Play Therapy for Children - Research Paper Example

? Play Therapy for Children All psychologists acknowledge that play is crucial for children’s mental development. It deeply influences mental health,defines relationships with others, prepares kids for adult life. Play helps children to acquire specific skills in a particular activity, including communication and learn the norms of social behavior. It increases tonicity, improves emotional and physical health. Play has a therapeutic effect, eliminates psychological traumas, allowing living through traumatic life experiences easier. Play was initially viewed as a method of children’s treatment in the 1920s by such therapists as A. Freud, M. Klein, H. Hug-Hellmuth. They stated that the new method was called to help children to develop their skills, learn to overcome conflicts and turmoil. It all began with drawing: a child drew his/her home, family and, in such a way, symbolically expressed facts s/he can not put into words - their fears, emotional and psychological traumas. Later on music play therapy and chess therapy were applied not only to understand a child, but to affect children’s brains in an attempt to guide emotions and feelings of a child in the right direction. As it’s known, the first step to any solution to a problem is to name that problem. Until a child is unable to give an objective account of the world around, he reflects his mental condition, emotions and communication skills in innocent games (Russ, 2004, p. 44). Play therapy’s range of applications is very wide and provides the opportunity to work with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, chronic sadness, early childhood trauma with the amnestic syndrome. Play therapy method helps to solve not only personal, but also, as a consequence of this, professional difficulties. Play therapy, in record time, allows achieving tangible results in business: in strategic and creative selection, personnel management; in increase of productivity of each employee; in improved effectiveness of a company as a whole. The main indications for play therapy are: behavior problems and disharmony of self-concept; low degree of self-acceptance, doubts and uncertainty in the possibilities for personal growth; high social anxiety and hostility to the outside world; emotional lability and instability. We can distinguish between the following main types of play therapy: 1. If a theoretical approach is a criterion, we can name: • Psychoanalytic play therapy; • Client-centered play therapy. 2. According to adults’ function in play we distinguish: • Nondirective play therapy; • Directive play therapy. 3. According to a form of organization of activities: • Individual play therapy; • Group play therapy. 4. According to materials used: • Unstructured play therapy; • Structured play therapy (Cattanach, 2003, p. 29). Use of play in correctional practice is historically associated with the theoretical traditions of psychoanalysis. Approach of psychoanalysis to children’s play was, to some extent, forced. The attempts to apply standard psychoanalytic techniques directly to work with children have been unsuccessful due to a number of specific features of childhood. The main problem in the use of analytical techniques in dealing with a child was inability to use the key psychoanalytic method of free associations, helping to reveal unconscious desires, and subject them to analysis. The search for workarounds to solve this problem directed Klein (who coined the term Play Therapy) and Hug-Hellmuth onto a possibility of using children’s play as a good replacement of the method of free associations. This use of play is conditioned on the following two characteristics: children’s play, according to Klein, is a symbolic activity, in which hidden and limited by social control unconscious impulses and desires are expressed freely; play is the only activity when a child is free from coercion or pressure of a hostile environment. So, he reveals a scope of unconscious impulses and feelings that can be analyzed (Henderson & Thompson, 2010, p. 39). Anna Freud, the follower of Klein, was among the first to work with children- survivors of London bombings during World War II. She noticed that a child, who had an opportunity to express emotional experience through play, was freed from fears and bad feelings did not develop into a psychological trauma. Freud discovered that play is an important factor in formation of emotional contact with children and serves as a tool, which makes self- expression of a child free. Hermine von Hug-Hellmuth was among the first therapists who claimed that play is the most crucial moment in the psychoanalysis of children and offered children, who has been analyzed, toys to express themselves. Although her works chronologically preceded the works of Freud and Klein, she has not formulated any particular approach and used to work only with children older than six. The named above ideas were developed and extended by C. Rogers and V. Axline and turned into client-centered play therapy. The main aim of this therapy is not to change a child, not to teach him some special behavioral skills but to give him a chance to be himself. Game therapist is not trying to raise a child; instead he creates optimal conditions for growth and development. At the heart of this branch of play therapy is the notion of spontaneous psychic development of children, who have internal sources of self-development and potential of independent problem solving and personal growth (Smead, 1995, p. 83). The main objective of nondirective play therapy is to create or renovate a meaningful relationship between child and adult in order to optimize personal growth and development. As Landreth and Sweeney state, play as an activity free from cruelty, suppression, fear and dependency of a child from the adult world, is, according to supporters of nondirective therapy, the only situation where a child is able to express himself freely, study and explore their own feelings and experiences. Play allows a child to get rid of emotional tension and frustration, initially predefined by real-life relationship between children and adults. This type of play therapy focuses on a child’s personality, not his problems; the focus here is on the attempt to make a child more adequate person when solving current and future problems and challenges (Russo, 2005, p. 25). Directive play therapy is practiced widely among all the children as a means of showing up their inner consciousness. A psychiatrist takes the initiative and creates a game situation prompted by a child, controlling the course of events and noting all activities of a young patient. Therapist, in this play, should see the reasons for the difficulties - aggression, loneliness, anger, isolation, etc. He can explain something to a child, give advice or show the right way. Play therapy is used both individually and in group forms. The main criterion of group play therapy preference is the presence of a child’s social need in communication, which forms at the early stages of child development. Conclusion about social needs, crucially determining the success of group therapy, is made based on personal analysis in each case. The main goals of group therapy should be defined as therapeutic in a broad sense, rather than individualized long-range goals for each child in general. Play therapy uses both structured and unstructured plays. Structured materials provoke expression of aggression (firearms, offensive weapons), direct expression of wishes and desires (human figures), as well as communicative action (playing the telephone game, telegraph, trains, cars). They are to help a child to express feelings, even aggressive, under control and in socially acceptable way. It is assumed that a child’s age from 4 to 12 is optimal for the application of this method. The unstructured games include motor games and exercises (jumping, climbing), games with water, sand, clay, group of games belonging to art therapy (painting with your fingers or brush, pastels, colored pencils). They are targeted to gain the feeling of achievement (Jessee, Wilson & Morgan, 2000, p. 216). There are many different methods of psychological help to children: play therapy, fairy tale therapy, art therapy, sand therapy, and others. Their effectiveness has been proved long time ago. The starting point of play therapy is a full acceptance of personality of a child. Under this condition play therapy can help children to develop a positive self-concept; to become more responsible in actions and deeds; to become more self-controlled. It can teach to rely more on themselves and develop greater self-acceptance and ability to make decisions; d to have faith in yourself. Works cited Cattanach, A. (2003). Introduction to Play Therapy. New York: Brunner-Routledge. Henderson, D.A. & Thompson C. L. (2010). Counseling Children. 8th. New York: Brooks Cole. Jessee, P. O., Wilson, H. & Morgan, D. (2000). Medical Play for Young Children. Childhood Education, 76(4), 215+. Russ, S. W. (2004). Play in Child Development and Psychotherapy: Toward Empirically Supported Practice. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Russo, M. F. (2005). Play Therapy and Social Constructivism: Seeing the World through a Young Person’s Eyes. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, 27(3-4), 24+. Smead, R. M. (1995). Skills and Techniques for Group Work with Children and Adolescents. Washington, D.C.: Research Press. Read More