Play Therapy Sessions Research Articles

Drama therapist and client: An examination of good practice and outcomes

From its origins in remedial drama in the 1960s (Jennings, 1984), drama therapy has progressed to where it now addresses a wide range of psychosocial issues, from psychiatric problems and learning difficulties on the one hand to the enhancement of managerial and interpersonal skills on the other. Its rapid development testifies to its effectiveness in these various fields, but the very rapidity of this development raises certain problems that need to be addressed if it is to continue to progress as a unified therapy and not sub-divide into a number of separate specializations. Many of these problems stem from the diversified nature of what might be called its parent discipline, drama. Drama is a tension in unity among dramatists, directors, actors and audience, and each of these groups can be highly individual in approach and response. Dramatists present their personal views of the world; directors interpret these views in the light of their own concepts and predilections; actors develop their roles according to their particular talents and temperaments; audiences respond in the context of their own life experiences, temperaments and value and belief systems. Of all the creative arts, drama is thus in many ways the most varied and the most idiosyncratic. Further, with the exception of its close relatives opera and dance, it is the only live creative art that employs real people as its primary medium of expression and that presents human emotions made raw and visible before onlookers who are themselves emotionally caught up in the experience unfolding before them. From the earliest rituals through to the Greek theatre, the medieval mystery plays, the European drama of the 17th Century and our own contemporary theatre, it therefore presents us with an extraordinary fluidity of ideas, philosophies and creative devices. Moreover, because drama, at the point of performance, is as ephemeral as the events of life itself, it has a particular elusiveness that makes the task of holding it in perspective even more difficult. It is hard to define any of the creative arts in a way that adequately conveys their essence, but in the case of drama such definition seems at times to be beyond our reach. As drama is so varied and so difficult to pin down, it is inevitable that the same is likely to apply in some measure to drama therapy. The strength of individual drama therapy sessions can even be said to lie in their ability to offer the uniqueness, immediacy and personalized relevance of improvised theatre. In addition, each drama therapist, though trained within a common idiom, develops his or her own therapeutic style in a way more analogous to that of the good dramatist or theatre director than to that of the psychotherapist working in more traditional fields. And drama therapy clients, both as participants and as active observers of each other, share something of the uniqueness of individual actors and individual audiences. In the light of this richness and variety, re-

Developmental Play Therapy: An Assessment and Therapeutic Technique in Child Psychiatry

The author presents a model for therapy using various developmental theories to explain the complex play patterns which the child presents in play therapy sessions. She outlines how a knowledge of these theories, in relation to children's play in therapy, provides the therapist with a technique, which initially gives a baseline of the child's emotional state and subsequently, as therapy proceeds, provides a measure of progress. She illustrates how relationship therapy and nondirective play, in the context of the theories, provide the therapeutic experience which the child needs. The case illustrating this paper is entirely fictitious, using only actual isolated incidents from the author's recordings of sessions with many children. These incidents have been edited to disguise all identifying features of the children concerned.

Special Education Needs of Handicapped Children

The author presents a model for therapy using various developmental theories to explain the complex play patterns which the child presents in play therapy sessions. She outlines how a knowledge of these theories, in relation to children's play in therapy, provides the therapist with a technique, which initially gives a baseline of the child's emotional state and subsequently, as therapy proceeds, provides a measure of progress. She illustrates how relationship therapy and nondirective play, in the context of the theories, provide the therapeutic experience which the child needs. The case illustrating this paper is entirely fictitious, using only actual isolated incidents from the author's recordings of sessions with many children. These incidents have been edited to disguise all identifying features of the children concerned.

Behavioral observation of children during play therapy: preliminary development of a research instrument.

