Play therapy

Play Therapy is defined by the Association for Play Therapy as "the systematic use of a theoretical model to establish an interpersonal process wherein trained play therapists use the therapeutic powers of play to help clients prevent or resolve psychosocial difficulties and achieve optimal growth and development." A lay definition might be "a form of counseling that uses play to communicate with and render assistance, especially to children whose natural language is play."

Play therapy is often used instead of "play diagnosis". The term was used, along with children's toys (play-houses, pets, dolls, etc) to help the diagnostician to try to determine the cause of disturbed behaviour in a child.

Treatment therapists then used a type of systematic desensitization or relearning therapy to change the disturbing behaviour, either systematically or in less formal social settings. However the same processes can be used with any other pre-verbal, non-verbal, or verbally-impaired persons, such as slow-learners, brain-injured or drug-affected persons. Mature adults usually need much "group permission" before indulging in the relaxed spontaneity of play therapy, so a very skilled group worker is needed to deal with such guarded individuals.

Mature adults find that "child's play" so difficult and taboo, that most experienced group workers need specially trialled "play" strategies. New text books are regularly published. Competent adult-group workers will use these play strategies to enable more unguarded spontaneity to develop in the non-childish student.

The therapeutic efficacy of Play Therapy has not yet been proven scientifically. Some contend, however, that it is virtually impossible to scientifically prove the efficacy of any psychotherapeutic modality, new or old. They argue that the variables are simply too vast, infinite in fact, making a controlled experiment impossible. In fact, the efficacy of several scientifically-based therapies, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy, has been well established as one of the most effective forms of treatment for many mental illnesses. Play Therapy or other Creative Arts Therapies, not unlike Psychoanalysis, may elude scientific validation as the goals and methods of the modality is fundamentally based in art, not science.