Play and Sand Tray Therapy
Helping children through the counseling process:
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Children learn and process emotions and thoughts differently than adults. Traditional “talk therapy” is far less effective with children because their cognition (thinking processes), range of emotional expressions, and insight are not as well-developed as adults. Watch the Association for Play Therapy's (APT) video below for an example of this principle:
AboutChildren naturally learn and develop by interacting and doing, rather than by talking alone. For this reason, it is important to utilize play in therapy with children. It helps relax them and provides different channels to express their feelings. According to Dr. Garry Landreth, one of the founders of child-centered play therapy, “Play is a medium for expressing feelings, exploring relationships, and experiencing self-fulfillment."
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Benefits
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The Importance of Play
For children, play is their language and toys are their words. Play is our first language. Just as adults use words to communicate, children use play. When playing, we express thoughts and feelings that might otherwise remain hidden. Play therapy is a primary intervention or a supportive therapy for:
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Mental health disorders such as
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Behavioral issues including
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Sand Tray Therapy
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Kathleen Harvey has extensive training in sand tray therapy for use with individuals, couples, families, and school-aged children. Sand tray therapy is a psychotherapy technique that allows clients to express, unfold, and process internal and relationship issues. The sand tray miniatures and other materials serve as a non-verbal medium of communication. It is a process that seeks to promote safety and control for clients to address emotionally charged issues.
Sand tray therapy can be especially powerful for clients with visual, hearing, speech, and physical impairments; and for clients suffering from anxiety, depression, trauma, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Sand tray work can allow access to underlying emotions while providing a safe approach to process these challenging areas, without the need for extensive verbalization.
Recent research in neuroscience has focused on the bilateral hemispheres of the brain: the logic, language, reasoning, and critical thinking that occur in the left brain versus the emotions, creativity, images, colors, and music that predominate in the right brain. Experiential forms of psychotherapy such as play therapy, art therapy, music therapy, and sand tray therapy can all lead to the integration of the right and left brain via the bridge known as the corpus callosum.
Sand tray therapy can be especially powerful for clients with visual, hearing, speech, and physical impairments; and for clients suffering from anxiety, depression, trauma, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Sand tray work can allow access to underlying emotions while providing a safe approach to process these challenging areas, without the need for extensive verbalization.
Recent research in neuroscience has focused on the bilateral hemispheres of the brain: the logic, language, reasoning, and critical thinking that occur in the left brain versus the emotions, creativity, images, colors, and music that predominate in the right brain. Experiential forms of psychotherapy such as play therapy, art therapy, music therapy, and sand tray therapy can all lead to the integration of the right and left brain via the bridge known as the corpus callosum.