There is a need for a measure of children's playroom behavior to assess areas of functioning relevant to diagnosis, therapy process, and outcome, as discussed in clinical literature. This study concerned the development of a Play Therapy Observational Instrument designed to meet criteria specified as necessary for such a measure. Two nonclinicians were trained in the observation and scoring of 31 child behaviors. The observations were made on video tapes and transcripts of ongoing play therapy sessions. Results indicated that 13 of the behaviors were scored with a high level of interjudge reliability. These reliable scores formed three statistically valid and theoretically meaningful subscales: emotional discomfort, use of fantasy play as a coping method, and the quality of the child's interaction with the therapist. Children's scale scores were sufficiently stable within sessions and across two therapy sessions to indicate that they reflected individual differences. Relationships between scales were assessed and discussed in the light of theoretical controversies. Implications for future research were discussed.

Should Non Trained People Take Dramatherapy Sessions?

Lynn McGregor is Director of the Schools Council Drama Project. She taught drama for six years and has maintained an active interest in Dramtherapy for several years. She is author of Development in Drama Teaching (Open Books) and Learning Through Drama (Heinemann).

THE EFFECTS OF NON‐DIRECTIVE PLAY THERAPY ON SOME MALADJUSTED BOYS

The effects of non‐directive group play therapy on eight socially‐maladjusted junior school boys of low average intelligence and poor reading attainment are reported. Modifications in adjustment and attainment both at the end of therapy and on follow‐up one year later were measured. A limited number of play therapy sessions did not produce a significant overall improvement in social adjustment. For the experimental group, rank order of improvement in adjustment after therapy was significantly related to intelligence and neuroticism. On follow‐up one year later, 11 of the 16 children in the experimental and control groups combined had improved in adjustment. As predicted, there was no significant improvement in reading attainment in either experimental or control group at the end of treatment. Significant rank‐order correlations were found between measures of extraversion and short‐term improvement on two reading tests for the experimental and control groups.

Relative effectiveness of operant conditioning and play therapy in childhood schizophrenia.

An experimental study designed to examine the relative effectiveness of operant conditioning and play therapy in improving the communication and social functioning of psychotic children is presented and discussed. A group of 10 schizophrenic boys, 3 to 15 years of age, received 50 operant conditioning treatments followed by 50 sessions of play therapy over a 3-month period. Each treatment session was 45 minutes long. A matched group of 10 had the same number of treatments but in reverse order. Both groups showed gains in mental age, as measured by intelligence tests, and in amount of speech. The improvement was greater after operant conditioning than after play therapy. The difference between the two treatment methods reached significant levels only after the second 3 months of treatment.

The Application of Filial Therapy to Young Children with Stuttering Problems

Filial therapy is a method of teaching parents to conduct nondirective play therapy sessions at home with their children. This approach is discussed along with its potential application to children with stuttering problems. Emphasis is on helping parents to become constructively involved in the treatment of their children and to deal with their own emotional reactions to their stuttering children.

Effect of Manipulation of Children's Affect on Their Family-Drawings

Summary Drawing pattern changes elicited following experimental manipulation of young children's self-esteem lent support to the notion that dynamic defensive processes are reflected in drawings. Some global drawing patterns previously identified were used to score drawings because of the primitive drawing skills of the 4- and 5-year-old Ss. Criticism of Ss' toy building capacity elicited drawing patterns of constriction-impoverishment; supportive comments during a play therapy session elicited expansion-improvement. Findings and observations were related to theory of cognitive-defensive style.

Schizophrenia and the Family.

In the late 30s, when the reviewer was a member of the psychiatric staff of the Institute for Juvenile Research in Chicago, it was noted that many of the mothers who brought their young children to the clinic for their psychiatric play therapy sessions showed less and less enthusiasm after an initial flurry of eager anticipation and apparent concern. Soon they failed to keep appointment after appointment. It was decided to assign a social worker to see each mother in order to make her feel that she too was getting something more than an opportunity to sit impatiently in the waiting room. The results were almost miraculous. Appointments were kept religiously; but more important, the social worker emerged from each interview filled with what was for us a new kind of information-detailed day to day descriptions of intrafamilial reactions, fresh vivid descriptions of parental attitudes and policies, additional historical revelations,