What is Play Therapy?
I grew up in a small town of about 6-800 people on any given day. I don’t say an exact number because people were always coming and going and getting new farm animals, and of course the population reflects everyone’s livestock. (That’s a joke). I wasn’t a special child. I did things that normal children did. I played outside with my brothers, pretended my living room was a tiger battlefield or a baseball field and let my imagination take me wherever it wanted. I didn’t have the best gadgets or the most expensive toys, and I believe this led to a profound ability to be able to use my imagination.
Today, more and more kids are being deprived of that imagination. They don’t get to create worlds inside their mind and play it out with their bodies. They don’t believe in magic. They don’t create or use their creativity as much as we once saw before iPads and tablets. In fact, they are using these devices significantly more than many adults do. Children will not remember the time they spent on their iPad playing games when they are older. They will remember the relationships, the experiences, the memories, and how people in their lives took the time to listen to them, to communicate with them the way they know how. They will remember the person who helped them when they were hurt, comforted them when they cried, laughed until their tummies hurt over a silly game, and seeing new things for the first time. People build relationships. Technology builds distance. Read the impacts of technology on children here.
Children need to be able to play. They need to explore. They need to learn how to do things themselves. Play helps them figure things out on their own instead of having someone else do it just because the adult can get it done faster and more efficient. The more they can problem-solve on their own, the more self-confident they can become.
When I tell people I’m a play therapist, I often get one of two looks: confusion and an “uh-huh that’s cute but what can that do for my child” look. Play therapy is still a fairly uncommon type of therapy that many people and parents don’t know about. Play therapy is a type of language. It’s the language children use to communicate. Often times, as adults, we tend to think that children have the capacity to communicate just as we do --through words. However, many times, children cannot identify how they are feeling or communicate their experiences because they don’t have the brain development and vocabulary to do so.
Play is the language. Toys are the words. Children communicate their experiences through toys, through art, and through the process of play. Often, it’s not about what the child is playing with, but the process, the feelings that come out, the dialogue used, and whether the child engages the therapist in the play. Sometimes, the therapist will have activities of what to do with the child, and other times the therapist will allow the child to use the toys to experience whatever they need to in that moment.
Children play in themes in order to solve conflicts or re-enact problems at home, at school or within relationships. The play therapist narrates the play, adding feeling words and helping them process through the conflict on their own. Children who have experienced trauma, however, may have a more difficult time connecting with the toys and with the therapist. With them, it’s often about the relationship with the therapist first, and while we would all like it to be a quick fix, this process could take months until the child feels completely safe.
Plato said that one can learn more about another in an hour of play, than in a year of conversation. Play allows children, teens and even adults, process their emotions and traumas in a subconscious way--a way where they don’t have to speak, don’t have to talk, don’t have to be judged. They can just be themselves. They can just play.
Robin Helget, LMSW, CPT
Resolve - Counseling and Wellness
Prairie Village, KS
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