PLAY THERAPY 1

Paper: Essay

Style: Oxford

Pages: 18

Sources: 26

Level: Bachelor

Play Therapy

[Name of the Writer]

[Name of the Supervisor]

[Course]
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Introduction

The social acceptance of children with intellectual disabilities was studied by research

using socio-metric measures. In their review of research, Freeman and Alkin (2000) and

Siperstein, Norins and Mehler (2006) conclude that these children are generally less accepted

socially than their typically developing peers. As several Meta-analyses, it is also the case for

children with learning difficulties and more generally special needs (Nowicki, 2003). Research

shows that these children are rarely appointed as friends and preferred game partners by their

classmates (Kemp & Carter, 2002). These data suggest that social integration is even more of a

problem for this group of students as for typically developing children.

Play has played a pivotal role in the psychological, emotional and educational

development of children. Play is the natural way for children to know the world. It is well known

that young children know the world through play and creative experimentation. But to see them

grow up and want to prepare for the future, they are cloistered in the classroom and to fill them

with information away from the game are innate, also distancing them from their natural

instincts. Studies have shown that children's play is of particular importance in shaping the

character and habits of the child (Smilansky & Shefatya, 1990). Through play activities,

children develop their personalities and enrich their ties and social manifestations. The study and
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observation of children's play is a valuable means of understanding the psychology of the child

and their development.

Bundy et al (2007) has shown that when intervention of play and socialization is applied

to children with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), almost half of the children in the

experimental group (47%), that is to say those who received play therapy and intensive

socialization treatment (more than 40 hours per week), arrive at a level comparable to that of

their non-working peers with autism, allowing them to enter the formal education system without

the need for assistance and a gain of 30 IQ points on average, after three years of treatment.

Unlike children in the control group, which are themselves only 2% to achieve the same results.

Meanwhile, the other half of the experimental group had significant improvements. The study

included three groups of children who were diagnosed with autism independently by doctors or

psychologists. All children were under 4 years before starting treatment. This study has since

been widely criticized, but follow-up studies do when these same children were 12 years old

(Leong & Carter, 2008), or became adults confirmed that those in the experimental group had

maintained their gains without further intervention as opposed to subjects in the control group.

Other scientific research has confirmed the efficacy of this treatment for young children with

SPD (Anderson & Romanczyk, 1999), it allows them to improve the social, emotional,

educational and intellectual plan.

Case Study

This case study shows that the family violence does play an important role in the

psychological make-up of a child and his/her personality development. This case study also

shows that family violence is an important factor of brain disorder in children.

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This is the story of a 6 years old boy Richard Townsend who lived with his father Tom.

Tom had divorced his wife and somehow managed to get Richard’s custody. Tom was the

foreman in Ford Motor Company and usually do not have much time to nurture Richard or to

solve his problems. Rather he tends to show rejecting and punitive parenting behavior when he is

in pressure and Richard has to share the strain of his job. Richard was continuously assaulted by

his father.

First, the boy tried to ignore this violence and then gradually started to show aggressive

and criminal attitudes despite, as I know, all the efforts of his teachers and friends. The mental

and physical abuses of his father were starting to affect his personality development. He also

experiences extreme difficulty in following instructions of the teachers at school and the

instructions of other children during play time and often fails to complete his everyday activities

or schoolwork. He also becomes much disorganized and usually has untidy room and school

desk. He also regularly loses his school stationery and notebooks and the things for play. He

loses things because he has problem sustaining attention and dislike tasks that require this skill

and will try to keep away from the school tasks. One of the major change appears in his

personality is distractibility, which indicates that he is frequently paying attention to irrelevant

happenings, outside noise, other children’s appearance, and thoughts instead of focusing on the

tasks given to him, which makes him to fail to complete his own tasks.

The causes of violent and disorganised behaviour of Richard can be traced by delving

into the depths of his background. Brain disorder like ADHD and violent behaviour of a person

is not a simple phenomenon and there are several factors which play their part in this disorder;

this is the reason that there is no simple and straight forward solution available to reduce it. Such
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mental disorder and antisocial behaviour may harm other persons in particular and the whole

society in general.

