When choosing a therapist, it is important to consider their Areas of Practice. specializes in:

When choosing a therapist, it is important to consider their Areas of Practice. specializes in:

When choosing a therapist, it is important to consider their Areas of Practice. specializes in:

I don’t think anyone would be shocked to hear that we live in a broken world. As I look around, I see people who have experienced pain or hurt, illness, loss of a loved one, a traumatic event, and the list goes on and on. For the sake of clarity, let’s call these “adverse life events”.  It’s not just in my line of work that I hear stories of heartbreak. Talking to friends, coworkers, or random strangers as I travel, I often hear stories of adverse live events that adults have experienced.

Unfortunately, adverse life events don’t just happen to adults, children can experience them as well. Without help, these can have a lifelong impact. Children are at greater risk of developing unhealthy coping skills in response to adverse events in their lives. Because of how brain development works, children’s ability to process these adverse events is not the same as an adult’s, therefore, the approach for healing must be different. Here is where play therapy comes, and it’s not what you might think!

When I talk about play therapy, one of the common questions I get is, “Why do I have to pay a therapist to play with my child, can’t I just play with them at home for free?” This is an excellent question. The play therapy that takes place in the therapy office is not the same as playing with your child at home. When I have a child client who is brought into our practice who has experienced an adverse life event, I almost always use client-centered play therapy as the first therapeutic intervention. There are three main reasons why play therapy is so helpful for children.

It comes naturally to children

The basic premise of understanding play therapy is understanding the concept of play being a natural language for children. Think back to your childhood, did someone teach you how to play tag, hide-and-seek, or play in the sand? I know for me, I was not taught how to play with LEGOS. I just learned it on my own and spent hours on end making LEGO creation sets from my everyday life experiences, and sometimes I would create sets from my imagination.

Did you sit your son or daughter down and teach them how to play with stuffed animals, trucks, or how to play tea time? Of course not, it all comes naturally to children. The natural language of play is not specific to any one culture, race, social-economic status, gender, or faith. Children worldwide use play to help them express their emotions. Play therapy understands this concept and utilizes this natural language for children to facilitate healing. When I have a 6-year-old in my office who is struggling with understanding how to live life as a type-I diabetic and the limitations that come with that, I don’t have them sit on the couch talking about it.  Instead, we use toys and play to express their internal conflicts and emotions they might be feeling.

It creates a safe space for children to express themselves

Play therapy creates a safe environment for the child to explore their internal state of being. Play therapy allows for a safe space for the child to explore and communicate their internal emotions. Play therapy is typically voluntary, enjoyable and non-threatening. For example, if a child experienced a sexual assault, their play might be sexualized. In session, I would never tell a child, “You can’t play like that” or “don’t do that, that’s not good.”

It helps them learn

Play therapy facilitates teaching and learning. There are three main interventions that therapists use to facilitate teaching and learning: tracking, reflection of content and feelings and limit setting. Dee Ray is Assistant Professor and Director of the Child and Family Resource Clinic in the Counseling Program at the University of North Texas. She writes, “Tracking behavior is the most basic of play therapist responses. The therapist tracks behavior when he or she verbally responds to the behavior of the child simply by stating what is seen or observed.”

In reflection, the therapist reflects or paraphrases content and feelings being expressed in the session.

In young children, this is what helps the child name an emotion. They might be feeling out of control and angry and not know how to express what emotion they’re feeling, but the therapist can help the child put a name to it. Reflecting content, on the other hand, validates children’s perceptions of their experience and clarifies children’s understanding of themselves (Landreth, 2002).

Lastly, limit setting allows for teaching that boundaries are a vital part of feeling safe. When a child experiences an adverse live event, there is a high likelihood that some type of boundary was violated. Setting limits in play therapy helps the child understand how they can set their own boundaries and rebuild ones that have been broken.

These are some examples of tracking, reflection, and limit setting that I have seen or used in my play therapy sessions:

Tracking:

Child’s Play – The child is playing with a toy house and is burying the horse in the sand tray.

My Response – “It looks like the horse is being buried in the sand.”

Reflection of Content:

The child says – In a slow and monotone voice, the child says, “I hate being bullied for being a black kid at school. I hate my school.”

My Response – “You really don’t like your school because the other kids make fun of what you look like.”

Reflection of feelings:

Child’s Play – A child playing with LEGOs, could not figure out how to finish making a set because they could not find the piece they needed to finish the set. They threw what they made across the office and it broke.

My Response – “That made you really angry that you could not find that one piece, huh?”

Limit Setting:

Child’s Play – A child is playing with soldiers in the sand tray. A limit was set that the sand has to stay in the sand tray. The child begins to test the limit and intentionally removes the sand outside of the sand tray onto the carpet.

My 1st Response – “Hey buddy, remember the sand is for staying in the sand tray.” The client continues to remove a small amount of sand out of the sand tray.

My 2nd Response – “You get to decide if you want to keep playing with the sand today, remember the sand is for staying in the sand tray.” The client then takes a hand full of sand and dumps it on the carpet.

My 3rd Response – “Today you decided not to use the sand tray for the rest of the session. It will be back next session. You can choose to play with something else today.” I cover the sand tray and remove it from the office.

I have traveled to dozens of countries worldwide and worked with orphans and caretakers and I have learned that play knows no bounds. I’ve seen kids play in dangerous settings like garbage dumps or war-torn villages. I’ve worked with orphanages that were well stocked with toys and others that had nothing. One thing remains true across all these settings and all my experiences – kids were created to be resilient, and play is a natural language that can be created out of anything because there is no limitation to the imagination. This is why we use play therapy at Stenzel. We use your child’s resilience to help them heal from their adverse life events.

The natural language of play is not specific to any one culture, race, social-economic status, gender, or faith.

By Alex Goreham, LCSW, CRADC, EMDR-II

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