sensory-motor play.
He believed that "play had no real purpose other than to use up excess energy".
Schillier said that "..play is the aimless expenditure of exuberant energy....children and young animals, not concerned with self preservation, have surplus energy which they expended through play."
Freud, Piaget and Vygotsky developed theories which relate play to the world of children and many others have restated the significance of play within a child's life.
Bruner (1972);
Nature and Uses of Immaturity; identifies play of having various different functions, such as minimising the consequences of action, therefore learning in a less risky situation, and the opportunity to try combinations of behaviour that would not otherwise be tried. Others, have since taken on board the therapeutic nature and the ability of play to help identify problems.
Freud identified his theories of play as a repetition of symbolic games being the ego's attempt to repeat actively a traumatic event, previously experienced passively, thus allowing the child to gain mastery over the event. From this, a psychoanalytic approach to child analysis developed which used play to interpret the child's unconscious motivation.
The two people, on the whole, who were responsible for this development are Anna Freud and Melanie Klein, through their work with neurotic children.
Klein.
Freud looked for the unconscious motivation behind imaginative play, drawings and paintings, dreams and daydreams. She emphasised the importance of the relationship between the therapist and the child, in particular, the initial stages, She pointed out that this relationship was problematic because the parents (the original love object) are still very much active in the child's life, thus leading to strong positive transference, but difficult negative transference and a transference neurosis does not develop.
Klein believed that spontaneous play in a child was equal to free association of an adult.
This theory is problematic, because it relies on an adult interpretation of a child's actions -
"the child who runs towards a visitor and opens her purse, need not thereby as Melanie Klein thinks, have expressed symbolically its curiosity as to whether or not a new little sister is concealed within the body of its mother. It might be associating in its mind the experience of the previous day in which someone who had entered had brought in a small gift in a bag."
Others have taken the view that, contrary to the psychoanalytic approach which relies on the medium of play to indicate the source of problems, the play is the therapeutic process itself.
Winnicott
Non-directive play therapy looks at play as a healing process. It gives the child the opportunity to play out feelings and problems and learns about themselves in relation to the therapist.
Play in this model is not seen as stimulation for other kinds of therapy, rather as the therapeutic intervention itself. The focus of this theory is on the healing process of play.
Virginia Axline (1947/69)
Non-directive therapy allows for the acceptance of the child without judgement or pressure to change. Play is the child's natural medium for expression and in play therapy, the child can play out feelings of tension, frustration, insecurity, aggression, fear, bewilderment and confusion.
1) The therapist must develop a warm friendly relationship with the child, in which good rapport is established as soon as possible.
2) The therapist accepts the child exactly as she is.
3) The therapist establishes a feeling of permissiveness in the relationship so that the child feels free to express feelings completely.
4) The therapist is alert to recognise the feelings the child is expressing and reflects those feelings back in a manner that gives the child an insight into her behaviour.
5) The therapist maintains a deep respect for the child's ability to solve problems if given the opportunity. The responsibility to make changes and institute change is the child's.
6) The therapist does not attempt to direct the child's actions or conversations in any manner, the child leads the way; the therapist follows.
7) The therapist does not attempt to hurry the therapy along. It is a gradual process, recognised as such by the therapist.
8) The therapist establishes only those limitations necessary to anchor the therapy to the world of reality and to make the child aware of her responsibility in the relationship.
Axline also states that the above principles are interwoven and interdependent on the others.
Clark Moustakas (1953/74)
Children in Play Therapy; talks about child-centred play therapy and defines the relationship needed to ensure that the therapy is a growth experience, particularly that the therapist needs to respect and accept the child.
He identifies four stages in the therapeutic process; the child's emotions are diffused and feelings are generally negative.
the relationship develops and attitudes of hostility become more specific and anger is expressed against particular people/experiences.
As the negative feelings are expressed and the therapist accepts them, they become less intense.
the child becomes less negative.