The process of child development involves the numerous processes and methods which

enable a child to experience and undergo stages which are mandatory for his effective

development to transform him into an individual to compete with the challenges and tedious

tasks that he is going to further encounter in life. The development in itself is an extremely

sensitive matter, primarily because of the delicate nature of a child’s mind (Meadows, 2001).

Child development is mainly conducted on three core principles which play the most

crucial role in the future personality makeover of an individual, these stages include

physiological, psychological and sociological aspects of child growth. It is important to mention

here that is through the combination and effectual synchronization of different forces and their

proper organization which helps in the proper development of a child. These fundamental agents

constitute physiological, psychological and social institutions (Slee & Shute, 2003).

Human infant lacks the skill and knowledge necessary to survive and transmit culture. All

societies rely on the family to provide the child with cultural fundamentals. Thus, family

background and values play important role in the making of the personality and behaviour of a

person. The family background and the home environment have played a major role in the

educational achievement of a child. It is a common knowledge that children who grow up in a

violent family not only witness aggression; they often bear the burnt of it. Hence, proper and

timely intervention, to avoid the domestic violence and to repair the relationship of children with

their parents, is necessary for the personality development of children as well as for the

betterment of their future life.

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Family or Parental behaviour may make an important contribution in the personality and

character building of an individual. In one study, for example, emphatic concern for others at age

thirty-one was greater for those subjects whose family life at age five was characterized by high

scores on four factors: father’s involvement in child care; mother tolerance of the child’s

dependent behaviour; her inhibition of the child’s aggression; and her satisfaction with the

maternal role (Koestner et al., 1990). On the other hand, Family abuse and violence surely act as

a destructive force in our society. They produce consequences that sometimes reverberate

throughout the victim’s lives and even in future families. Victims of incest suffer alienation and

other emotional difficulties into adulthood (Akers & Jensen, 2007). Abused and neglected

children are more likely to become violent, criminal adults (Alexander et al, 1991). In general,

abused children like Richard show a variety of difficulties, including aggressiveness, problems

relating to peers, lack of empathy, depression, and trouble in school. Richard’s own behaviour

seemed to have little long-term significance, although more disobedience in the home was

associated with lower levels of emphatic concern in adulthood.

Violence among the family members is very common. Sociologists estimate that wives

are occasionally beaten in percent of families, regularly battered in 3.4 percent (Straus & Gelles,

2002). Abuse occurs in every conceivable form among family members, from wives beating

their husbands to children beating their parents or grandparents. Tragically, child abuse is not a

rare occurrence. It is estimated that each year in the United Sates over a million children are

physically abused and over 150,000 are sexually abused (Gelles & Cornell, 2005). National

Survey data indicate that over 60 percent of rape victims are under eighteen (Kilpatrick et al,

2007).

Therapeutic Play Intervention

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Throughout history, family violence is considered as an indoor problem. Causes of this

problem cannot be confined to the dominant medical model criteria (Dutton, 2006). This may be

associated with specifically to physical and mental health of the entire family. The consequences

are devastating like breathing difficulties, disorders of attention and concentration ability,

incontinence, depression, uncontrollable tremors, diverse fears, learning difficulties, feelings of

guilt, confusion, nightmares, eating disorders, sexual dysfunction; anxiety, addictions, eating

disorders, physical disorders (injuries, headaches, gynecological problems, disability, fractures,

etc.), stress to reach lethal consequences, such as homicide or suicide (McCue, 2008).

Family Violence is, as already mentioned, a social problem. Therefore, to address it

requires professionals from different disciplines, intervening in all dimensions of the problem.

Castelino (2009) presented an effective framework to provide social interventions to the victims

of domestic and family violence. The complexity of family violence in contexts of crisis requires

rethinking traditional ways of thinking about management and strategic ways, enhancing the

capabilities of those affected by violence. First understand that the role of children is essential

when thinking in the intervention and call for help. The identification of cases has been made

since the detection of behavioural problems and / or performance.

