(American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Klein and Pine (2002) discuss anxiety symptoms as being of therapeutic note when they are intense and lead to impairment in some domains, and are related to a child’s inability to be flexible.
Play therapy is particularly appropriate for treatment of symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder in children. Given that the data indicate that the prevalence of anxiety symptoms only rises with age, it is important to treat children who present with symptoms. In their book Drewes and Schaefer (2018, p 5) stated that self- expression, positive affect, and stress management were among the main therapeutic powers of play activated to facilitate treatment of childhood anxiety disorders. They also discussed how play therapy is particularly suited for these treatments because play allows an adult to give control and power to the child, leads to relaxation, and creates a space for techniques including externalization, role-play, modeling, and gradual exposure through playful learning (Drewes & Schaefer, 2018, pp 5-6). Regardless of approach, harnessing the therapeutic powers of play to initiate or facilitate change through play therapy is important for lasting improvement in anxiety symptoms.
treatment protocols.
In cognitive-behavioral play therapy, which
Susan Knell describes as an integration of cognitive-behavioral therapy tenets with play therapy (Knell & Dasari, 2006, pp 32),
children are active participants in their treatment as they develop therapists working from this directive approach utilize six essential interventions: “(1) psychoeducation, (2) somatic management (relaxation), (3) cognitive restructuring,
(4) exposure, (5) relapse
prevention and generalization, and (6) parent involvement” (Dasari & Knell, 2016, p 33).
Garland and Clark (2009) utilize a play-based cognitive-behavioral approach to treating generalized anxiety disorder in children with their Taming Worry Dragons model, which targets excessive worry as children are guided to create quests and stories to overcome their “worry dragons” (Clark & Garland, 2018). Families are included in this treatment as children learn about and challenge their worries through stories, art, and play. Parents and children both learn about the CBT model to understand and better manage anxiety. Individual, family, and group sessions are all potential avenues of treatment within this model (Clark & Garland, 2018).
Along with cognitive-behavioral play therapy, research indicates that child-centered play therapy (both individual and group) is effective at reducing symptoms of anxiety in children. Recently, Hateli (2021) noted a reduction in anxiety symptoms in a sample of 20 children after 10 sessions of child-centered play therapy. Group-based child- centered play therapy was provided for preschool children by Swan, Kaff, and Haas (2019), who saw decreases in symptoms of anxiety and problematic school behaviors. These results are consistent with
6 | PLAYTHERAPY | Spetember 2022 |
www.a4pt.org
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36
