As you search for a therapist for your child or family, you may encounter the phrase play therapy. What is play therapy anyway? How can play therapy help your child? Are there ever any times that play therapy is not recommended or indicated?

What is Play Therapy?

Play therapy is a form of counseling that is specifically tailored towards children. It is helpful for children and enables them to communicate in the language that they understand best: play. Jean Piaget, a Swiss Psychologist who is known in the Counseling field for his theory on developmental stages, observed that many children are unable to successfully articulate their thoughts or experiences due in part to their inability to think abstractedly. Kids, especially young kids, are just learning about cause and effect.   It’s hard for young children to apply cause and effect to their thinking, their emotions, and their behaviors. It is especially hard for young children to talk about their thinking, emotions, and behaviors for a full hour. Kids aren’t consistently able to think about what they are thinking. All of these factors make effective talk therapy with young children difficult. However, kids can play.

Through his work, Piaget noticed that many children incorporated symbols into their play. Children practice incorporating new rules, morals, judgments, facts, and life events into their play. Children who are having difficulty with behavior at school act out punishments and rewards being doled out by their teachers. Children who pine for a sibling enact scenes where they learn a parent is pregnant or a child protagonist finds his or her long lost twin. Children are able to process their thoughts, their feelings, and events in their lives through play. Play therapy enables therapists to harness the power of play to work with children to explore issues, concerns, and events in their lives.

All therapists structure their sessions differently. However, most therapists who use play therapy will use a combination of play therapy with your child and “parent only” sessions to discuss progress, setbacks, and how certain issues can be addressed in the home and at school.

How can Play Therapy help your child?

Play therapy creates a safe, therapeutic space for your child to explore and process thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and events with the therapist. Therapists work hard to display unconditional positive regard. This means that although a behavior may “be bad” a child is never told that he or she is bad. The therapist will work hard to make him or her feel comfortable, important, and heard.

Play therapy also creates a space for your child to learn about boundaries, rules, and consequences. Most therapists who utilize play therapy have rules and consequences regarding how toys and office materials may be used. This structure helps instill the idea that actions have consequences. In my office, I have two categories of rules: rules that keep us safe and rules that show respect. Rules that keep us safe include no jumping off of furniture, no throwing toys, and no putting toys in our mouths. The consequences are clear, consistent, and succinctly worded. Toys that are thrown and put in a mouth are taken away for the remainder of the session. If someone jumps off a piece of furniture they cannot sit on it for the rest of the session. Kids test these limits but after a few toys or furniture privileges are lost for the day, they stop testing.

Finally, play therapy fosters autonomy and self-esteem. Children are able to explore problems and solutions through play. Children are also put into situations where they will have to problem solve in certain games or activities. Working through these problems successfully helps boost self esteem. Children will also be praised for their hard work and their effort.

Play therapy can be used to address a variety of presentations such as depression, anxiety, parental separation or divorce, trauma, stressful experiences, behavioral issues, ADD/ADHD, and chronic illness.

When is Play Therapy Contraindicated?

Although people of all ages can benefit from certain play therapy techniques, play therapy is mostly strongly recommended for children between the ages of three and 12. Usually, older children feel more comfortable using talk therapy or a combination of play and talk therapy. Children younger than three are usually contraindicated because they haven’t developed enough to use symbolism in play.

Some specific, therapeutic issues, such as encopresis or enuresis, are best addressed by different, behavior-based approaches. If your child is presenting with encopresis and enuresis in addition to another issue, talk to your prospective therapist about how they might address this in session.