S/he still has anger but is no longer ambivalent towards the peope in her/his life.
positive feelings emerge. The child sees her/himself, and the relationship with others in a more balanced way.
The levels of the process occur in individually varying sequences with some overlapping. The key elements in this method are the security of the child with the therapist.
The conditions necessary for self-actualisation to occur through non-directive and child-centred therapy can be characterised by three elements or core conditions;
These three elements are
genuineness and authenticity - that is the capacity to be real, to be themselves as opposed to adopting a role or defensive posture with the client.
non-possessive warmth - an attitude of caring and engaged and friendly concern, without becoming overly emotionally involved or offering help for self-serving reasons
accurate empathy - the ability to feel with those who are seeking help, and articulate these feelings.
So what about the actual therapy itself? What does it entail?
Sensory/embodiment Play
Different mediums have a different place with each child. Tactile materials such as gloop are used by children to represent a number of things, such as the world falling in on top of you, small creatures being buried under a mound of slime. Or it can be used to regress to babyhood and messy play, touching, smearing, throwing, or representing their own bodies through the material, where it becomes 'snot' or 'sick' or other body fluids etc.
The child explores and experiences the world through the senses, then begins to explore objects, materials and toys outside herself.
The child begins to discover the external world through the exploration of toys and objects external to herself.
It can take a narrative form, making up stories around the objects, but sometimes takes the form of embodiment play where the objects are used as a form of sensory experience.
So a child may make a monster out of play dough and structure a story about it, or take pleasure in playing with the material , smelling touching, hitting, poking; enjoying a bodily reaction to the material.
Children often represent their social world through symbolic play. Children signal that they are about to start, or change playing, by various methods such as saying "do you want to play with me,?" "now I'm a monster" and close the playing by negating the roles "I'm not dead any more" marking boundaries of when children enter and leave the play.
Symbolic play enables the experience of subjective realities in alternative environments, whilst also sharing this experience with others.
The participants agree to create an alternative reality.
Abused children find symbols or metaphors to describe their pain, thus allowing them to to explore past relationships in a multi-dimensional way and make some meaning and resolution of their past.
Actual techniques of play therapy vary between schools of thought, and also between therapists within these schools.
What is clear though, is that play is crucial to the development of children, and given that, it can be utilised to identify and resolve trauma that the child may have experienced in their lives.
Childhood 'play' is also seen by Sally Jenkinson (author of The Genius of Play) to be an intimate and integral part of childhood development.
"In giving primacy to adult knowledge, to our grown-up ways of seeing the world, have we forgotten how to value other kinds of wisdom? Do we still care about the small secret corners of children's wisdom?"
Modern research in the field of affective neuroscience has uncovered important links between role playing and neurogenesis in the brain.
Sociologist Roger Callios coined the word "ilinx" to describe the momentary disruption of perception that comes from forms of physical play that disorient the senses, especially balance.
In addition evolutionary psychologists have begun to expound the phylogenetic relationship between higher intelligence in humans and its relationship to play.
Play is explicitly recognized in Article 31 of The Conventions on the Rights of a Child (adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations. November 29, 1989). which states:
- Parties recognize the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.
- Parties shall respect and promote the right of the child to participate fully in cultural and artistic life and shall encourage the provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic, recreational and leisure activities.
The American Society of Paediatricians (AAP) published a study in 2006 entitled: "The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds".
The report states: "free and unstructured play is healthy and - in fact - essential for helping children reach important social, emotional, and cognitive developmental milestones as well as helping them manage stress and become resilient.”
CHILDS PLAY
http://www.playday.org.uk/PDF/Making-it-Our-Place-communities-talk-about-play.pdf
CONSULTING CHILDREN ON PLAY
http://www.ncb.org.uk/dotpdf/open%20access%20-%20phase%201%20only/factsheet_consultingplay_cpis_20060728.pdf
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POETRY IS CHILDS PLAY
