Play Therapy: What's that?

Toys and play are the words of children. Play therapy provides young people with an opportunity to act out feelings and concerns, as they are experienced. Children may find it difficult to tell what they feel or how they have been affected by what they have experienced, but if permitted, in the presence of a caring and empathic adult, will show how they feel through the use of toys and materials they choose, what they do with and to the materials, and the story they act out.

Play therapy is an appropriate approach to counseling children because play comes naturally to them. Children can show more adequately how they feel about themselves and the significant persons and events in their lives through the manipulation of toys than through words.

Most play therapists work with young children between the ages of 3 and 10. The play room may also be inviting to older pre-adolescents and early adolescents if it contains more sophisticated toys.

Most children under the age of 9 to 10 years old have not developed the abstract reasoning skills and verbal abilities to sit in a counselor's office and articulate their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Most young children have better developed receptive language skills than expressive language skills, which means they can often comprehend concepts even when they do not know how to verbalize them. This allows the counselor to combine play and verbalizations to communicate ideas to children.