger teens. This age group often responds well to more structured symbolic play and the creative and expressive arts.
Once a child feels heard, seen and understood they are better able to make sense of what is bothering them.
When it's appropriate, I work more directively with older children and utilise a number of holistic strategies to empower them to better understand their inner and outer worlds.
Aims of Play Therapy with older children
To develop greater self-awareness & identity leading to increased self esteem.
To assist in the development of new skills for communicating.
To extend their emotional vocabulary.
To create and practice new skills for dealing with the typical challenges facing this age group.