When Richard was diagnosed with aggressive and violent behaviour and ADHD, his

father, Tom, was compelled to consult a therapist. The therapist had a meeting with Richard and

found that he is much willing to live a normal life. This is the good beginning because when

patient himself wants to be treated and cured he always fights back with his full might to shrug

off the disability he has.

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The therapist diagnosed that socializing and play Therapy tends to improve the

comportment of Richard in his social environment and a better resolution of conflicts arising. In

addition to psycho education used to overcome depression, resp. symptom management, therapy

includes treatment of interpersonal conflicts underway in all four areas:

1. Inability to mourn, disruption of the grieving process following losses or changes in the

context of life of the depressed person;

2. Changing role in the life of the depressed person (maternity, unemployment, ...);

3. Interpersonal conflict (partner, friends, etc..) and

4. Interpersonal deficit (e.g. loneliness, isolation)

Socialization and play therapy is based on a scientific approach and uses the principles of

fundamental research. This intervention provides a framework for learning. It showed that every

child learns naturally by its relationship with his physical and social environment. People with

developmental disabilities and behaviour, including autistic children have learning difficulties.

They need help to develop basic learning. Their difficulties in communication, interaction,

socialization difficulties give their adaptation and integration. The existence of disruptive

behaviour is interfering with relationships with their environment and prevents the independence,

autonomy, freedom of action. Therefore, it is the behaviour sufficiently adapted to enable it to

integrate into society. In the long term, it is to set up a life to independence, academic and

professional social integration, In the medium term, it is to install intermediate steps required to

complete the project life (i.e. dress himself, knowing how to identify the street, know how to

respond to the instructions). In the short term, we need to target specific conduct to organize

tasks more complex behaviours.

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Play is the "as if" of reality, while taking consciousness of fiction. The fiction implies

opposition to the role of the real and allows the child / break free from the constraints that reality

imposes to act and work with their own rules and regulations. Play is serious business, because it

activates all the resources and capabilities of personality. The game for the child is equivalent to

the work for the adult. For the hits in the game improves children’s self-esteem, assertiveness is a

mechanism of personality. Although play can be seen as a form of rest and lack of effort, we can

see that this may involve a lot of effort. Many games have strict rules, and activities seeking

expensive or difficult, while at other times elapse between repetitions and quiet with no other

intention than to obtain pleasure. But for there to play and for the child to have fun overcoming

obstacles to play an important role, and it seems necessary because otherwise fall into boredom.

Studies from different epistemological perspectives allow us to consider the play as a

key part of comprehensive child development (Weininger & Daniel, 2002) as it saves systematic

connections with what is involved, i.e., with the development of man in other planes such as

creativity, problem solving, learning social roles etc., that is, with many cognitive and social

phenomena. The findings of these studies show that the play is a vital and indispensable activity

for human development, contributing to the development psychomotor, affective, social and

intellectual.

According to Piaget theory, child started playing at the age of 1 to 4 months. Piaget

(1952) has said that what children play was as critical as their ability to imitate and provide an

indicator of his or her developing cognitive capacity. The make-belief plays of children, prior to

2 years of age, demonstrated their confidence in using the acquired schemes in make-believe

situations and interaction. As play changes, one will see the important shifts in a child’s use of
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symbols. Over the first three years of life, children use objects in very realistic way in their plays.

But as he grew older, a child becomes more and more creative (Crocker et al, 1983).

With the help of play, the child learns because he gets new experiences, because it is a

chance to make right and wrong, and to apply their knowledge to solve problems. The game

encourages the development of thinking skills, creativity and makes learning potential areas. At

the intellectual level, development or fiction simulation game incorporates many cognitive

development trends, all related to the development of a less concrete and more coordinated

thought while building on the convergent and divergent thinking (Hughes, 2003), and are a

support for the development of many cognitive operations such as correspondence ,

conservation, classification, reversibility, and perspective taking.

The play is a learning resource that creates areas of potential development. Beyond being

a source of learning activity. Play creates potential development areas in the game noting that

children / as using resources more evolved than in other types of activity. The play is a stimulus

for attention and memory. The own game conditions force the child to focus on objects of game

situation, on the argument that has to interpret or content of actions, because who does not follow

closely the game situation, who do not remember the rules the game or do not assume the

symbolic use of certain objects will be ejected.

