what is play therapy? how can one become certified/licensed as a play therapist? are their any specific courses you need to take? any specific degree?

Play therapy is a modality utilized with children typically ages 4ish to 12ish. There are several books and places to gain training in this modality, and it does have useful applications beyond just children. To train in this modality you can take elective courses when working on your Masters/Ph.D. Then to earn a certification in it, typically called a Registered Play Therapist, requires after your license continueing education and documented direct care time working with children while under supervision.

Jeff

it does have useful applications beyond just children.

How so?

The first thing that came to mind was with MR (Mentally Retarded) patients. I think what is important about play therapy is understanding the amount of information that can be gathered through the interactions.

-t

My understanding of play therapy is that not only is it not empirically validated, it has actually been shown to do damage. I don't have any sources to back this up (It's not my area at all) but I heard this from a prominent expert in the field of childhood disorders. So be very, very wary.

Please try searching pubmed, and then tell us that there is no empirically validating research for play therapy. Thanks

Jeff

Often times play therapy is the only method that can get through to some children. In cases of abuse, this is often the chosen method, as other methods may be more likely to be re-traumatizing and/or ineffective.

I've done a bit of it, though my population of focus is adolescents and young adults....so I don't really use it then.

-t

I would be curious about what sources your referring to psychanon. Thanks.

I would be curious about what sources your referring to psychanon. Thanks.

As I said above, I don't have any specific sources at hand. This is something that was told to me by a renowned expert in the field of treatment for childhood disorders, whose opinion I trust on the matter. This is way outside my field. It may be that there are some clinical issues or treatment modalities where it can be helpful, but it strikes me that is a somewhat nebulous concept, which often translates into inconsistent implementation. I don't want to become too entrenched in this debate, though, because this is so far out of my area and I don't want to argue about things that I know little about. But I did want to share what i had heard about it, which was pretty damning, so people know that there is some controversy out there.

OK I can understand not wanting to get embroiled in this debate. Please discuss whom your source is, I would like to read up in what they have to say about this modality of treatment. In the future as to not instigate controversy, share your resources or research. I know I am not a moderator but by sharing actual resources we all learn vs. opinion which has no basis in evidenced based practice.

Jeff

I'm absolutely not going to post my source, as 1) he/she is a professor at my university, which would compromise my anonymity, and 2) I don't think that he/she would appreciate me posting his/her personal opinion on a public website. I do not believe this person has published specifically about play therapy, but it is his/her general area of expertise (that is, tx for childhood disorders in general). I did make it quite clear in my initial post that I don't have any sources to back this up, only that I heard it from a prominent individual. I don't think it would be a very good policy to insist that everyone has sources at hand before posting opinions-- this is a public forum, not a peer reviewed journal!

Fair enough.....onto the research!

I'm always up for reading some research, so if anyone finds anything for/again/other for this topic, I'd love to read it.

-t