Treatment Description Treatment begins with thoroughly examining the family system through three generations. Recent developments in epigenetics (Lucero, 2018) indicate that parents’ unresolved issues can be passed down, picked up, and acted out by their children. So, we assess familial, developmental, medical, learning, social, and emotional history. JAPT, similar to neurological models, is a “bottom-up” approach (cf. Gaskill, 2019, this issue), focusing on developmental delays, trauma history, etc. Jungian therapists examine “symptoms” and behaviors to discover why and under what conditions they occur (Jung, 1960).


JAPT assists the healthy


attachment process and provides a container for the child to discover and integrate improved social competence and ego-adaptive


functioning. The JAPT therapist models empathy for the child during play through attention given to behavior, thought, and especially emotions.


The principle of temenos (the child’s perception and experience


of the play therapist, the play therapy room, and the therapeutic environment as safe and sheltered), is vital in the engagement with repressed or blocked material. The JAPT therapist vigilantly creates a safe and nurturing relationship with the child (Green, 2009), similar to a child-centered approach (Lilly, 2015). JAPT therapists use a myriad of techniques to create temenos, including directive and behavioral ones.


 a part of the play therapy room as the play materials. The JAPT therapist must do her own therapy work in order to distinguish the boundaries and intersections of her issues and those of her clients through transference and countertransference. The roles of the JAPT therapist are Witness, Container, and Interpreter (Lilly, 2015). As Witness, we track behaviors/emotions when the child engages in therapeutic play. As Container, we hold shared client material in a self- aware/self-regulated state. As Interpreter, we facilitate the process of making unconscious material conscious, bridging client resolution of the “tension of opposites” through the transcendent function, where a new perspective is formed. Often children are unaware of this process, as therapists stay in the metaphor of symbolic play to maintain temenos while commenting on the engagement and resolution of the material.


Therapy Goals and Progress Measurement The goal of JAPT is to assist the child in engaging disturbing material safely so that she can use the symbolic materials (i.e., toys) to activate the archetypal “inner healer” to resolve complex dynamics and tensions responsible for symptomatic behavior.


JAPT therapists must create temenos in the playroom with the child, subsequently providing an environment within the play therapy room  deintegration, which disrupts the child’s ego adaptive functioning (i.e., behavioral/emotional symptoms). JAPT practitioners work to understand symbolic play, which connects to the child’s proto-, or fully developed, complex. Finally, JAPT therapists assist the child in recognizing some resolution of the tensions and complexes by making the unconscious conscious.


Therapeutic Powers of Play JAPT is powerfully applicable to all the therapeutic powers of play (Schaefer & Drewes, 2014). JAPT facilitates communication by allowing for the child’s full self-expression, accessing unconscious material through direct and indirect teaching to create and maintain temenos.


JAPT fosters emotional wellness by allowing for full engagement, leading to cathartic work. A full range of emotions are allowed: abreaction, positive


Counterconditioning fears becomes natural result of safe


emotions, and deeper complex work. a


engagement. Stress inoculation and stress management empower the child through metaphors of change.


Establishing a trusting relationship is key. JAPT assists the healthy attachment process and provides a container for the child to discover and integrate improved social competence and ego-adaptive functioning. The JAPT therapist models empathy for the child during play through attention given to behavior, thought, and especially emotions.


Creative problem solving is enhanced when the child’s healer archetype is activated. Repeated engagement opportunities increase ego resiliency and adaptive


functioning. JAPT offers children


opportunities to experience a calm environment in which to continue their development. This approach directly and indirectly fosters self-regulation, improving self-esteem. Learning to engage with and resolve complex material allows the child to discover new choices that are both socially and even morally acceptable.


Summary Play therapists looking for a challenge in developing their expertise in  theory and practice of JAPT. This requires engagement with clients in a safe space with dedicated attention to the therapeutic relationship, integrating Jungian concepts and interpersonal dynamics with expressive techniques, practicing exploration of the child’s deeper meanings and spiritual connection towards healing and mastery.


www.a4pt.org | September 2019 | PLAYTHERAPY | 41


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