Therapeutic
Play Continuum - Principles
There are three basic
principles behind the Therapeutic Play Continuum:
- Spectrum of Needs
- Applications of Play
- Defining Variables
Children have a spectrum of needs
requiring different levels of skill to enable their potential, solve emotional
and behaviour problems and alleviate mental health difficulties. A child
suffering the loss of a pet has different needs to one who bullies other
children, to one who is homeless, to one who has been persistently sexually
abused, to one who has severe personality problems, as examples. However
although children (the clients) are the main beneficiaries of play and creative
arts therapies they are not the only ones who benefit from the service. There
are also the carers/parents, referrers, commissioners and funders. Each of
these categories has different needs - some
clinical, some not. Unless
they are adequately taken care of the therapists will not get very far with the
children.
To match the spectrum of needs there
are a number of levels of overlapping applications of play to deal with the
needs - see table below and also the diagram in The Therapeutic Play Continuum.
The Applications of Play Covered by the Therapeutic Play Continuum
- Play
- Play Work
- Therapeutic Play Work
- Therapeutic Play
- Filial Play
- Play Therapy
- Child Psychotherapy, Clinical Psychology, Psychiatry
In order to clearly distinguish between
each of these applications there is a need for defining variables based
upon the attributes of each application. These are factors that are common to
most applications but where there is a different set of values for most of the
factors for each. For example the type of security needed for pure play is
different to that required for play therapy. Parents encouraging their children
to play do not require clinical supervision. Someone using therapeutic play
skills as an adjunct to their main job as a Teacher requires a different level
of supervision to that of a Play Therapist.
