In recent years, a plethora of novel play therapy techniques has been developed to harness the therapeutic powers of play. There are fifteen techniques described that are effective, enjoyable, cheap, and simple to implement. The therapeutic rationale, materials required, step-by-step implementation guide, and applications are all included in the description of each technique. The techniques chosen are suitable for children aged 4 to 12 and cover a wide range of play approaches (e.g., art, fantasy, sensorimotor, and gameplay). The techniques were chosen to address a variety of pertinent presenting issues, including anxiety, depression, impulsivity, distractibility, and non-compliance.
Play therapy has been a well-established and popular mode of child treatment in clinical practice for over 60 years. Because children have not yet developed the abstract reasoning abilities and verbal skills required to adequately articulate their feelings, thoughts, and behaviours, play therapy has proven to be a particularly useful approach for them. Toys are children’s worlds, and play is their language.
Play therapy is an interpersonal process in which a trained therapist employs the curative powers of play (e.g., relationship enhancement, role-playing, abreaction, communication, mastery, catharsis, attachment formation, and so on) to assist clients in resolving current psychological difficulties and preventing future ones. Play therapy strategies explain how to employ play materials in order to successfully implement play’s therapeutic powers (Schaefer, 1993).
The following are 15 therapeutically useful play therapy strategies. The chosen approaches’ goals include assisting children in being aware of and expressing their feelings, managing anger, improving self-control, reducing fear, anxiety, and despair, increasing empowerment, and improving problem-solving skills.
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CLINICAL AND EDUCATIONAL SETTINGS TO COUNSEL KIDS
1. The Feeling Word Game
Therapeutic Rationale
When children are directly questioned, they frequently have difficulties verbalising their sentiments, either because they are guarded or because they do not connect with the feelings they find most frightening. Children’s defences are lower when they are engaged in a game, and they are more prone to express their emotions. The Feeling Word Game allows youngsters to express their emotions in a fun and non-threatening way.
Applications
The Feeling Word Game can be used successfully with all children, including those who have behavioural issues, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or anxiety issues. This strategy allows therapists to address and probe situations that are normally too scary for the child to express directly.
2. Color-Your-Life
Therapeutic Rationale
Color-Your-Life gives youngsters a non-threatening, concrete way to comprehend and share different emotive states. Certain abilities must be developed by children in order for them to successfully manage their effects. Children, in particular, must develop an awareness of a variety of affective states, the ability to relate those sensations to environmental events, and the ability to verbally communicate these sentiments in an appropriate manner.
Applications
Color-Your-Life is appropriate for all youngsters aged 6 to 12. The youngsters must be able to recognise and name colours, as well as different affective states. The approach can be utilised individually or in a group setting. It is beneficial to apply the strategy at many stages throughout the therapy to assess what change has occurred.
3. The Pick-Up-Sticks Game
Therapeutic Rationale
The Pick-Up-Sticks Game was created to encourage children’s affective expression. In a game context, the approach is a pleasant way for youngsters to express their sentiments and link diverse affective states with environmental events. To play the Pick-Up-Sticks Game successfully, the youngsters must be familiar with colour-feeling pairs. Playing Color-Your-Life, as explained above, is one approach to get kids started.
Applications
The adapted Pick-Up-Sticks Game is appropriate for children aged 6 to 12. This technique can be utilised alone or in small groups.
4. Balloons of Anger
Therapeutic Rationale
It is critical to teach youngsters what anger is and how to express it responsibly. Balloons of Anger is a fun and effective technique that gives children a visual representation of anger and the influence it may have on them and their environment. It demonstrates to the youngsters how anger can accumulate within them and how, if not released gently and securely, anger can explode and cause harm to themselves or others.
Applications
Balloons of Anger are useful for aggressive children who struggle to regulate their anger, as well as for withdrawn children who internalise their anger rather than express it. This technique can be utilised alone or in a group setting.
5. The Mad Game
Therapeutic Rationale
The Mad Game was created to inform children that anger is a normal and acceptable emotion, and it allows them to express their anger both verbally and physically.
