Child-Centered Child Play Therapy

In CCPT, children work in a safe, supportive environment to express feelings, develop coping skills, and address behavioral and emotional challenges through play. Child-centered therapy is non-directive: the therapist facilitates and positively supports the child during the process, allowing them to constructively solve problems and reach conclusions independently. However, CCPT is not open-ended: within therapy, play is structured to achieve therapeutic goals, such as helping prevent social difficulties or achieve optimal emotional growth for their development.

Play is sometimes seen as a child’s work. Toys and activities are the vocabulary children use to express themselves. Play therapists use these tools to help children express thoughts and feelings they may otherwise have difficulty with. Guiding them through the process, play therapists encourage children to express conflicts and hurts in a safe and familiar way. In the process, children learn to master their worries which leads to a happier and more peaceful developmental progression.

Examples of play therapy activities are:

• Energetic play, gross motor play and physical activities
• Building, such as with legos or jigsaw puzzles
• Symbolic play with dolls or figurines to act out social scenarios
• Nurturing play with dolls or stuffed animals to act out caregiving
• Conflict-based play with toy soldiers or characters to express and learn to manage anger without judgment
• Role-playing through imaginative play, or dramatically acting out roles
• Mimetic play, or repeating certain sounds, words, or songs
• Play with rules, such as board games

Child-Centered Play Therapy is influenced by the work of person-centered psychologist Carl Rogers, who believed that people have an innate tendency towards growth and self-actualization and that the therapist’s role is to facilitate this process. Virginia Axline used Rogers’ theory of person-centered approach to develop child-centered play therapy in 1947, which has the following principles:

1. Develop a friendly and empathetic alliance with the child.
2. Accept the child nonjudgmentally.
3. Create an environment where children can express themselves freely.
4. Recognize and reflect the child’s feelings to help them develop self-awareness.
5. Recognize and respect the child’s ability to solve their own problems.
6. Be non-directive, allow the child to guide therapy
7. Recognize that therapy is a gradual process
8. Set necessary limits and goals that are constructive and realistic.

In some cases, parents may be directly involved in therapy, which is influenced primarily by the child’s developmental level and type of treatment. Younger children benefit from parents being involved directly in sessions, while older teenagers may prefer some level of autonomy in their sessions. Parents can play an equally important role by reinforcing therapeutic strategies at home.

Family Therapy is commonly used with child therapy to reinforce education across the household, address family relationship issues that may contribute to a child’s challenges, and improve treatment effectiveness.