• Family sandtray: If you are familiar with and have access to materials for sandtray therapy (e.g., Homeyer & Sweeney, 2017), invite    things are now in your family and how you hope things are in the future  to all family members to encourage their participation.


Structuring Sessions If assessment was the primary goal of these sessions, the play therapist could limit their own involvement in order to maximize the opportunity for the family’s interactions to take center stage. In this case, play therapists would intervene only for the purpose of clarifying and structuring the activity and maintaining the safety of the participants and the physical environment. Otherwise, the objective would be to observe keenly. If seeing the family interact was more of a priority, the nature of the activity and prompt could be aimed accordingly, asking the family for a shared family drawing or sandtray. If accessing each family member’s unique perspective was more of a priority, each family member could be asked to create an individual drawing or sandtray in response to the same prompt.


Increasing a family’s ability to identify and express their


emotions with one another could be accomplished through countless activities and avenues within


play therapy, most of which are likely already in the play therapist’s repertoire…


Future family play therapy sessions could be further targeted on the particular needs of clients and families, therapeutic goals, and the play therapist’s guiding theoretical approach. For example, building cohesion, increasing parental empathy, or decreasing relationship stress between caregivers and children might warrant the use of a structured parent-child     2020; Guerney & Ryan, 2013; Landreth & Bratton, 2020; VanFleet, 2013), or occasional parent-child sessions organized by the play therapist. Improving a child’s ability to maintain self-control, increase their social  addressed through having one or more siblings participate in sessions with the client (Sweeney et al., 2014).


Increasing a family’s ability to identify and express their emotions with one another could be accomplished through countless activities and avenues within play therapy, most of which are likely already in the play


10 | PLAYTHERAPY | June 2020 | www.a4pt.org


 therapy context. Remember that the activities themselves are far less important than what the activities allow the family to experience: more personal and precise awareness of self and other, a shift in beliefs and attitudes that enrich their relationships with one another, and a deepened bond as a family, all stimulated by the presence you bring and help to facilitate in the room as a play therapist who cares deeply for families!


Processing Sessions Whether and in what ways play therapists process family play therapy sessions is shaped by the needs of clients and families, therapeutic goals, and the play therapist’s guiding theoretical approach. For instance, younger family members often do not have as much interest in the       a minimum or having a separate activity for younger family members      Addressing concerns regarding parenting or the relationships between parents and their romantic partners presents play therapists with choices: Are issues like these better addressed separate from the children, out of respect for the privacy of parents and maintaining a healthy parent-child  


The focus of the play therapist’s observation and intervention efforts will be shaped, in part, by theoretical preferences. A child-centered play therapist might ask: What degree of empathy, congruence, and           Adlerian play therapist might ask: Does each family member sense that  behavioral play therapist might ask: What are the ways in which family members might be distorting their views of themselves and one another or unintentionally reinforcing the very views and behaviors that they    these qualities in this family, what can I do, using the knowledge, attitudes, and skills that my theoretical approach emphasizes, to strengthen these  be integrated with a variety of theoretical models of play therapy, but such an integration should be carefully considered so that family play therapy sessions are not disconnected from the essential attitudes, beliefs, knowledge, and skills shaped by one’s guiding theoretical approach.


Regardless of theoretical persuasion, the following processing pointers will help families communicate with the play therapist and each other more openly and fluidly. • Elicit the family’s sharing    in sharing with the therapist and with one another. Then, the play      Attend to and reflect the key content, feeling, and meaning of what family members express.


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