PSYCHOANALYTIC PLAY THERAPY

Chapter 2

Conducted by: Prof. Rita A. Hora

 LECTURE OUTLINE
CONTENTS:
Psychoanalytic Play Therapy
Role of the Therapist
Role of Parents
Clinical Applications
Play Therapy Toys
Psychoanalytic Play Technique
Psychoanalytic Play
Therapy…
 The Goal of Psychoanalytic Play
Therapy
• helping the child to suffer less;
• overcome trauma;
• adjust to life events, such as divorce;
• cope with illness and comply with treatment;
master phobias;
• be better able to attend, learn, and
work in school;
 The Goal of Psychoanalytic Play
Therapy

• Manage personal anger and aggression

• Come to terms with learning disability or physical
handicap.
 The Goal of Psychoanalytic Play
Therapy
• The goals of psychoanalytic play therapy
sometimes are more ambitious, aspiring to
change not just a behavior or symptom but
broader, deeper, and more essential aspects of
the child and her ways of dealing with life and its
ordeals
 The Goal of Psychoanalytic Play
Therapy
• Psychoanalytic play therapy may be used to
soften an overly harsh conscience in a child who
won’t give himself a break.
• It can help a child integrate various aspects of
her personality or help her to master
developmental tasks such as separating and
growing up, or adapting to puberty
and its change.
 The Goal of Psychoanalytic Play
Therapy
• Psychoanalytic play therapy intends to go
beyond the immediate pain or difficulty and clear
the way so that healthy development can resume
from where it has been halted(paused)or
detoured by external trauma or untenable internal
conflict.
 The Goal of Psychoanalytic Play
Therapy
• It also is effective in helping children who real
and significant limitations come to terms with who
have real and significant limitations come terms
with who they are helping them to develop more
secure, adaptable compensating, and self-
accepting ways and attitudes.
 The Goal of Psychoanalytic Play
Therapy
• Therapy provides a troubled child a place safe
from physical and psychological harm, where she
can let her guard down sufficiently to explore her
thoughts, feelings and life.
 The Goal of Psychoanalytic Play
Therapy
• This type of therapy believes along with the child
centered approach, that simply coming to know
what she truly feels, thinks and does can help a
child to feel and function better, that is to live in a
more authentic way.
 The Goal of Psychoanalytic Play
Therapy
• The psychoanalytic play therapist strives to “
therapeutically hold” the child. Parallel to the way
that a mother holds her baby the therapist holds
the patient not physically, but psychologically.
 The Goal of Psychoanalytic Play
Therapy
• Moment by moment the therapist confirms the
child’s experience. This witnessing foster the
child’s trust in what she herself feels and
perceives, leading to her evolving a more
genuine self, a keystone of psychological health.
• Therapist empathically listen and respond to the
child
Role Of Therapist
 Role of Therapist
• Treatment is the role of the therapist more
entwined with the basic theory and constructs
• The therapist and her way of being is the
intervention.
• Relationship –based therapy, the therapist strives
to create an atmosphere of safety and
acceptance, of GENUINE LOVE.. positive regard
for the child.
 Role of Therapist
• Empathic and inquisitive posture toward the
child, her experience, and her self expression are
essential.
• Respect for the child’s thoughts and feelings, for
no other reason than they are the child’s own.
Example :Reprimanding him will not likely to him
any more good than has the yelling(shouting) of the
parents and teachers in the boy’s life.
 Role of Therapist

Example :Reprimanding him will not likely to

him any more good than has the
yelling(shouting) of the parents and teachers
in the boy’s life.
 Role of Therapist

 We may share with him our sense that what he’s

doing is not good and that it suggest to us that he
is not as happy and content as he appears to be.
 Try to stay neutral, not to the boy, but to his
conflict, so that he can openly explore what
need his aggression.
 Role of Therapist

• Listen to their side of every story. And we shoot

straight.
• Children come for professional help because
they feel troubled, hurt and maybe, even lost.
 Role of Therapist
• Parents are a primary source of information
about the child and the home.
• Parents can tell us their perceptions of the child’s
behaviors at home, how he gets along with
sibling or peers and how he does in school.
• They can give us a history of the child’s
development as well as explain the reason for
the referral.
Role Of Parents
 Role of Parents…

• Admitting the child is hurting or needs

professional help is painful and can threaten the
self-esteem as a parent.
 Role of Parents…
• Parents are a primary source of information
about the child and the home.
• Parents can tell us their perceptions of the child’s
behaviors at home, how he gets along with
sibling or peers, and how he does in school.
• They can give us a history of the child’s
development as well as explain the reason for
the referral.
 Role of Parents…

• Dealing with parents we strive to listen carefully

and respectfully, so that the parents feel willing
and trusting to speak candidly and fully.
• Parents will be guarded against revealing their
uglier and darker parenting moments if they feel
critiqued or looked down on.
 Role of Parents…