The desire to play with others, sharing the symbolism becomes necessary, stimulating

progress, its evolution from the initial egocentric representation ever closer to reality. When the

game becomes symbolically collective it must coordinate different views on the actions, the

meaning of objects and it involves coordinating the criteria themselves with other criteria, which

facilitates the process of decentralization. Play originates and develops imagination and
PLAY THERAPY 11

creativity. There have been many researchers who have drawn attention to the close connections

between play and creativity. Play is in a way the history of the word, the first way of naming

reality. You can develop the role of language games, which are dedicated to the children with

great pleasure, as they are one of the basic forms of language learning. The child develops this

activity fun with language in the monologues, fictional or real dialogues etc. The game explores

the possibilities of their linguistic repertoire and paralinguistic (tone, rhythm, modulation etc.).

Play is a source of learning because it stimulates action, reflection and expression. This

activity allows the child to investigate and discover the world of objects, people and their

relationship. Children learn with games, investigate and discover the world around them,

structuring it and understanding it. There is no difference between playing and learning, because

any game that present new demands must be considered as a learning opportunity, nay, in the

game the children learn with remarkable ease because they are especially prone to receive what

they offers playful activity which engaged with pleasure. Furthermore, attention, memory and

wit are sharpened in the game, and all the learning that when they play will be transferred later to

the playful situations.

The therapist further clarifies that Sand play and Creative Visualization therapies would

be more fruitful in the case of Richard. The sand play therapy was created by an English

paediatrician and psychoanalyst, Margaret Lagerfeld, just after the Second World War. It was

created to help children with brain disorders and who faced the difficulty of communicating in a

multilingual environment. During a seminar in London, Dora M. Kalff, then student of the

Swiss psychiatrist C. G. Jung, discovered the game world and quickly understand the value and

potential of this therapeutic tool (Kalff, 2003).

PLAY THERAPY 12

She decided to adapt this technique and named it "sand play" by changing some elements

of the framework, and redefining the relationship between client and practitioner. Unlike

Margaret Lowenfeld, she defined that, when the staging of the game allows good access to the

deep emotions of the individual and their externalization, the transfer principle and against-

transfer between the client and the therapist is part of the process. Sand play therapy is first used

as a diagnostic tool but it soon became a tool for development and growth in its own right (Kalff,

2003).

Due to its non-verbal dimension, Sand play therapy is particularly suitable for small

children like Richard. It does not require special skills and offers the possibility of passing

through sensory exploration, play, and symbol, depending on the capacity development of

individual expression. The Sand play therapy gives access to deeper layers of the unconscious,

allowing the expression of content from the preverbal stage (Hale, 2000). Not limited to, the sand

play therapy is relevant in cases of depression, burnout, attachment disorders, behavioural

problems, hyperactivity, PDD / ASD, selective mutism, trauma, anxiety, school failure, enuresis

etc. This therapy provides a means of exploration, communication, and an invitation to the

verbalization in a privileged relationship with the therapist that welcomes and supports the

individual in his own way.

Richard’s therapist explained to Tom that sand Play therapy uses the natural elements of

sand and water and symbolic figures to shape images rising from the depths. It makes Richard

able to contact with his unconscious creating visual images and thus initiate a healing process. In

a free and protected by the therapist space, psyche can do its work, which restores the balance

between conscious and unconscious and natural healing abilities in Richard not only in his

internal world, but in the outside world (Hale, 2000).

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Richard meets the therapist for fifty minutes with his sandplay game, whose function is to

contain the free expression of what is at stake for Richard, the mobilization of creative energy,

and support this process through its protection and understanding. The therapeutic relationship

allows Richard to open in confidence, create and drop in his inner world. His father Tom is not

present. For fifty minutes, the story weaves. The staging of the game allows the therapist to

access and externalizing the deep emotions of Richard. The transfer principle and against-

transfer between the patient and the therapist is part of the process.

