SPECIAL SECTION A Salute To
Violet Oaklander PHD, LMFT, RPT-S
and a Sense of Self (awareness of preferences, choices, action, and consequences).
Achievement Award from the Association for Play Therapy. She was an early recipient of this award preceded, by Gary Landreth (2005), Charles Schaefer (2006), and Louise Guerney (2006). Throughout her career of over
I five decades,
she received many awards for her contributions to children and adolescents’ wellbeing. She was sought out by child therapists around the world as a teacher, mentor, supervisor, and consultant. This tribute to Violet Oaklander
is a salute to the significant
contributions she made to the field of play therapy, grounded in the theory and practice of Gestalt psychotherapy. Her major book Children and Adolescents, languages), was followed in 2006 by Hidden Treasure: A Map to the Child’s Inner Self have been used as major texts in child psychotherapy courses throughout the US and internationally.
Pillars of the Gestalt Therapy Approach That
Garnered Universal Recognition and Acceptance Four of the pillars that frame her approach have been eagerly embraced by play therapists: • First and foremost, Violet wrote about the nature of a therapeutic relationship. She taught the importance of an engaged, authentic, reciprocal relationship between a child/adolescent and therapist. She stressed that each child is to be met as a person, to be respected and responded to within the boundaries provided by a skilled, caring adult.
• She delineated the elements of organismic processing that must become integrated in a therapy process that serve to strengthen a child’s ability to make Contact (senses, movement, emotional regulation, cognitive assessment, getting needs and wants met)
• She demonstrated a method of working with creative modalities that allows what is out of a child’s awareness or which is unspoken to be explored with the therapist through the voice of the child/ adolescent.
• According to the Gestalt approach, development and experience occur in relationships and environmental contexts. This requires the child therapist to build working relationships with parents, schools, communities, and other professionals to assure support for children/adolescents’ ongoing integrated development.
When major alternatives within the field of child psychotherapy. They were differences that made a difference. And the world of child therapy took notice. The range of her influence reaches far and wide to this day. Her contributions will remain a vital influence on our work as play therapists. I believe that she would want us to continue to develop and shape not only the Gestalt therapy approach, but the wider field of play therapy.
On September 21, 2021, Violet Oaklander, PhD, LMFT, RPT-S, remember her as a seriously, playful friend.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Felicia Carroll, MAT, MEd, MA, LMFT, RPT-S, has her private practice in California and is the Founder-Director and Advanced Trainer at West Coast Institute for Gestalt Therapy with Children and Adolescents, LLC.
www.westcoastinstitute.us
www.a4pt.org | December 2021 | PLAYTHERAPY | 25
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