What are the Play Therapy Techniques?
Through play-based activities, play therapy enables children to express and process their emotions. 8 most effective play therapy techniques are discussed in this article.
The Feeling Word Game: a powerful play therapy strategy
Children often find it hard to share their feelings when asked directly. This can be because they feel defensive or do not recognize the emotions that frighten them the most. Children’s barriers are lowered, and they are more inclined to express their emotions when they are playing a game. Children can express their emotions in a fun and nonthreatening way by using the Feeling Word. All kids, including those with conduct issues, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or anxiety issues, can benefit from playing the Feeling Word Game. Therapists can use this method to ask about topics that are too scary for the child to talk about. They do this in a fun and safe way.
Color-Your-Life
Color-Your-Life provides children with a nonthreatening, concrete method of understanding and discussing various affective states. It is critical for children to develop certain skills to successfully manage their affect. Specifically, children need to develop an awareness of numerous affective states, the ability to relate those states to their environmental events, and the skill to verbally express these feelings appropriately. All kids aged 6 to 12 can play Color-Your-Life. The children must be able to identify and label colors and different emotional states.
The method can be applied in a group or individual setting. It is beneficial to apply the technique multiple times during the course of therapy to assess what has changed. You can change the method to ask the kids how they have felt over the past week. You can also ask about a tough time in their lives, like a divorce, a move, or the death of a family member. Make sure to do this in a way that feels safe for them.
Balloons of Anger: Play Therapy technique for anger management
Teaching kids what anger is and how to control it is essential. Balloons of Anger is a fun and useful tool that helps kids visualize anger and the effects it can have on both them and their surroundings. The technique helps kids recognize how anger builds up inside them and how it can explode, causing harm to themselves or others if not released safely. Balloons of Anger works well for withdrawn kids who internalize their anger rather than letting it out and for aggressive kids who struggle to control it. This method can be applied in a group or individual setting. Bottle Rockets adapts this technique. It shows what happens when children do not release anger safely. The method uses exploding canisters to illustrate uncontrolled emotion.
Beat the Clock: The most important play therapy technique for developing self-control
Beat the Clock helps kids learn impulse control and self‑control In order to stay focused and on task for a predetermined amount of time, the child must be able to resist distractions. The child receives poker chips, which can be exchanged for a prize, upon successfully completing this task. The child feels competent and accomplished when they win the game. Both individuals and small groups can use Beat the Clock. Any child who struggles with impulse control can benefit from this method. Statue (the child is to remain still) and Make Me Laugh (the therapist tries to make the child laugh and vice versa) are common techniques that share a similar objective.
Relaxation Training: Bubble Breaths
Bubble Breaths is a very practical and tangible relaxation method that helps kids learn to breathe deeply and deliberately while also gaining awareness of their own mind-body connections. Blowing bubbles is entertaining, affordable, and enables the child and therapist to engage in non-threatening interactions. Bubble Breaths can be used in an individual or a group format. It is a simple, inexpensive technique that is extremely engaging and nonthreatening. This technique is especially useful in reducing anger, anxiety, or tension in children.
”Worry Can” Play Therapy Technique
Youngsters frequently harbor a lot of internalized anxieties. Some of their presenting issues, like separation anxiety, temper tantrums, peer conflict, and fears, might be caused by these anxieties. Worry Can is a useful tool for assisting kids in recognizing their concerns and then talking about them with an adult or other kids. Worry Can can be done in a person or group setting. It can be modified to work as an Anger Can or a Sad Can.
A variation of this exercise is The Garbage Bag Technique. Two brown sandwich bags can serve as garbage bags, one for household trash and one for school trash. The child is asked to personalize the garbage bags and then put three pieces of paper, each having a different problem, in each bag. During the next session, the child draws out an item of trash to act out in miniatures or role-playing. More frequently than not, children will come up with their own solutions to their dilemmas. If this does not happen, the therapist must be directive and intervene with suggestions within the play. The play must remain in the third person so that the child can remain far enough away from the dilemma in order to resolve it.
Weights and Balloons: A Play Therapy Technique for Depression
Therapy sometimes seems like an attempt to describe intangible concepts—how do you turn things like “feelings,” “thoughts,” or “behaviors” into concrete and helpful things for a child? That’s where hands-on, fun activities come in. Weights and Balloons is such a tool. It’s easy way to introduce kids to the cognitive‑behavioral model of depression without jargon, lectures, or boredom. It is a cheap method that brings a complicated concept into something tangible and comprehensible. This method is especially effective for depressed children; however, it is effective with all children to demonstrate the impact that thoughts produce on feelings.
The Power Animal Technique: Internalizing a Positive Symbol of Strength
Referrals for therapy frequently present children with low self-esteem, poor problem-solving ability, and strained relationships with adults and peers. Thus, many primary therapeutic objectives tend to be enhancing the child’s positive self-perception and enhancing his or her coping mechanisms. Yet, it is commonly challenging for youngsters to respond when asked to say what strengths they would wish they possessed or what qualities would enable them to better cope. Power Animal Technique offers children a creative and fun way to internalize those strengths and qualities they wish to possess.
First, the child picks art materials. Then, the child creates a “messenger,” perhaps an animal, alien, cartoon, or therapist. Next, the messenger must be small enough to sit on the child’s shoulder. After that, the therapist explains that only the child and the therapist can see the messenger. Finally, the messenger helps the child solve problems The messenger is always with the child to remind the child of options for approaching problems. Over time, the child internalizes the messenger.