• Strive to meet parents where they are, whatever

their lifestyle.
• They come for help and not our judgement.
• We guide parents in the right directions even as
we help the child to understand and cope with
what’s already happened or what continues to be
true in his home and life.
 Role of Parents…
• Never forget that the child-therapist relationship,
however powerful, runs second to the
relationship the child has with the parent.
• We need parents not only to support the child’s
coming to therapy, but to support the changes
she needs or is herself making.
Clinical Applications
 Clinical Applications

• Psychoanalytic play therapy seems to hold most

value for certain types of problems.
• It is especially good at helping children with
anxiety, depression, those with borderline and
psychotic functioning, and those who need to
reconcile themselves to limitations, such as
chronic illness or learning disabilities.
 Clinical Applications
• Psychodynamic therapy, though taking time, can
help disconnected children attach to themselves
and their families.
• It also is quite adept at lessening self-hatred and
problematic narcissism, tenacious issues by any
clinician’s standards.
• Other approaches, such as family therapy, may
better help children whose problems
reside mostly in parent or family strife
(trouble)
Play Therapy Toys
 Play Therapy Toys

• In play therapy, the assumptions is that the child

expresses and works out conflicts and problems
through play.
• There are many different toys to choose from and
the toy chosen along with the child’s play with
these may be interpreted in terms of suspected
sexual abuse.
 CASE
• The child made long rolls out of play dough,
which were interpreted as penises by the
therapist. When the child then cut the play dough
into pieces, this was interpreted as reflecting
anger at the alleged perpetrator.
 Play Therapy Toys

• Play therapy for sexual abuse is sometimes

called “disclosure-based” and the sessions focus
on reenactments in play, expressing feelings,
and talking repeatedly about the alleged abuse.
Psychoanalytic Play
Technique
 Psychoanalytic Play Technique

• The essence of this technique is that the child is

seen individually for a set period of time, in the
same room at the same times each week, from
one to five sessions a week.
Psychoanalytic Play Technique
 Types of Play Therapy
• Directive Play Therapy
• Non-Directive Play Therapy
 Theories of Play Therapy
• Directive • Non-Directive
– Cognitive behavioral – Child-centered
– Gestalt – Jungian
– Developmental – Psychoanalytic
– SFBT

-Adlerian-
-Filial-
Jungian Play Therapy
 Jungian Play Therapy

• Sexual abuse of young children may produce

deep physical scars: children may internalize the
aberrant feelings, images and bodily sensations
associated with abuse, which confuse and
obstructs psychological development.
 Jungian Play Therapy

• Jungian play therapy promotes physical healing

by emphasizing the salience of the positive
therapeutic dyad and encouraging the
emergence the silence of the positive therapeutic
dyad and encouraging the emergence of the self
healing archetype that is embedded within
children’s psyches.
Jungian Play Therapy
Technique
 Jungian Play Therapy Technique

• The spontaneous drawing is a semi directive

technique that assist young children affected by
sexual abuse to express their thoughts and
feelings in non threatening ways.
 Jungian Play Therapy Technique

• The purpose of a spontaneous drawing is to

provide children a safe, therapeutic container in
which they exhibit self-control and mastery by
freely choosing the content of their drawings.
 Self-Healing Archetype

• Jungian play therapists facilitate children’s

activation of the self-healing archetype by
encouraging creativity and accepting the
inexplicable mystery and psychic energy
associated with unconscious symbol.
 Self-Healing Archetype

• Symbol tell children where they are by pointing to

the area of the unconscious that is most
neglected.
 Self-Healing Archetype
• The primary goals of Jungian play therapy is to
restore a child’s functioning to a developmentally
appropriate level.
• A second goal of Jungian play therapy is for
therapist to facilitate children’s dynamic inner and
outer struggles by supporting their heroic self-
efforts in healing through symbolic play.
Filial Play Therapy
 Filial Play Therapy
• Filial therapy combines psychoeducational,
empowerment, and play therapy methods which
actively involve parents in their child’s treatment.
• Filial therapy is a highly effective therapeutic
intervention which can also be used in prevention
and family enhancement contexts.
 Two Important Strategies
1. Play therapy for children and parent education
through direct parent involvement in the
changes process.
2. An alternative method for treating emotionally
disturbed children in which the parent is used as
an ally in the therapeutic process.
 Filial Play Therapy
 Filial Therapy is an approach used by play
therapist to train parents to be therapeutic agents
with their own children.
 Parents are taught basic child-centered play
therapy principles and skills, including reflective
listening, recognizing and responding to
children’s feelings therapeutic limit setting
building children’s self esteem and
 Filial Play Therapy
 structuring required weekly play sessions with
their children using selected toys.
Therapeutic
Technique
 Therapeutic Technique
 The six basic technique of psychoanalytic
therapy are,
1. Maintaining the analytical framework
2. Free Association
3. Interpretation
4. Dream Analysis
5. Analysis of Resistance
6. Analysis of Tranference.
ANY QUESTIONS?
 ACTIVITY SESSION # 2

1.Bring any toys or something that

reminds you during childhood/ adult days .
2. Individual therapy – find a partner that
you can tell everything what have you
been experience those days.
3. Then make a reflection paper using
The psychoanalytic therapeutic
techniques.