Why play? Why not talking therapy?

When adults get together they usually talk. When children get together they usually play. Play is a child’s way of being, their way of communicating.

Play engages virtually every part of the brain and therefore builds connections and pathways in the brain. Talking, on the other hand, uses very little of our brain. Talking requires using logical skills to talk about events and feelings, which in children are not yet fully developed. Talking requires being able to understand and describe our feelings, memories and fears, children have neither the understanding nor the vocabulary for that yet.

Play is essential for children. Play is how young children make sense of the world around them, it’s how they learn and it’s how they try things out safely. Children play out the things they see, hear and read about. Often a child will copy things they’ve heard an adult or older sibling say (sometimes with embarrassing accuracy); they are like sponges soaking up the world around them. If that world has sometimes been scary or hasn’t made enough sense to them this can cause problems with their emotional regulation, behaviour and development.

Often the source of a person’s difficulties has been buried deep in their memory. When a trained play therapist enables the child to feel safe, regulated and supported they will often start to recover some of those memories and play them out in the safety of metaphor. It may be that the puppets repeat an overheard argument or a car accident is re-played in the sand tray. Play therapy helps children to explore those experiences and express their difficult thoughts and overwhelming feelings safely. They can make sense of their relationships and life experiences through play – building positive coping skills and resilience which will help them throughout their life.  

‘Since play is his natural medium for self-expression, the child is given the opportunity to play out his accumulated feelings of tension, frustration, insecurity, aggression, fear, bewilderment, confusion. By playing out these feelings he brings them to the surface, gets them out in the open, faces them, learns to control them, or abandons them. When he has achieved emotional relaxation, he begins to realise the power within himself to be an individual in his own right, to think for himself, to make his own decisions, to become psychologically more mature.’ Axline.

Play therapy is beneficial for all children but can be especially helpful for children who choose not to talk or who struggle to express themselves verbally. They can say as much or as little as they like in play therapy. There are no judgements or comparisons. The children cannot be wrong for anything they say or do. A trained play therapist completely accepts and values the child in front of them as the unique individual that they are. There is no expectation that they should be able to do this, or they must do that.

Play therapy is completely child-centred, and each session the child is able to be whoever they want to be; they are able to explore all the characteristics they possess and try out different ways of being. They are able to express themselves however they choose and explore all their past experiences as well as their hopes for the future. They can learn to understand, accept and value themselves.

Play therapy allows children to play out their emotions, memories and fears safely. It allows them to be masters of their communication and to process on a much deeper level that which they could not hope to understand or communicate through talking alone.