Directive Play Therapy

Children's Play–Work Occupation Continuum: Play-Based Occupational Therapy, Play Therapy and Playwork

“…Play therapy may also be used to facilitate the achievement of fundamental life skills, integration of underlying psychosocial and emotional issues, healing and recovery from unresolved traumatic experiences, social connectedness with significant others, alleviation of anxiety, grief, depression and loneliness, trialing and adopting new creative coping and problem-solving strategies, plus subconscious ideas, and thoughts to be revealed, analyzed, and resolved (Leggett & Boswell, 2016). Since children lack the necessary developmentally mature cognitive, social, and communication skills to be able to express the challenges they may be experiencing, children can often convey feelings and emotions, use verbal and nonverbal cues, or act out complex, scary or unconscious experiences in the context of play (Drews & Schaefer, 2016).…”

“…In the context of some types of directive play therapy , authentic play occupations are replaced by play-based work occupations due to the influence, input, control, modification, facilitation, and resourcing of the play therapist professional. When utilizing a directive play therapy approach, the therapist frequently will select toys and activities ahead of time with specific intervention goals in mind (Leggett & Boswell, 2016). In doing so, the play therapist attempts to create a just-right play-based work occupational fit for the child.…”

Small steps can lead to big changes: Goal setting in schools using solution-focused play therapy.

“…SFT cofounder, Insoo Kim Berg, and Swiss child psychiatrist, Therese Steiner, Berg and Steiner (2003) recognizing the developmental needs of young clients to communicate through concrete and expressive materials, published their text that outlined playful ways of using SFT with children and their caregivers. Nims (2007) wrote about the integration of play therapy and SFT, followed by Leggett (2009, 2017) who described the practice of SFT with children using literature, visual arts, toys and puppets, drawings, and other expressive materials. King (2013) also addressed strength-based play therapy with children, particularly through the use of scaling, where she focused on making scales tangible while asking questions to elicit information about the child’s current status, goals, exceptions, and progress.…”

“…Puppets are often used in SFPT for various techniques and expressive interventions. Nims (2007) and Leggett (2017) recommend ways that puppets can be employed to help children set goals in SFPT. The Choose a Puppet technique (Hartwig, 2020) can be a great tool for goal setting with puppets.…”