Play Therapy
You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. - Plato
What is play therapy?
Play is a natural and essential characteristic in child development. Play is a process by which individuals engage in activities which create enjoyment and imaginativeness and serves to teach social, coping, and communication skills. Since play is an essential characteristic of children, therapists may utilize play therapy while providing mental health services to children. Play therapy is a technique implemented with children to facilitate their growth and development. Since children typically do not have the language skills to verbalize their personal experiences, play techniques are utilized to provide children with a therapeutic environment to play out what they are feeling and experiencing in their lives. Children do not talk out what they are experiencing in life, they play things out. Many researchers have conducted studies on play therapy with children and overall all studies conclude that play therapy serves as an effective way to help children with problems they may be experiencing.
The underlying goal of play therapy is to provide a child with an encouraging, validating, and safe environment to express a range of behaviors and emotions. Additionally, children can explore various ways of communicating, practicing coping skills, and expressing their feelings via play and interaction with the therapist. Play serves to be the natural medium of children, and therefore play therapy with children can be comparable to talk therapy for adults. By engaging in play, children are empowered and facilitate growth of self-efficacy and their interpersonal skills. This process, however, may take a series of consistent sessions over a period of time with the therapist.
Play therapy has been found to be successful for adjustment disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety/phobias, aggression, abuse/neglect, divorce of parents, family violence, grief issues, adoption/foster care issues, hospitalization, chronic/terminal illness, ADHD, separation anxiety disorder, and enuresis/encopresis. Play therapy may also be used in conjunction with family therapy and parenting seminars.
Play Therapy services include:
Initial parent/caregiver intake session and subsequent individual therapy sessions with your child (or children).
Family therapy sessions
A personalized growth plan that focuses on your child's needs
Phone consultations to schools or other organizations (additional fees apply)
