What is play Therapy? Play therapy is a special process that focuses on children's need to express themselves through the use of play and toys. Children are encouraged to play as they wish with a trained play therapist that provides a safe and understanding environment. In this process a wide variety of toys are made available to children to encourage the expression of emotional concerns. Children are given the opportunity to express themselves through a variety of styles including art play, sand play, dramatic play and fantasy play.

Why "play therapy" for children? Children like to play. Children are unable to understand and talk about their feelings the way adults do and this makes adults therapies inappropriate in meeting children's special needs. Play becomes therapeutic to children as they give expression to their experiences and emotions. Children can recreate, in play, the experiences that are part of their, fear, sadness or frustrations currently influencing their behavior.

 

A benefit of play therapy is that children can create therapeutic play at their developmental level. The relationship with the therapist allows children a sense of security when recreating emotionally stressful experiences.

What happens in play therapy? Through the play therapy process children create play that resembles the emotional experiences they are struggling with internally. These experiences verbally. Children will select special toys to include in their play and use those toys to create issues that represent emotional conflicts that are important to the child. Beginning with this expression, the child's play evolves until the child gains a sense of understanding and comfort over this situation.

How can play therapy help my child? Through the play therapy process, children can change their personal view of events in the world and begin to better enjoy their interactions with others. When children recreate their frustrations or disappointments and then change the experience of that situation in their play, they begin to enjoy more of their play experiences and therefore, more of life's interactions. This leads to higher self-esteem and more enjoyment of activities with family, friends and peers. And parenting is more enjoyable.

How long will play therapy take? Play therapy is a process that depends upon several factors in the child's past and present experiences. The two most important factors are the developmental stage of the child and secondly, the age of the child at the onset of the issue. Usually the more recent the events, the shorter the therapy length. The further back in the child's development that the onset of the issue occurred, the longer that play process will take.

 

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing) When a disturbing event occurs, it can get locked in the nervous system with the original picture, sounds, thoughts and feelings. This material can combine factual material with fantasy and with images that stand for the actual

event of feelings. EMDR seems to unlock the nervous system and allows the brain to process the experience. That may be what is happening in REM or dream sleep-the eye movements may help to process the unconscious material. It is important to remember that it is your own brain that will be doing the healing and that you are the one in control.

Alabama Counseling Institute 
3928 Montclair Road, Suite 100 
Birmingham, AL 35213-2419    
Phone: (205) 871-1713     Fax: (205) 871-0354 

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