Play Therapy
“Play Therapy is based upon the fact that play is the child’s natural medium of self expression ... It is an opportunity which is given to the child to ‘play out’ his feelings and problems just as in certain types of adult therapy an individual ‘talks out’ his difficulties.” Virginia Axline
Play Therapy is a powerful tool licensed therapists utilize to address behavioral, emotional, and cognitive challenges. Using play as a therapeutic agent for change helps client's learn to process difficult emotions and experiences while developing skills to assist them along their path in a sometimes chaotic world.
Contact Oak Tree Counseling today for an initial consultation.
"In the process of growing up, children’s problems are often compounded by the inability of adults in their lives to understand or to respond effectively to what children are feeling and attempting to communicate. This “communication gap” is widened as a result of adults’ insistence that children adopt that means of expression commonly used by adults. Efforts to communicate with children on an exclusive verbal level assume the presence of a well-developed facility for expression through speech and thus confine children to a medium that is often awkward and unnecessarily restrictive. Play is to the child what verbalization is to the adult. It is a medium for expressing feelings, exploring relationships, describing experiences, disclosing wishes, and self-fulfillment. The problems children experience do not exist apart from the persons they are. Therefore, play therapy matches the dynamic inner structure of the child with an equally dynamic approach." -Gary Landreth & Sue Bratton 1999
