Wynne, L.S, & L’Albate, L. (2009). In Their Best Interest: Play Therapy for Children. In L. L’Abate. The Praeger Handbook of Play A cross the Life Cycle: Fun from Infancy to Old Age, 167-178. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio.
QUITTERIE DE PASCAL-RUFENACHT, CHARLOTTE GUILLEMOT
Some questions about “Play therapy”.
Introduction
According to Wynne and L’Albate (2009, p168) “a play therapist is able to work with children who cannot talk or choose not talk “. When working with children who have trouble expressing their feelings, using “play therapy “can enable a change in the recovery process. Over the last years, researchers have been working on these topics and Luciano Albate assesses the current situation in his book. Regarding this article, we based ourselves on the fifth chapter of the book. This is a literature and research review concerning children’s play therapy. Luciano Albate belongs to the American Psychological association and graduated in clinical psychology. Lauren S.Wynne is a Philosophiae doctor and an assistant professor in the department of counselling and psychological services. The target of this chapter is psychologists, psychiatrists, other mental health practitioners, therapists who use play therapy, students of development and all the people interested in this subject.
This book discusses the lifelong evolution of “play therapy” on the patient but this specific chapter shows the researches for children only. The author does not give his personal opinion on this part of the study.
Summary
Play therapy can help children to express their feelings and difficulties. For children, playing is a natural way of expressing themselves when they have trouble using words to tell how they feel. Play therapy is an interpersonal process used by therapists to solve psychosocial difficulties and foster harmonious development. The model chosen by the therapist depends on the child obedience. A registered play therapist needs at least a master’s degree including specialised training and 150 hours of play therapy education and hundreds of hours of supervised general clinical and play therapy specific practice.
From the researches of James 1997, the author brought to light five separated categories of children. First, the children who experienced attachment bond issues because of their primary caregivers, the children who have insecure and ambivalent attachment issues or the children born in another country or adopted who suffers from the biological differences. Then the children who suffered a trauma and those who experienced a brutal social or cultural change. “Play therapy” can be used in any type of environment. However, the practitioner is required to possess specific knowledge and abilities concerning children’s development. The choice of the place is essential, in fact, the practitioners assign a specific area to practice “play therapy”. The organisation of the playing area must create a safe and organised atmosphere for the children in order to facilitate the therapy sessions. For example, the toys must offer a great choice to the children when it comes to both verbal and non-verbal expressions. The games must be amusing and ludic in order to allow the child to make projections. All of this will help to create a relationship between the practitioner and the children for therapeutic purposes in both individual and group play therapies. There are numerous and diversified techniques and tools that can be used by the practitioners. For example, there is “Sandtray Therapy”, “Art Therapy”, “game playing”, “roleplay”, “symbolic play”, and “Doll play Therapy, in according to Woolgar (1999, in Wynne, & L’albate, 2009, p177) doll play interventions may be used to investigate young children’s moral development, attachement beyong infancy, and for predicting problems”… The therapist goal is to help the children to improve their social skills, handle traumatic and painful life events as well as developing adaptation strategies that will upgrade their life quality and increase their learning abilities.
Critical evaluation
The author wanted to appraise the existing situation to set up a therapy for children based on playing. In order to accomplish that, the author rely on concrete and detailed examples that provides clarification on the methods of “play therapy”. This allows us to get a better understanding of the outcomes and consequences of “play therapy” on a child development.
On a practical point of view, the psychologists can create a solid basis that they will be able to use for “play therapy”. Working from a strong basis will enable the psychologists to develop their understanding on some specific issues in order to adapt their methods to a private individual. This publication list and identifies the current methods that encountered success when it comes to children play therapy.
On an empirical point of view, the literature review seems objective (well researched and specific references and scientifically proved references) even if it is biased by the author personal opinion. In fact the author is convinced that play therapy is an efficient method.
In our opinion, this specific chapter could be exhaustive if it gathered more examples of complex situations on the psychopathology matter. In fact, the use of play therapy as part of the treatment for serious disorders such as the child psychosis could be controversial and inappropriate.
The limits of this method can be identified and listed: it highlights the existence of an imaginary process among children which could be counterproductive when it comes take over the invading symptoms such as hallucinations, after effect feelings…
To support his position, the author uses numerous studies on that matter but also practical cases in order to illustrate the consistency between the theory and the result.
According to us, this publication is aimed at health professionals even if the linguistic style is understandable for beginners. To that extent, this book is appropriate and suited both for readers who want a wide perspective and for practitioners who are seeking for advice to improve their own methods.
Conclusion
We enjoyed learning more on this specific topic because we did not discuss it regularly during our training. The author shows the main keys of the play therapy using a pragmatic and matter of fact. We would have liked a more dynamic approach, which would have consisted in listing the possibilities without linking the method to the existing pathologies. Discovering this chapter gave us a taste for this specific matter which could be useful in our professional future.
