Treating Mood Disorders and Suicidality in
Children: Enhancing Protective Factors Through Play Therapy
mental health and how to respond to these with play therapy the presence of
D suicidality should involve the play therapist’s
understanding the role of risk factors. Multiple risk factors influence mood-related dysfunction and suicidal behavior in early childhood and adolescence. These are two developmental stages likely to receive play therapy as an appropriate and effective treatment, which can diminish the impact of risk factors, enhance protective factors, and improve a child’s emotional well-being.
10 | PLAYTHERAPY | Spetember 2022 |
www.a4pt.org
| DENISE GILSTRAP, PHD, LPC-S, RPT
iagnosable mental illness remains prevalent in understanding circumstances that
impact children’s Risk Factors for Mood Disorders and Suicidality in
Children While the unexpected COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to a notable impact in child mental health (Therabath et al., 2022), the prevalence of mood disorders in children was pre-existing. A 2016 study inclusive of parent-reported data from a national survey estimated that 1 in 6 U.S. children aged 2–8 years had a diagnosed mental, behavioral, or developmental disorder (Cree et al., 2018). Also, a report based on the analysis of child mental health disorders in 2016 showed that depression and anxiety, along with conduct disorder, were commonly co-occurring mental illnesses diagnosed in children ages 3-17 (Ghandour et al., 2019).
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