Technology in Play Therapy: A Collegial Debate Between Seven Veteran Play Therapists | SARAH D. STAUFFER, PHD, LP, LPC, NCC, NCSC, RPT-S


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t the 2014 Association for Play Therapy (APT) conference in Houston, a couple of play therapists witnessed an organic conversation between Linda Homeyer and Terry Kottman about how children have changed over the years and how they do not play like they used to. Seizing the opportunity to expand upon these ideas and


to include other veteran play therapists in the discussion while they were     and/or Lifetime Achievement Award recipients to discuss the subject with them the next day: Louise Guerney, Garry Landreth, Kevin O’Connor, Lessie Perry, and Charlie Schaefer.


APT recorded their discussion, and none of the seven play therapists had time to prepare formal remarks. Several debate lines were drawn spontaneously, including (a) meeting children where they are, (b) preserving the therapeutic relationship, and (c) including technology in play therapy. Although the latter point was not an intended end goal of this conversation, some interesting ideas and experiences emerged about how technology affects children’s play and how their familiarity with it may make it an interesting medium to offer in the playroom. This


20 | PLAYTHERAPY | September 2018 | www.a4pt.org


is a recapitulation of their conversation; italicized words indicate speaker emphasis. Whether these veteran play therapists agreed or agreed to disagree, their insight and sharing pushed the debate forward amid head nods and laughter (sometimes nervous, but mostly heartfelt).


Meeting Children Where They Are Linda opened their conversation by recapping how she and Terry had talked the day before about how some children they see in therapy do  Terry observed that, with the ubiquity of technology in modern society, “some children have forgotten how to play or never learned how to play.” She explained that sometimes she has had to teach children what a toy is or “how to pretend, because some kids are so used to having a plot [to follow], they don’t naturally pretend like they used to.” She described how a 6-year-old child, who had played with electronics from a very young age, took a puppet and said, “What do I do with this?” When she responded non-directively that he could decide, he rebuffed, “But I don’t know what  has “always seen that pattern,” in play therapy. She said:


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