Group play therapy with adults

Abstract

The first time I experienced play therapy was as a graduate student participating in a course on Art Therapy for children. After only 20 minutes of playing with blocks it became apparent that I had played out some very important issues in my life. The play was spontaneous and intuitive, and the recognition of what I had done came only after I sat back and looked at it. This experience left a strong impression on me. As I examined what had happened to me in the process of play, I remembered what C. G. Jung (1965) wrote about his experience of deep disorientation and inner uncertainty after he had parted ways with Freud. He described how in his search to find his own footing, he first turned to his dreams, as he had done before. He had significant dreams and fantasies during that time, but saw that the dreams could not help him get over his feeling of disorientation. He finally said to himself, “Since I know nothing at all, I shall simply do whatever occurs to me.” (p. 173). The first thing that came to the surface for him were childhood memories of “playing passionately with building blocks”, memories which were accompanied by a good deal of emotion (Jung, 1965, p. 173). He said to himself, “There is still life in these things. The small boy is still around, and possesses a creative life which I lack. But how can I make my way to it?” (Jung, 1965, p. 174). He then described how he gathered stones and spent time every day with his building game. He experienced how “in the course of this activity my thoughts clarified, and I was able to grasp the fantasies whose presence in myself I dimly felt” (Jung, 1965, p. 174). He discovered in his building game “that play did not necessarily lead down the slope of memory to childishness, but rather led directly to the unfinished business of childhood” (Stewart, 1981, p. 32). Jung (1965) had the wisdom and courage to return to his childhood play which was the beginning of his own myth. That is what I had experienced in my play session, play, “as the dynamic aspect of fantasy, providing the function of equilibration between consciousness and unconsciousness” (Stewart, 1981, p. 30). The important recognition for me was that I as an adult could once again immerse myself in child’s play with the same seriousness as a child at play. Louis H. Stewart (1981) states that through this kind of adult playing, “The adult revives lost memories, releases unconscious fantasies, and in the course of time, constellates the images of reconciliation and wholeness of the individuation process” (Stewart, 1981, p. 36). The importance of play in the search for self has been recognized by others. For instance, D. Winnicott (1971) found that “It is in playing and only in playing that the individual child or adult is able to be creative and to use the whole personality, and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self” (p. 54). Winnicott (1971) not only recognized the importance of play for the patient in a therapeutic relationship, but stated that psychotherapy is done in the overlap of the two play areas, that of the patient and that of the therapist. If the therapist cannot play, then he or she is not suitable for the work. If the patient cannot play, then something needs to be done