What is Play Therapy?
It is an effective therapy that helps children modify their behaviours, clarify their self concept and build healthy relationships.
In Play Therapy children enter into a dynamic relationship with the therapist that enables them to express, explore and make sense of their difficult and painful experiences. Play Therapy helps children find healthier ways of communicating, develop fulfilling relationships, increase resilience and facilitate emotional literacy.
Why Play?
Play is the language of children and their behaviour a message. They do not readily have the words to describe their thoughts, feelings and perceptions of their internal and external world.
Since the 1920s play has been used in psychotherapy to help children express themselves. Play is vital to every child's social, emotional, cognitive, physical, creative and language development. It helps make learning concrete for all children and young people.
How can it help?
Play Therapy helps children in a variety of ways. They receive emotional support and can learn to understand more about their own feelings and thoughts. Sometimes they may re-enact or play out traumatic or difficult life experiences in order to make sense of their past and cope better with their future.
Children may also learn to manage relationships and confilcts in more appropriate ways. The outcomes may be general e.g. a reduction in anxiety and raised self esteem, or more specfic such as a change in behaviour and improved relations with family and friends.