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July 25, 2023The benefits of play for children and adults alike are well-documented. Play is an essential tool in the toolbox for children’s growing minds, bodies, and social skills. What’s often overlooked, though, is the use of play as a therapeutic tool.
For children and adults who are struggling to process traumatic experiences, some therapists opt for play therapy, which can be used to help them more easily express emotions, improve mental health, increase self-esteem and decrease anxiety and stress levels. It can also be used to help prevent or resolve psychosocial difficulties.
Play therapy is more than just an advanced form of ordinary playtime. It’s often successful because it puts children at ease in an environment that they’re comfortable in – often surrounded by toys. It offers a therapist the opportunity to then observe how children naturally interact with toys, which have been selected very intentionally. From those observations, therapists can better understand themes – like regression, detachment, safety and control, and more – that emerge and more accurately teach problem-solving and coping skills.
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At Voice of Play, we know play is an essential part of a child’s growth and development – and acknowledge the many benefits that play can offer in a therapeutic setting. Below are three of those key benefits.
1. Play Therapy Can Help Identify and Address Behavioral Issues
Using play in a therapeutic setting can help a professional better understand – and ultimately address – the root of a child’s (or adult’s) behavioral issues. In this case, a therapist may select toys from a variety of “categories” – from real-life toys, like dolls and boats, to aggressive toys, like ropes and toy guns, and creative toys, including crayons and Legos – and offer them to children to interpret how a child feels based on how they interact with what’s in front of them. From this, therapists can more easily understand behavioral issues based on past trauma, like divorce, death, and more.
2. It Can Help with Sharing Emotions
Circumstances of extreme trauma – either in childhood or adulthood – can impact people in different ways and often makes it challenging to communicate thoughts, feelings and emotions. If you’ve ever experienced a child’s tantrum or gone through your own mental health struggles, it can be difficult to verbalize these feelings and express what is causing these emotions to your family or a therapist.
Play therapy serves as an outlet to express and connect with inner emotions, without the need for words. During play therapy, toys, games, and role-playing help children and adults “play out” their emotions. For example, a child may use building blocks with numbers or letters to communicate by either spelling out their feelings or using a corresponding numbered block to answer yes or no.
3. Play Therapy can Help Treat Various Conditions
Beyond the behavioral and emotional benefits of play therapy, it can also be used to treat adults and children who are dealing with various conditions or neurodevelopmental differences and disorders, like autism or attention deficit disorder (ADD). In children with autism, toys that move, squeak, dance or vibrate can help build various social skills. Over time, children learn to share and take turns and pretend to feed a toy or cook, which creates relatability on a personal level that can be applied in more complex social settings with a larger group.
While not a cure for these types of conditions, play therapy is often used to help provide supportive, adjunctive treatment that can help children and adults better understand their own emotions and offer helpful coping skills.
Play therapy is an important method of therapy that utilizes play to uncover past traumas, behavioral issues and teaches children and adults to deal with them in an appropriate and engaged manner. If you’re interested in learning more about play therapy and its vast benefits, you can discuss this option with a licensed mental health professional to determine if it’s an option for you or your child.
