Play therapy stages

Play therapists are trained to observe, reflect, teach, and support children in communicating their inner worlds through PLAY!  Children express themselves through the language of play with the use of toys, games, art, sand tray, and other tools in the playroom to address the social and emotional concerns that they are experiencing.  Play is the child's natural medium to solve problems. Throughout the process of play therapy, children learn to identify and express their emotions, improve their social and communication skills, develop self-regulation skills and solve problems. 

However, play therapy is a process. A *typical process would look as follow:

Stage 1: The first 4 to 8 weeks that a child attends play therapy, he she develops trust and becomes more comfortable to share his/her inner world with the therapist. During this stage the client tests boundaries and tests the therapist to see if she can provide him/her with protection when needed. 

Stage 2: During week 8-12 the child starts expressing their needs. Trust is now well established and the presenting concerns start becoming the main focus of the sessions. This is a crucial stage for the child to go through and might sometimes be the most difficult as they are now facing their problems and need to deal with it. More than ever, during this time parents need to support, nurture and love their child. Children might have more emotional outbursts, desire more control, make more mistakes and regress in behaviors they’ve previously mastered.  These signs are all part of developing emotional intelligence, self-confidence, self-control, and discovering more adaptive ways of interacting with others. 

Stage 3: During 12-18 weeks the child starts solving his/her own problems. They utilize coping skills and start showing self-regulation. The child now feels empowered and a change in behavior might be seen at school and at home. There might be some minor setbacks in this stage - remember that we are reinforcing new behavioral patterns / neural pathways in their brain and it is normal to expect old habits to sometimes reappear. These are the times to practice empathy and remain consistent with your expectations. Remember, it takes 3 months to form a new neural pathway in the brain. 

Stage 4: In this stage the therapist prepares the child for termination and make him/her aware of the therapy that will soon come to and end. It is really important for children to learn that endings aren't all bad. Therefore therapists prefer if parents don't end therapy early (or rather unplanned) as this provides the child with a negative connection towards endings. In this stage coping skills are reinforced. Your child is now equipped and prepared to handle what life throws at them. Children will reflect on their journey in the playroom and develop further confidence.

After termination: Parents can expect some minor regressions after termination, but generally children adapt to the change and recognize the strength they have inside themselves.  

*All children's needs are unique and therefore the timeline discussed above can differ. 

A typical therapy process lasts 12-22 weeks, but can be longer.