Play As Therapy

First Published in 2012. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Highly practical, instructive, and authoritative, this book vividly describes how to conduct child-centered play therapy. The authors are master clinicians who explain core therapeutic principles and techniques, using rich case material to illustrate treatment of a wide range of difficulties. The focus is on nondirective interventions that allow children to freely express their feelings and take the lead in solving their own problems. Flexible yet systematic guidelines are provided for setting up a playroom; structuring sessions; understanding and responding empathically to children's play themes, including how to handle challenging behaviors; and collaborating effectively with parents.

Current play therapy resources offer details on how to conduct play therapy, but are limited in addressing the challenges that develop when therapists conduct play therapy with real-life clients. Using the Child-Centered Play Therapy Approach, Ray has written the first book to address these complex play therapy subjects. Topics covered include: integrating field knowledge of play, development, and theory into the advanced play therapist’s knowledge base; working with difficult situations, such as limit-setting, aggression, and parents; addressing modern work concerns like measuring progress, data accountability, and treatment planning; differentiating play therapy practice in school and community settings; and addressing complicated skills, such as theme work, group play therapy, and supervision. Ray also includes her Child Centered Play Therapy Treatment Manual, an invaluable tool for any play therapist accountable for evidence-based practice. This manual can also be found on the accompanying downloadable resources, along with treatment plan, session summary, and progress-tracking worksheets.

"The most brilliant and intuitive, as well as the clearest written, work in this field. It is unpretentious yet clearly the most authoritative work that has been published." NORMAN CAMERON, Ph.D. Professor of Psychiatry Yale University School of Medicine Here is an intensely practical book that gives specific illustrations of how therapy can be implemented in play contacts, and tells how the toys of the playroom can be vivid performers and aids in growth. As she did with DIBS IN SEARCH OF SELF, Dr. Axline has taken true case histories from the rich mine of verbatim case material of children referred for play therapy, choosing children ranging in age, problem, and personality. It's all here in an important and rewarding book for parents, teachers, and anyone who comes in contact with children.

"The authors . . . make child-centered play therapy readily understandable to those who wish to take advantage of its long history of helping children overcome problems and grow emotionally to a level of maturity difficult to achieve by any other approach." —From the Foreword, by Louise F. Guerney, PhD, RPT-S A comprehensive resource that thoroughly teaches the theory, methods, and practice of child-centered play therapy Child-Centered Play Therapy: A Practical Guide to Developing Therapeutic Relationships with Children offers how-to direction and practical advice for conducting child-centered play therapy. Filled with case studies, learning activities, and classroom exercises, this book presents extensive coverage of play therapy applications such as setting goals and treatment planning, as well as recommendations for family and systemic services that can be provided along with play therapy. This rich resource provides: A thorough introduction to the theory and guiding principles underlying child-centered play therapy Skill guidance including structuring sessions, tracking, empathy, responding to children's questions, and role-play Effective ways of determining what limits to set in the playroom and how to set them in a therapeutically effective manner Clear methods for monitoring children's progress through stages as well as external measures of progress Practical guidance in adjunct therapist tasks such as playroom set-up, documentation, ending therapy, and working with parents, teachers, and principals Endorsed by Louise Guerney—a founding child-centered play therapy figure who developed the skills-based methods covered in this book—Child-Centered Play Therapy comprehensively and realistically introduces practitioners to the child-centered approach to play therapy and addresses how to incorporate the approach into schools, agencies, or private practice.

Covering the process of therapy from beginning to end, this engaging text helps students and practitioners use play confidently and effectively with children, adolescents, and adults struggling with emotional or behavioral problems or life challenges. With an accessible theory-to-practice focus, the book explains the basics of different play therapy approaches and invites readers to reflect on and develop their own clinical style. It is filled with rich case material and specific examples of play techniques and strategies. The expert authors provide steps for building strong relationships with clients; exploring their clinical issues and underlying dynamics; developing and working toward clear treatment goals; and collaborating with parents and teachers. A chapter on common challenges offers insightful guidance for navigating difficult situations in the playroom.

Offers play therapists practical ways of handling a pervasive issue with intense and aggressive play by their clients. With an understanding of aggressive play based on brain function and neuroscience, this book provides therapists with a framework to work authentically with aggressive play, while making it an integrative and therapeutic experience for the child. Through the lens of neuroscience and interpersonal neurobiology, therapists are taught how to integrate the intensity experienced by both the child and the therapist during aggressive play in a way that leads towards greater healing and integration. The book explains the neurological processes that lead kids to dysregulation and provides therapists with tools to help their clients facilitate deep emotional healing, without causing their own nervous system to shut down. Topics covered include: embracing aggression; understanding the nervous system; understanding regulation; developing yourself as an external regulator; authentic expression; setting boundaries; working with emotional flooding; supporting parents during aggressive play.

This book provides the background, theoretical underpinnings and the process and principles of Learn to Play Therapy. Learn to Play Therapy has been developed and refined for over 25 years. This book is written for therapists who work with children aged 12 months to 8 years. It is a therapeutic approach for children with autism spectrum disorder, developmental difficulties, and children who find playing spontaneously, perplexing. Learn to Play Therapy focusses on building a child's ability to self-initiate spontaneous pretend play ability. Pretend play is associated with social competence, narrative, language, self-regulation, creativity and problem solving. The book is a complete revision of the first edition Learn to Play book which was published by Co-ordinates Publications. The second edition is 314 pages and includes 114 play activities, parent handouts, and a Play Background Checklist. A USB is provided with the book and contains the printable pages. Play assessment is the first step in Learn to Play Therapy as an understanding of a child's self-initiated pretend play ability informs which play activities to choose to begin the therapeutic process. The Pretend Play Enjoyment Developmental Checklist (Stagnitti, 2017) and the Child-Initiated Pretend Play Assessment 2 (Stagnitti, 2019) are recommended to be used with Learn to Play Therapy. The theoretical underpinnings of Learn to Play Therapy are informed by Axline, Vygotsky, and the neurobiology of play. The process and principles are explained in depth with Chapters 1 to 3 providing an unfolding explanation, starting with an overview and becoming more detailed across the three Chapters. This second edition also has a chapter on working with parents, questions and answers, and case studies. The play skills cover: engaging activities for those children who show no enjoyment or understanding of play; pre-pretend play activities for children who require therapy to begin on the very early levels of play; and the pretend play skills of sequences of play action, describing and explaining, object substitution, doll/teddy play, play scripts, role play, social pretend play, attributing properties and absent objects, problems in the play and predicting what will happen next. An extensive reference list is included.