Applications
The Mad Game can be played individually or in groups. This technique can be tweaked slightly to communicate emotions other than anger, such as sadness or anxiety.
6. Beat the Clock
Therapeutic Rationale
Beat the Clock was created to help children improve their self-discipline and impulse control. The purpose of this game is for the child to fight distractions and stay on task for a set amount of time. When the youngster completes this assignment correctly, she or he receives poker chips, which can be cashed in for a prize. When the child wins the game, he or she feels a sense of competence and accomplishment.
Applications
Beat the Clock can be utilised individually or in small groups. This strategy is beneficial for any child who struggles with impulse control (e.g., children with ADHD).
7. The Slow Motion Game
Therapeutic Rationale
It’s common knowledge that youngsters learn best by doing. The Slow Motion Game was created to encourage children to actively develop self-control over their motions in a fun social setting.
Applications
The Slow Motion Game is effective with any group of children who struggle with self-control. Common board games can also be used to improve children’s self-control.
8. Relaxation Training: Bubble Breaths
Therapeutic Rationale
Bubble Breaths is a concrete relaxation technique that teaches children deep and regulated breathing while also assisting them in being aware of their own mind-body connections. Bubble blowing is enjoyable, and affordable, and allows the child and therapist to communicate in a non-threatening manner.
Applications
Bubble Breaths can be used individually or in groups. It is a basic, low-cost strategy that is both engaging and non-threatening. This strategy is very effective in lowering children’s rage, anxiety, or stress.
9. Worry Can
Therapeutic Rationale
Children frequently worry about a variety of issues that they keep pent up inside. Some of their presenting issues, such as phobias, peer conflict, temper tantrums, and separation anxiety, maybe the result of these concerns. Worry Can is a helpful tool for assisting youngsters in identifying and discussing their concerns with an adult and/or other children.
Applications
Worry Can, can be used individually or in groups. It can be transformed into an Anger Can or a Sad Can. The Garbage Bag Technique is a version of this technique. As garbage bags, two brown sandwich bags can be used. one for trash at home and one for trash at school The child is told to paint the waste bags before putting three strips of paper, each with a different difficulty, in each bag. The child chooses a piece of junk to play with in miniatures or role-playing the following session. Children frequently devise their own answers to situations. If this does not happen, the therapist should be assertive and offer ideas in the context of the play. The therapist must keep the play in the third person so that the child can keep enough distance from the problem to fix it.
10. Party Hats on Monsters
Therapeutic Rationale
Party Hats on Monsters is a drawing method that helps youngsters face their concerns in a non-threatening, entertaining way. Most children prefer to convey their worries by sketching rather than verbalising them. Furthermore, youngsters find it soothing when they are not forced to confront their greatest fear or concern right away. The children’s confidence and sense of mastery grow when they experience incremental success in confronting the frightening object.
Applications
This method is ideal for preschool and elementary school-aged youngsters. Although it is useful for assisting children with ordinary worries, it is especially beneficial for children with anxiety disorders. This technique can be somewhat modified by allowing youngsters to design their concerns in clay.
11. Weights and Balloons
Therapeutic Rationale
Making abstract therapeutic notions accessible, meaningful, and concrete to children is a common issue in therapy. Techniques that are entertaining and “hands-on” are great for teaching these complicated topics to toddlers. Weights and Balloons is a simple and successful method for teaching youngsters the relatively complex cognitive behavioural theory of depression.
Applications
Weights and Balloons is a low-cost way for turning a difficult concept into something real and understandable. This approach is especially beneficial for sad children. It is, however, use with all youngsters to demonstrate the impact that thoughts have on feelings.
12. The Power Animal Technique: Internalising a Positive Symbol of Strength
Therapeutic Rationale
Children who are referred to therapy frequently have low self-esteem, poor problem-solving skills, and challenging relationships with peers and adults. As a result, primary treatment aims frequently include enhancing the child’s positive sense of self and coping skills. However, it is frequently difficult for youngsters to verbalise what abilities they wish they possessed or what characteristics would enable them to deal more effectively.
