1. Getting In Tune with the Inner Child: using play to help heal the pain
Ciara O’ Driscoll
Social Worker, Play Therapist and Theraplay Trained

2. What is Play Therapy
Play is child’s natural medium of communication and self expression – Toys are their words, play is their language
The process of play therapy :
-allows the child to revisit trauma through early stages of play and begin repair
-helps the child to express themselves and communicate
-child develops an awareness of feelings/emotions and begins to understand them
-child explores life experiences through play
-helps child cope with problems, work through them and learn to deal with them
-Allows child to develop competency and self confidence (re wire brain structure and build more positive inner world)

3. Mediums used in play therapy
Sand
Paint
Stories
Clay
Music
Puppets

4. Play and creative tools can help adults in healing process:
help get in touch with one’s (wounded) inner child
give an opportunity to learn about, or re experience an event, through play
assist child-parent and family relationships (filial, marte meo, theraplay etc.)
be useful for people who have had traumatic childhoods, especially if they have repressed memories
can help release/process issues with or without talking it through-”unlock the deeply rooted and seemingly unspeakable feelings” (Ward-Wimmer in Schaefer:2002:1)

5. “Play seemed to reflect thoughts, feelings and covert transactions which could probably never have emerged if direct communications were to be employed” Linnet McMahon, 1992,24)

6. PLAY: why and how is it so powerful in the healing and therapeutic process

7. The beginning of learning

8. Stages of play development
Embodiment/sensory play
Projective play
Role play

9. Importance of play- beginning of child development
Play is the beginning of all learning
Play is essential for children to develop physically, cognitively, linguistically, emotionally and socially
It allows them to learn from mistakes safely- play/act out issues/feelings
Play can be used to establish a relationship-’third thing’-great with teenagers
It fosters imagination and creativity
Play which is how children develop their understanding of who they are and who the people and the world around them are, the sense of learning where the “I” ends and the world begins

10. Get in Tune with Your Senses

11. As Adults we stop playing like we did when we were a child
“By the time we reach adulthood, we’ve lost touch with our ability to be loose and creative without worrying about what the other person is doing” (Ward Wimmer in Schaefer:2000:4)
Often due to society, culture, perceptions and expectations of others, competition and the need to excel etc.

12. Its important as adult to still play
Play is so important for the adult as it :
-Increases self esteem
-Allows us to fully relax and allows access to a state of calm
-Reduces and releases stress
-Increases our capacity for empathy
-‘Play’ as joyful and affective way to heal the pain
-Play is positive for our mental health whether you are in therapy or not
-”Play allows the ‘relationship between this inner self and the external world to grow’”(Ward-Wimmer in Schaefer:2000:2)

13. Getting in Tune with Your Inner Child
May be do exercise here with sensory piece of chocolate
Sensory piece with chocolate and grapes
Split into four/five groups depending on size of group
UCC-Finger painting, Play Doh, hand lotion, photospeak memory of childhood
1. Finger painting
2. Water and blowing bubbles
3. hand lotion
4. Play Doh
5. Decorate page to describe themselves

14. Relaxation Fun Exercise!

15. “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing”
George Bernard Shaw

16. Bibliography
Play Therapy by Virginia Axline 1989.Published by Churchill Livingstone
Windows to our Children by Violet Oaklander, 1989.Published by Gestalt Journal Press, USA
“The Handbook of Play Therapy” by Linnet McMahon Published by Routledge
"A Nifflenoo called Nevermind: a story  for children who bottle up their feelings"  by Margot Sunderland, Published by Speechmark Publishing Ltd
"Creative interventions with traumatised children" by Cathy Malchiodi The Guilford Press

17. Play therapy with Adults " by Charles Schaefer 2002 Published by John Wiley and Sons
"Music therapy: Intimate notes" by Mercedes Pavlicevic 1999 published by Jessica Kingsley
Photospeak-Partners in Faith
RelationshipsMatter-
"Play therapy : where the sky meets the underworld "by Ann Cattanach 1994 Published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers