allow for different play themes to emerge and provide opportunities for the child to engage in creative and expressive play. Once play therapists have determined the basic setup of their playroom, they can consider adding specialized items like an art easel, a very large sandbox, specialized shelves for sandtray minatures, a mini- trampoline, a puppet theater, and so forth. Before making any such additions, the therapist should consider four questions:
• Will there still be enough open space allow for active, gross motor play? •
Once the added item is in place, will the space still be accessible
for children whose mobility is compromised? For example, children in wheelchairs need extra space between large stationary items and for the toys and materials to be reachable from a seated position.
• Will the arrangement of the playroom still be simple enough to minimize the chances a child will engage in dangerous or problematic behavior and, thereby, reduce the likelihood the therapist will have to set limits? For example, although shelving units with closely spaced shelves may be great for displaying miniatures, they also make fun but dangerous ladders for children who tend to engage in a lot of exploratory or active play.
• Lastly, will the planned addition be overwhelming for some children? For example, an elaborate wallpaper border of the type often used in elementary classrooms can be more distracting than appealing. This as for those who are easily dysregulated.
In completing the design of the space itself, most therapists choose to paint the walls gender-neutral colors such as white, beige, gray, green, or yellow in order to appeal equally to boys and girls. In order to ensure the playroom appeals to the broadest range of children, most therapists limit how much they decorate the room. Large murals in primary colors may appeal to very young children but may make the room seem “babyish” to latency-age or older children. In the dominant culture in the United States, boys are often socialized to avoid things they perceive as too feminine while girls seem less concerned about masculine appearing spaces or décor. Play therapists may choose because the inclusion of culturally diverse elements in the playroom should be considered regardless of the population with which one works. Filling some inexpensive frames with textiles from different ethic or cultural groups would be an affordable way to do this.
Durable Equipment playroom, such as tables, chairs, and shelving. Most play therapists will want to have some sort of work surface or a table and some chairs. Unless one’s practice is devoted exclusively to working with very young children, it is best to get furniture that is full-size or close to it. Small children readily adapt to larger tables and chairs, but older children may feel infantilized when asked to use preschool-sized furniture. A round table is preferred because it easily accommodates several people and allows them to easily adjust how far apart they are. Beyond this, play therapists need to carefully consider whether any
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For example, a small tent can be a lot of fun but it takes up valuable real estate. An easy alternative would be to include among the play materials a large blanket children can drape over the table and/or chairs to create their own tent.
Play Materials: Display and Access As much as the play therapist’s theoretical orientation determines the purpose of the playroom, so, too, it determines the nature and purpose of the toys and materials placed in the room. In traditional psychoanalysis, each child has his or her own toys, which are selected by the therapist for the degree to which they symbolically represent the child’s intrapsychic issues (O’Connor et al., 1983). Because the toys are only used by one child, they are usually stored in an individual, locking drawer or cabinet so they are not available to other children. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the purpose of the toys in traditional child-centered play therapy is to foster self-directed play, which allows children to resolve their symptoms at their own pace (Landreth, 2012). In this model, all of the children have shared access to a large variety of toys and materials, usually displayed on open shelves. Somewhere in between these two approaches lie Theraplay® and ecosystemic play therapy. In Theraplay®
, the primary purpose
of the toys or materials is to promote interaction between the child and therapist (Booth & Jernberg, 2010). In ecosystemic play therapy, the toys can serve many purposes including maximizing children’s developmental progress, allowing them to symbolically represent intrapsychic issues, promoting interaction with the therapist, and fostering self-directed play, as needed (O’Connor, 2000, 2016). Both Theraplay®
and ecosystemic play therapists usually have a lot of toys
the child’s treatment goals prior to the session. To facilitate this, they are more likely to store the toys somewhere outside of the playroom or in large, locked cabinets within the room to which the children are never given access.
In spite of the vastly different theoretical rationales for how toys and materials should be displayed, there are several advantages to implementing a display and storage system that allows the play therapist at least some control over the accessibility of all or some of the toys and materials. First, access control enables the therapist to adjust the amount of stimulation in the playroom to meet the needs of the child. More toys and materials can be provided to children needing an enriched environment and fewer to those with attention problems or those who easily become dysregulated. Second, access control allows the therapist to restrict materials to those most likely to stimulate the child in developmentally appropriate ways. Toys the child has outgrown can be removed, and new, more challenging ones added to what is available. Third, the therapist can add or eliminate toys to increase the amount of time the child spends in therapeutic, as opposed to avoidant, play. Instead of a child spending multiple sessions coloring in a coloring book, the book can be replaced with a more interactive or creative art activity. Lastly, the therapist can reduce the need to set limits on highly disorganized or dysregulated children, or those who are particularly aggressive, by limiting the toys
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