Play Therapy builds on the natural way that children learn about themselves and their relationships in the world around them.
Why Play in Therapy?
Play is the natural world of the child. Children learn about themselves, others, and their world through play. Play Therapy differs from regular play in that it helps children address and resolve their own problems. Through Play Therapy, children learn to communicate with others, express feelings, modify behavior, develop problem solving skills, and learn a variety of ways of relating to others. Play provides children a safe psychological distance from their problems and allows expression of thoughts and feelings, appropriate to their development.
HOW DOES PLAY THERAPY WORK?
Play Therapy allows trained mental health practitioners who specialize in play therapy, to assess an understand children's play. Further, Play Therapy is utilized to help children cope with difficult emotions and find solutions to problems. By confronting problems in the clinical Play Therapy setting, children find healthier solutions. Even the most troubling problems can be confronted in Play Therapy and lasting resolutions can be discovered, rehearsed, mastered and adapted into lifelong strategies.