Play therapy is a form of expressive therapy designed to help a therapist gain insight into a child’s thoughts and feelings through children’s primary means of communication, which is play. Play is a powerful way that children express their feelings. Play therapy facilitates social, emotional, and behavioral growth and change in children with a wide range of emotional or developmental challenges.

A skilled play therapist is aware of developmental stages and provides a variety of materials that appeal to children of different ages. In general, children ages 2 to 5 years engage in symbolic play. For example, they may make a cookies out of clay, pretend to be a knight who rescues people, set up a scene in the sand with miniature figures, or act out family scenes in the dollhouse. A special type of play seen in abused and neglected children is posttraumatic play, where the traumatic scene is often played out again and again until the child gains mastery over the event with intervention by the play therapist. Children older than 5 years use symbolic play, but also engage in cooperative play, such as board games. Different expressive activities in play therapy include symbolic play, art, sandplay, role playing, and storytelling. Movement, music, animal companions, and other specialty therapy modalities may also be part of play therapy.

Types of Play Therapy: Two types of play therapy are used at Redwood Psychological. Non-directive therapy involves allowing the child to explore the play therapy room and gravitate to an activity, toy, or game that interests him or her. The therapist’s role is to listen, observe, and note the symbolic actions of the play and use factual commenting, such as, "I see you have chosen to feed the doll baby today," or to ask questions. The therapist remains supportive, but non-intrusive, allowing the child to lead. Directive therapy involves the therapist taking an active role in the play and structuring the session for assessment, diagnostic, and treatment purposes. The therapist may ask the child to draw themselves or their family or suggest an interactive game with a child who has difficulty getting along with others. Directive activities may also be used to lend closure to a particularly challenging session where a lot of emotional work has occurred.

There are many types of therapeutic techniques that might be part of play therapy. Expressive Arts play therapy involves use of materials and activities such as sand tray therapy, various types of art therapy, or story telling. Attachment-based play therapy and techniques such as "Theraplay" emphasize the relationship between the child and parent and works with specific techniques to enhance that relationship. Cognitive behavioral play therapy works to change thoughts and behaviors directly. With young children, this may be as simple as identifying and verbalizing emotions or as sophisticated as using a behavioral program to change a child’s behavior.

Therapy Room: Play therapy rooms are specially set up to be safe, nurturing, and therapeutic. Toys, activities and materials are carefully chosen to encourage expression of feelings and to facilitate the symbolic enactment of difficulty children may be experiencing. Some things you will find in our therapy rooms include sand, toy figures, art and craft materials, dolls and "house" materials, dress-up materials, building toys, and games. At Redwood Psychological, we believe a natural model is most therapeutic, so that our materials are natural wood, wool, cotton, etc.  Also, toys are picked specifically for thier therapeutic value.

How are Parents Involved in Play Therapy? Parent involvement in play therapy varies from family to family, depending on the child and family needs. Parents spend part of the session with the child and therapist, and then the therapist spends the remainder of the session alone with the child. Some children spend most of their sessions alone with the therapist. In any case, your child’s therapist will discuss your child’s goals and progress in treatment with you regularly. You are also asked to provide input to the therapist as to how your child is doing at home and school. Usually, you will meet alone with the therapist from time to time to discuss ways that you can support your child’s therapy at home.