Why Play Therapy is designed to give a child an hour in which nobody needs anything from them.
The Play Therapy space and relationship is intentionally structured to create a sense of expansiveness and low demand within a relationship that does not require them to transition, to hurry, to perform, to wait, to slow down or hurry up.
For The Real Work’s therapist Megan Gerry, Licensed Professional Counselor Associate, this is one of the things that drew her from Montessori education into child therapy. Montessori had already taught her to respect children as people rather than simply smaller versions of adults and to attune to their natural gifts and personality. But working with kids and families in the classroom setting made another problem visible to her. Parents often understood that something was difficult for their child without knowing what to make of it. In a classroom and throughout the year, Megan explained that:
“As I worked with families, it became clear that a lot of them felt lost at times with how to understand their children's behaviors and I was spending more and more time helping families navigate development as best I could outside of the classroom. I had a chance to work with a family therapist helping one of our children and really loved her warmth and the ways in which she took the systemic approach in providing support for them. I was left feeling drawn to what she did, that she was able to help families one-on-one with their unique struggles.”
Research on child and adolescent psychotherapy consistently finds an association between the quality of the therapeutic alliance and treatment outcomes. A 2023 meta-analysis of 99 studies found that the child-therapist alliance was associated with better outcomes, including changes in alliance over the course of treatment. Young people also describe safety, autonomy, choice, and being understood as important features of a relationship that allows therapy to work.
Children do not generally walk into a therapy office and announce what they need. They show us through play, testing limits, pushing boundaries, staying quiet or getting loud. Play Therapists are trained to work to understand the child’s needs, desires, fears, and attempts and connection and to reflect those back to them as well as to create a space that feels safe for them to connect with the therapist and with their self.
Megan describes watching for small things when a child first arrives:
Eye contact
Nervous energy
Willingness to engage
How much proximity feels comfortable.
When kids begin Play Therapy, the presence and affect and attunement of the therapist is the most important tool in building connection and safety. Getting down on the child's level, noticing what vocal tone seems to feel safe for the child, offering a warm expression, and letting them know they can enter the room at their own pace.
The reason an attuned and open presence is essential for Play Therapy is that the child arrives carrying the heaviness of the world’s expectations on them, a diagnosis, a school report, a list of behaviors, or a parent who is exhausted and worried. All of that information is important, but within the therapy space, seeing the whole child and their specific needs is the priority.
Megan talks about approaching each client with openness to “surprise and delight” that always comes when she can let go of her assumptions about who a child is and how their struggles should look. As a Play Therapist Megan works to stay curious long enough for a child to contradict the story that has already been written about them.
Words we often hear about kids who are struggling are an attempt to classify their behaviors, but many environments do not encourage adults to see the whole child. For example, kids who come to play therapy may have been described by teachers, the community, or other adults as some of these labels: oppositional, sensitive, anxious, inattentive, impulsive, difficult, lacking confidence.
The Play Therapy relationship is intentionally created to go deeper than these labels both for the sake of the child and for the sake of the parents. We learn to ask things like, What is this child communicating? What are they capable of when they feel safe enough to show us?
Megan describes her role as “cheerleading in all the best ways.” It’s about helping each child notice their own capacities, offering encouragement when something feels difficult, and creating conditions in which they tolerate more frustration and believe they can try again. This is one reason play is so central to child therapy. Play gives children a way to communicate that does not depend entirely on the verbal and reflective capacities that adults tend to privilege. It also gives them opportunities to experiment with agency, competence, relationships, uncertainty, and repair.
Thoughts for Parents and Megan’s Reading List
Helping parents understand the relationship requires putting emphasis on the fact that children will not begin the process of change without knowing deep down that they are safe. Megan lets families know that her number one priority is helping their child feel as if she is a person that is on their side and will support and encourage them as much as possible. When they feel secure and begin to accept that she sees them as someone worthy of respect, they start to explore, both internally and externally.
Megan has a few go-to recommendations for learning more:
Some resources I have found helpful for parents includes anything by Dr. Dan Siegel and Dr. Tina Payne Bryson, like The Whole Brain Child or The Power of Showing Up. In addition, Alfie Kohn's Unconditional Parenting provides useful insight in how to help children be part of the process of growing up through collaboration and respect.
References
Roest, J. J., Welmers-Van de Poll, M. J., van der Helm, G. H. P., Stams, G. J. J. M., & Hoeve, M. (2023). A three-level meta-analysis on the alliance-outcome association in child and adolescent psychotherapy. Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology, 51, 275–293.
Shirk, S. R., Karver, M. S., & Brown, R. (2011). The alliance in child and adolescent psychotherapy. Psychotherapy, 48(1), 17–24.
Shirk, S. R., & Jungbluth, N. (2010). Expanding the empirical foundation of therapeutic relationship research in child and adolescent psychotherapy. Psychotherapy, 47(1), 5–17.
Siegel, D. J., & Bryson, T. P. (2020). The Power of Showing Up: How Parental Presence Shapes Who Our Kids Become and How Their Brains Get Wired. Ballantine Books.
Kohn, A. (2006). Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason. Atria Books.