Is Play Therapy Appropriate for Every Child?
- Play itself is always appropriate and necessary for a child – it can serve in many capacities when working with a child of any age; however:
- Play Therapy best serves children between 2 ½ and 7 years old
Why these ages?
- We see the beginning of symbolic play beginning at 20 months.
- At this age child can, for example, take a toy baby bottle and put it into the mouth of a toy baby doll.
- Fantasy play begins to come into full bloom around 3 ½ and children
become extremely imaginative (can pretend to be a monster and then scare themselves with it). The play of the fifth and sixth years is thematically rich, organized and complex.
- Around 7 years old, repression and defense mechanisms begin to emerge. Prior to this, feelings come out in the child’s behavior (what you see is what you get). After 7, children begin to repress and defend against negative feelings by using defense mechanisms (e.g., somatization, undoing, projective identification).
- After 7, children are not as invested in fantasy play and enter into the world of competitive and cooperative play with peers.
What Diagnoses Are Best Treated by Play Therapy?
- Play therapy is the best choice to treat children who have adjustment disorders, are anxious or depressed as a result of stressors, are experiencing grief reactions or have had trauma.
“…because of play therapy’s innate power to facilitate self-expression (communication, catharsis, abreaction) and mastery and encourage growth and development, as well as its potential to produce feelings of well-being, it is particularly helpful to maltreated children. In particular, since most abused and traumatized children traditionally have difficulty verbalizing their victimization experiences, play therapy is often an ideal approach: It is low risk, familiar, and does not rely on language skills.” Eliana Gil, The Healing Power of Play: Working with Abused Children, 1991, Guilford Press, New York.
Is Play Therapy Effective with other Diagnoses?
- Play therapy is not the medium to best address ADHD, Mood Disorders, OCD, Phobias, Tic Disorders, etc. But, play can be used in a session with these children as a reinforcer, a release from the work of cognitive behavioral therapy, or to shore up any of the material worked on in talk therapy (e.g., playing a highly competitive game, modeling, encouraging the shy child to take risks and step out of comfort zone).
Kate Sanner, ACSW, LCSW-C
