Therapy MM
There are various specialist therapies for children who have social, emotional, behaviour and mental health problems, including music, dance & movement, art, sand, clay, puppets and storytelling. Lisa Astwood, an Accredited Play Therapist and Play Therapy UK Registrant, looks at how an integrated approach compares to using one medium.
The effectiveness of multi media in play therapy
In a secure attachment, a child has a healthy, balanced ego and can develop sustained and open relationships. If this is lacking, children find it hard to form meaningful relationships with peers and to make academic progress. Play therapy can be used to recapture experiences missed in early relationships. Len was adopted as a toddler. He was
very nervous and anxious, found it incredibly difficult to finish a task and seemed preoccupied with whether people approved of his actions, work or behaviour. Ron was often disengaged with his
surroundings and found it incredibly difficult to sustain or establish friendships. He was an only child with no one to play with and his mother had a full-time job from an early stage. Len used sand trays in all of his sessions.
He silently took a whole session to create a tray which resembled chaos, as if he had simply poured everything into the tray. I felt this represented Len’s unconscious
memories of when he was separated from his mother, which were particularly powerful as there were layers of things piled on top of one another. In the last session, he used horses to represent a ‘family’, and the tray was more ordered and calm. Subsequently Len has been able to focus for longer and form more productive relationships. His SDQ psychometric score moved from 28 to 15: a significant improvement. Ron focused his first session on sand
play. First, he knocked over the neatly lined-up figures in the cupboard, happier with chaos. He used the sand to play out a sort of movie he needed to get out of his head, lining up various army vehicles, soldiers, goblins, werewolves and dragons to create an aggressive battle scene where everything died and no one tried to save anyone. He was able to bring his unconscious thoughts and feelings to his conscious using the sand tray, but he found it hard to focus; a variety of media
He was able to bring his unconscious thoughts and feelings to his conscious using the sand tray, but he found it hard to focus; a variety of media might make him feel less pressured to focus on one task
might make him feel less pressured to focus on one task for an entire session. Ron was instantly drawn to the clay, grabbing it roughly, and splatting it on a surface repeatedly. During one session he made a clay light sabre for role play with me - ‘killing’ me was his way of acting out his inner feelings. By the end of his sessions, Ron’s SDQ score had reduced from 29 to 19 and communication at home was easier. Using just one medium can be effective -
Len was able to use sand play to re- organise his emotions and it was easy to track the changes in him. For others, focusing on a single medium is restrictive and access to different media is crucial; Ron needed to act his feelings out in different ways in order to make sense of things. Research shows that most children choose two to three different media in a session. Play therapy, at the standard required to
be registered with the PTUK Register of Play and Creative Arts Therapists accredited by the Professional Standards Authority, integrates the use of many media. Between 77 and 84 per cent of children receiving play therapy delivered to these standards show a positive change. For more information on careers and training see
www.playtherapy.org.uk. For a therapist:
www.playtherapyregister.org.uk
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