PLAY THERAPY

Play in therapy is a very interesting tool. Our children these days with their strict schedules, access to tablets and the internet and fast-paced lifestyles have very little time to play. In play therapy, we provide a non-judgmental place to play and be free whatever age you are. We do this for a few reasons:

1. Playing with children enhances the positive relationship between the therapist and client.

2. In engaging in free play, the child will have a chance to up the amount of positive chemicals their brain is making, giving them relief from any of the sad, angry or worrying feelings they may have in other parts of their life and this shows them that these lovely feelings are easily attainable and not too distant.

3. They give children a chance to act out their experiences in a safe way as with the lighthearted environment set up in the room the children feel less fearful of repercussion or judgement than they might in another context, giving them the freedom to say and do things they might struggle with elsewhere.

   Below is more information about the different mediums we use and why they might be helpful for your child.

   
   

PUPPETS

Puppets can be a massively successful tool in therapy as the inherent nature of playfulness, silly voices and thinking as a character comes through.

We often accidentally slip in parts of ourselves when portraying a character as we only have ourselves to draw on, particularly when we are younger.

In giving children time to develop characters and play with puppets, they can let out their silly, creative side while exploring deep emotional themes.

MASKS

Speaking without being fully seen can be extremely liberating, being faceless can give us all licence to reveal something we never usually would and masks give us that opportunity to take on a character or explore our feelings in a more truthful way as we don’t feel as vulnerable as we would when undercover.

Masks from the room or that they make help children find characters and words they may never otherwise expose.

role play

One thing we often say is that therapy is “rehearsal of the possible”. This means that as therapy is a bubble separate from other things, we have a chance to try things out without them actually affecting our real lives.

Role play using characters, dolls houses, dressing up or role taking gives a child a chance to try something out before it happens in practice and see what might happen.

This irregular chance gives children time to work things out from the past by playing them out again, address possible outcomes in the present or imagine what the future might be like.