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Non-Directive Play Therapy

Before one can understand why play therapy works, one must first understand how the young child relates to the world.  When a child experiences something new they become invested in learning about it.  They learn through touch, and all of their senses.  They unusually will want to manipulate objects with their hands, and they look at things from all angles. Children will then use play to practice and assimilate new things into their understanding of the world.  Similarly, children experience their life events and assimilate them into their world through play. When the experiences in a child's life are emotionally traumatic, children are often developmentally unable to use thinking and past experience to stabilize their sense of well-being. In an effort to gain some comprehension of the situation they will replay the situation in play.  Each time the child replays the traumatic event they experience all of the emotions that belong to the event.  During play therapy the child can play through traumatic experiences while receiving therapeutic responses from the therapist, or the parent trained by the therapist, that will move the child toward a new perspective of the situation. Play therapy in general has five a very predictable stages: (1) The exploratory stage; (2) Testing for protection; (3) The dependency stage; (4) the therapeutic growth stage; (5) termination. These stages are used to guide the therapist in their interaction with the child. Children set the pace for these stages and the therapist assists in each stage. It is the child who does the work.  Each child and situation is unique. Some children spend longer than others in some of the stages, but children have a natural propensity toward health.

Directive Play Therapy

Directive play therapy is similar to non-directive play therapy except the therapist directs within the limits of goals that are set for the child at the beginning of therapy.  This is done through toy selections available to the child or through direct two-way play with the child depending on what the issues are.  There are many examples of situations where directive play therapy is very effective.

Here's the short list: