Play Therapy

In order for children to feel better and improve their behavior, they need to make sense out of the stressful or traumatic experience and assimilate it into what they already know about the world. This is known as “processing” an experience and it usually involves expressing thoughts and feelings and coming to a new understanding about the experience, which then leads to behavior changes. This is similar to what an adult does in counselling by talking with a therapist. For children things are different. Talking about problems using words is often difficult for children. We do know however that children express themselves much better by playing than by talking. In play, children will use their imaginations and express themselves symbolically through the toys. This means that experiences that have impacted the child in some way will show up as play behaviors. For example, a child who has been in a car accident may play by crashing toy cars together. A child who has seen his parents fighting may use puppets to act out these conflicts seen at home. In play therapy then, children are allowed to express, using toys, all the things they have difficulty saying, or may even be unable to say at all, with words.