In the therapy, Sand tray issued which is a wooden tray of 72 cm x 57 cm and 7 cm,

placed on a coffee table. It contains fine sand which can be dry or wet. The tank bottom is blue,

can be used to include water or sky, if the patient so desires. Therapist told Richard that he is free

to explore the sand and many figurines found on the shelves. He can simply touch the sand as the

press, the hammer, the sculpt, bury, wet, etc. He may also, in addition to figurines, create himself

his own items with clay, raffia etc. After fifty minutes, Richard left the meeting with therapist in

the image of the scene he has created, then the analyst photograph the scene and clears. Therapist

attentive and caring presence, perimeter security and privacy puts in place allow the staging of

very deep content, host of symbolic expression of the psyche and the implementation of

restorative autonomous forces of Richard. The transfer principle and against-transfer between the

patient and the therapist is part of the process. Therapist told Richard that at the end of the

treatment process, he can review the images he created, and connect with the help of the analyst,

with its indoor and outdoor events that occurred during therapy.

The technique of Creative Visualization was started becoming popular in 1970s when

Shakti Gawin has authored a book on this technique. In this technique visualization is used to

create a better future which the person imagines for himself. Visualization is directed towards a
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goal (Gawin, 2002). During his creative visualization therapy session, Richard sits in a state of

relaxation and is guided by the therapist. Richard is invited into his inner world. On a theme

defined by him or the therapist, a story unfolds in a fantasy setting. It is in a suitable location to

the theme of the meeting - landscape, home, etc. - and observes the elements present in the image

- landscapes, people, animals, objects, plants - appearing spontaneously or implied. It suggests

the Richard to begin to move, act or interact with these objects or characters: up, down, to, talk,

ask, etc. Situations and objects are the projections of its interior spaces. They can represent

concrete situations of physical life as Richard imagines them in general creative visualization,

but they can be symbolic, as well as the elements of a night dream.

This entry in the internal fantasy world is a great way to explore other dimensions of self-

esteem and other domestic areas. Also, the images that appear are like those of nocturnal dreams,

revealing the play of psychic forces of Richard, his deep feelings, unresolved, even unknown to

him because they are repressed. Richard is conscious and attention is directed to the window of

his imagination, while chatting with the therapist and collecting his concrete environment. So

that the therapist can question him about what he sees in the dream. These insights are not an

analysis methodology and therapeutic sense, but rather the discovery and understanding of the

visual and emotional feeling.

The therapist also suggests more new elements that appear in the image, and propose

actions or interactions. This is called guided imagery. This allows Richard to experience

imaginary behaviour; he does not dare do in ordinary life, like talking to someone when he feels

inhibited. Inducing changes consisting to soothe internal conflicts exceed inhibitions downplay

fears; guided imagery is a tool for transformation. An imagined experience sows seeds in the

unconscious and transforms domestic programs as a concrete experience. The therapist

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encourages the quality manifestation of the most beautiful resorts and the highest of the person,

those who bring autonomy, self-expression and creativity, joy and pleasure. Also, in an

imaginary situation that reveals his fears and anxieties, it is particularly interesting to stimulate

deep inner strengths, and encourage them to implement.

Therapist makes it clear in the beginning that the duration of this therapy is variable

depending upon the personality, personal history, family and community, the environment, and

initial difficulties of the patient. This is a substantive work that embraces the whole personality.

Richard and Tom both agreed to take the weekly sessions and within the span of three months,

changes begin to be visible in Richard’s personality and behaviour.

Conclusion

This case study shows that family violence has long lasting effects on Children’s

personality and may cause different brain disorders. In this particular case, the professionals

involved must consider the position of power, so it must be wisely implemented, by the impact

of practices, attitudes and words can mean in the lives of people, and more particularly in the

everyday life of Richard. It is necessary to plan, proper and timely intervention, to avoid the

domestic violence and to repair the relationship of children with their parents, which is essential

for the personality development of children as well as for the betterment of their future life.

This case study also shows that play therapies, especially sandplay and creative

visualization therapies, in case of Richard, can surely act as a learning tool and can be used not

only to stimulate creativity but as a way of transforming negative emotions. It is an important

vehicle having children to learn and assimilate new concepts, skills and experiences, which is

why we can say without fear of error, that it is a primary tool for education.
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