What Happens During Play Therapy and Why It’s Effective

Although children have limited emotional intelligence and communication skills, that doesn’t mean that they cannot benefit from counseling and therapy. So many of the experiences we have in young childhood go on to shape and affect us later in life. Children might not have a concept of things like trauma and abuse, but they can still express themselves when guided by a counselor.

Counselors use a form of therapy known as play therapy to help clients as young as three. By tapping into their creativity and natural tendencies to be tactile, counselors can glean a lot of information from their young clients and help them feel safe and understood.

The Challenges of Child Counseling

Children present unique challenges because, unlike adults, no child can comfortably sit and talk for a 45-minute counseling session. Besides that, children usually won’t understand why they are meeting with a strange adult or what is expected of them. To clients younger than seven, a counselor is sort of like a mix between a doctor and a teacher, but it can be hard to understand why it’s necessary to meet with them. However, a counselor can feel like a friend to a child.

Child counselors make sessions fun and stimulating while still being able to gather information where they can. They want their young clients to feel safe enough to let their guards down, and to know that they are being helped. This is where play therapy comes in. Kids might not be able to describe what they are feeling, but they provide plenty of nonverbal cues and insight, even when they are playing or drawing.

What Happens During Play Therapy

Play therapy is especially effective for children aged between three and seven years old. After that, they tend to have a broader understanding of their emotions and better communication skills, though the idea behind play therapy can apply to people of all ages.

The main goal of play therapy is to engage the client with fun activities that make them feel safe, distract them to the point that they open up, and give them a platform to creatively express themselves. Different counselors will use different methods, but the tried and tested ones are still effective.

Doll Play

For decades, child counselors have used dolls or puppets in the play therapy sessions. The young client is given a doll who matches their own appearance, and stands in as a small version of themselves in the sessions that follow. The counselors have a lot of ways of using the dolls in play therapy, but most will commonly start by asking their young client to show them their routines at home, using their doll.

They might ask the child to show them what happens when they get home from school. Do they get a meal when they get home? Do their parents spend any time with them, or are they left on their own? Do they have to change their clothes, and if so, does a parent help with that? The counselor could also ask them to reenact what happens when they get sick, what happens on their birthdays, or what happens during holidays.

By getting the child to recreate routines at home using a doll as a stand-in for themselves, the client feels as if they’re playing a game, and will drop their guard. Meanwhile, the counselor guides the session so that they can glean as much information about their home life as possible.

The counselor will get an idea of how present or absent the parents are in the child’s home life, what the atmosphere is like at home, how the child perceives it, how well cared for the child is, and whether anything unusual or unhealthy is happening at home. All the while, the client feels as if they are playing a game with the therapist, and learning that it is both fun and safe to be with this older person.

It’s also important to get an idea of what is happening outside the home of the client, however. For this, the counselor will use more dolls to represent the broader family members, teachers, or friends of the client. Each doll represents a different key person in the child’s life, and as they reenact certain events that happen, the counselor pays attention to how the client interacts with each of the characters in their life.

For example, the client might feel particularly attached to the doll that represents their teacher, while they are antagonistic toward the doll that represents a sibling. This gives the counselor more insight into the broader world of their client, and what might be affecting them outside their home life.

Clay Play

Besides dolls, counselors also frequently use plasticine as a tool in play therapy. Children feel safest and happiest when they can be tactile with things in their world. They love to hold, touch, break, and shape things, and something like plasticine or molding clay is the perfect thing to use with them.

Children also emotionally regulate by being physical. If they mold things with the plasticine only to smash the clay, throw it, or do something like step on it, this provides clues to the counselor that the child has anger, frustration, or fear that they need to work out.

Superheroes and Wishes

Children grow up being fascinated by fairytales and superheroes, and many counselors will incorporate these things into play therapy. They will give the child something that has “magical abilities,” like a wand to hold or a cape to wear. They tell the client that these items can magically make something happen, and then guide the client through wishing for things that will help them.

In many cases, the things the child wishes for reveal vital information to the counselor. They might wish to have more friends, for a parent to stop shouting, for a better place to live, or something else equally revealing of what is happening in their little world.

Color Your Feelings

The common thread that runs through all of play therapy is kids being creative, using their imaginations, and being tactile with things to express themselves. For all of these reasons, art is an important part of play therapy for many counselors. There are countless ways that colorful art can be used in play therapy, and each exercise has the added benefit of teaching the children about emotions.

For example, the counselor can help the client to decide which colors relate to which emotions they feel. Young children might only be able to name a handful of emotions, but each one can get its own color. The slightly older children will be able to describe more emotions, and each will get assigned their own colors.

During play therapy, the counselor and client can make colorful pictures together that represent all the feelings they felt during a specific event or about a certain person in their lives.

Help For All Ages

No child is too young for counseling. More than that, children as young as toddler age often need help as much as, or more than, others who are older. Play therapy is as effective as it is fun. It gives children a safe place for self-expression, provides them with a place to feel safe and seen, and gives them the tools to begin understanding their emotions.

If you are thinking of play therapy sessions for your child, but you are uncertain about any aspect of child counseling, we would love to help. Please contact our reception team for more information. If you would like to enroll your child in counseling, please consult our online catalog of counselors, and we hope that you will find someone suitable for you and your child’s needs.