This is some very interesting commentary by Kristi Pikiewicz, Ph.D. on PsychCentral.com. I included it in September’s Wrap Up, but I thought it deserved it’s own post. Let us know what you think in the comments!
Go to Google Scholar, type in the term “play therapy” and you will find hundreds of studies with hundreds of results, some positive and some negative. So does play therapy actually work? It depends on what you call play therapy, how you use it, who you use it with, and what you use it for. The thing is, the field has struggled to show its effectiveness because there is no standard “play therapy” (and maybe because so much of the benefit is due to the tricky therapeutic relationship between client and therapist…but that’s another story). If you’re wondering whether play therapy works, first you have to decide exactly what you mean by “play therapy”.