Applications
The Power Animal Technique can help any child who could benefit from a pleasant introduction.
13. Using a Puppet to Create a Symbolic Client
Therapeutic Rationale
Puppets play an important role in play therapy. Children frequently transfer their thoughts and feelings into puppets. Puppets provide children with the necessary distance to articulate their distress. Furthermore, the puppets act as a channel for the therapist to reflect understanding and deliver corrective emotional experiences to the children while they play. Most children’s experiences are naturally projected onto the puppets. Some youngsters, however, are too afraid and withdrawn to participate in any aspect of treatment. The therapist is able to engage these children and overcome reluctance by employing the puppet as a symbolic client. The symbolic client takes the spotlight away from the child, enhancing the youngster’s comfort level and allowing him or her to maintain a healthy emotional distance.
Applications
This strategy is especially useful for any youngster between the ages of 4 and 8 who is apprehensive or withdrawn at the start of therapy. A variation on this strategy would be to confront the puppet with the same dilemma as the youngster and request the child’s assistance in thinking of solutions to the puppet’s difficulty.
14. Broadcast News
Therapeutic Rationale
Children prefer to act out their concerns rather than discuss them. Furthermore, when children can separate themselves from their difficulties, they are better able to solve them. Broadcast news is a fun, non-threatening strategy for improving children’s verbalization and problem-solving abilities.
Applications
Broadcast news is a fantastic strategy for highly talkative children aged 6 and up. Those who are naturally extroverted will like this exercise, whereas children who are reserved or worried may struggle. If the therapist believes that the youngster requires additional distance from his or her troubles, puppets can be employed. A chat show hosted by the youngster is a variant of this concept. The therapist is the visitor, and she or he chooses what “problems” to discuss.
15. The Spy and the Sneak
Therapeutic Rationale
The Spy and the Sneak were created to turn unfavourable family interactions into positive ones, increasing family members’ pleasure in one another and improving their self-esteem. Parents learn to recognise many of their children’s excellent characteristics and begin to praise good behaviour. Children understand that acting positively attracts more attention than acting negatively.
Applications
The Spy and the Sneak is a fun, engaging approach that costs nothing yet yields tremendous therapeutic benefits. This strategy is ideal for use in any family suffering bad interactions. After a few weeks of using the approach, the therapist may teach the parent and child to switch roles, with the youngster becoming the spy and the parent becoming the sneak.
Play is “the kid’s natural medium of self-expression,” and it is through play that the youngster learns. As a result, during counselling, play is an ideal medium for talking with children. Play promotes children’s growth and development in all areas by allowing them to explore their interests, form relationships with others, learn to express their emotions in socially acceptable ways, collaborate and share, and experiment with language use. The normal path of play is from unstructured, spontaneous play as toddlers to organised games with rules between the ages of 7 and 11, and then to games that need greater cognitive skills in adolescence.
The Various play therapy techniques are:
Toys as Tools
A dollhouse with furniture and a doll family, doll clothes, a baby doll with a bottle, puppets, building blocks, toy cars and trucks, toy guns, knives, and swords, stuffed animals, play telephones, crayons, paints, scissors, glue and paper, play dough, and clothes for playing dress-up are all recommended as staples in the therapeutic playroom. When children find it difficult to express their feelings directly, toys that allow them to be creative, release emotion, develop insight, test reality, and express themes from real life, such as anger and aggressiveness, love and nurturing, and melancholy should be provided. Puppets provide effective triggers for dramatised, symbolic emotional acting.
Sand and Water Play
Sand and water are natural media that youngsters find fascinating. The sandbox can represent the kid’s environment by allowing the youngster to construct his dream world with toy automobiles, building blocks, and doll figurines. The youngster then acts out themes that depict the problems he or she is going through. The use of dry and damp sand in separate waterproof trays painted blue to mimic a lake when the sand is moved aside provides stimulus for changing themes of children’s play. In children’s sand play, common stages include chaos, struggle, and resolution. Water play has also been utilised to assist children who are extremely energetic and confined, offering an outlet for aggression or calm.
