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Gestalt Play Therapy for Children and Adolescents
Play Therapy helps children make sense of confusing feelings and upsetting events that they haven't been able to fully process. Unlike adult therapy, which often relies on verbal communication, Play Therapy allows children to express themselves through play. This lets them communicate at their own level and pace, without feeling pressured or intimidated.
​Play Therapy is a powerful tool that helps children modify their behaviors, clarify their self-concept, and build healthy relationships. In Play Therapy, children form a dynamic relationship with the therapist, enabling them to express, explore, and understand their difficult and painful experiences. Through this process, children discover healthier ways to communicate, build fulfilling relationships, increase their resilience, and enhance their emotional literacy.
What is Gestalt Play Therapy?
Children often use play as a natural form of communication, especially when they lack the vocabulary to describe their thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. Since the 1920s, play has been a key element in psychotherapy, helping children express themselves in ways that words alone cannot.
Challenging family situations—such as domestic violence, marital discord, and various forms of abuse— can significantly impact a child's development. In these circumstances, children may hold crucial information that can help the court make informed decisions about their future, such as determining if a child should be placed back with a parent or assessing a parent's capacity to meet the child's needs. Dr. Andre provides a safe environment where children can share their stories. He becomes their voice when they feel overwhelmed by family conflicts, supporting the court in making decisions that are in the child's best interest.
Children also need help making sense of their evolving worlds, and Dr. Andre uses Play Therapy to help them integrate and assimilate their experiences. This empowers them to achieve a sense of self mastery. Dr. Andre also assists children in reflecting on and developing healthy relationships with their parents and family members, especially when the child feels confused or conflicted following a difficult parental divorce.
Children can exhibit a wide range of symptoms, and Dr. Andre, with his years of experience in CAMHS (NHS), helps them overcome these difficulties and develop healthy coping strategies. Whether they are dealing with anxiety, sleep disturbances, school refusal, bed-wetting, aggression, depression, or obsessive-compulsive behaviors, Dr. Andre works closely with parents, foster carers, local authorities, and the courts to help the child develop healthy relationships.
When Should a Child Be Referred for Play Therapy?
Gestalt Play Therapy offers emotional support to children and helps them better understand their own feelings and thoughts. Sometimes, they may re-enact or play out traumatic or difficult life experiences as a way to make sense of their past and cope better with their future. Through this process, children also learn to manage relationships and conflicts in more constructive ways.
The outcomes of Gestalt Play Therapy can be broad, such as reduced anxiety and increased self-esteem, or more specific, like changes in behavior and improved relationships with family and friends.
How Does Gestalt Play Therapy Help?
During Play Therapy sessions, children have access to a wide range of play materials, including art supplies, costumes, sand and water, clay, small figures and animals, musical instruments, puppets, and books. Dr. Andre encourages the child to use these resources to express themselves and gently guides them towards becoming more dialogical.
What Happens in a Child’s Play Therapy Session?
Dr. Andre holds a Clinical Master’s Degree in Gestalt Play Therapy. Gestalt Play Therapists, many of whom are trained in South Africa under the guidance of Dr. Hannie Schoeman, who received intensive training with Dr. Violet Oaklander in America, are either Clinical Social Workers (South African-trained) or Clinical Psychologists. They receive extensive clinical training in child development, attachment, psychology, and sociology, as well as the legal procedures involved in helping children through the court process. These therapists are skilled in using play—a child's natural form of expression—as a means of understanding and communicating with children about their feelings, thoughts, and behaviors.
A Gestalt Play Therapist begins by carefully listening to the concerns of everyone involved with the child and family. They review the family's history and the stresses they have endured, helping the child make sense of these experiences. The therapist may seek additional information from the child’s school and other significant adults in their lives. An assessment is made of the child's strengths as well as their challenges.
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Dr. Andre follows an evidence-based approach, utilizing the Schoeman model. This process involves:
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1. *Building a Relationship*: Dr. Andre carefully crafts a safe and sensitive environment where the child or adolescent feels comfortable to start sharing their story or playing out unresolved issues.
2. *Sensory Awareness*: Gestalt Therapy heightens the senses to bring emotional issues to the surface. Dr. Andre uses various techniques such as focusing on breathing, muscle tension, body movements, and enhancing the senses through smell, touch, sight, hearing, and intuition, as well as mindfulness, fantasy, and hypnotic states.
3. *Projection through Play*: If a child or adolescent is not inclined to play, Dr. Andre uses Gestalt Psychology principles to heighten awareness of the present moment and engage with the unresolved issues in the room.
4. *Negotiation and Alternative Narratives*: This process involves negotiating and finding alternative stories or outcomes, often incorporating Systemic and Behavioral techniques within a Gestalt framework.
5. *Self-Nurturing*: The session concludes with a focus on self-nurturing, where the child connects with the feelings that have surfaced. This involves acknowledging parts of themselves they may have previously denied, and Dr. Andre offers suggestions on how to be kind to oneself until the next session.
Dr. Andre ensures that each session ends on a positive note, with the child feeling supported and ready to continue their journey towards emotional well-being