Play Therapy

What is Play Therapy?

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Play Therapy is a special process that focuses on a child'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 who provides a safe and understanding environment. In the 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.

Through the play therapy process, children create play that resembles the emotional experiences that they are struggling with, internally. These experiences sometimes cannot be expressed verbally. Children will select special toys to include in their play and use those toys to recreate issues that represent emotional conflicts. Beginning with this expression, the child's play evolves until the child gains a sense of understanding and comfort over this situation..

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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.

Children like to play. They are often unable to understand and talk about their feelings the way adults do and this makes adult therapies inappropriate in meeting the special needs of children. Play becomes therapeutic to children as they give expression to their experiences and emotions. A benefit of play therapy is that children can create therapeutic play at their developmental level. The relationship with the therapist also allows children a sense of security when recreating emotionally stressful experiences.

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