The Role of Play in Contemporary Child Psychotherapy: A Developmental Perspective

ABSTRACT

This article reviews evidence for the importance of play in children’s social and emotional development. Play is an essential pathway toward social maturity in young children. Children experience interactive play with admired adults as a form of affirming responsiveness, a basic nutrient of emotional health that all children want and need. Children learn through interactive play how to make accommodations and cooperate with others, how to cope with frustration and disappointment, and to develop self-restraint. Improved problem solving, creativity, and cognitive flexibility are also intrinsic to children’s play. All of these aspects of emotional maturity come together, synergistically, when we play with children. They are not learned, however, in front of a screen. The many benefits of play to children’s social maturity leads to a first clinical implication: As child therapists, we should help parents understand the importance of play and regularly encourage both mothers and fathers to play, frequently and enthusiastically, with their children.

COI-statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Gray (2011) has presented a similar list of the functions of children’s play: “Play functions as the major means by which children (1) develop intrinsic interests and competencies; (2) learn how to make decisions, solve problems, exert self-control, and follow rules; (3) learn to regulate their emotions; (4) make friends and learn to get along with others as equals; and (5) experience joy. Through all of these effects, play promotes mental health” (p. 443).

2. In Panksepp’s model, PLAY and other basic emotions are written in all capital letters to distinguish emotional brain systems from the common usage of these terms.

3. Machin reports that rough and tumble interactions are observed less frequently in cultures where fathers spend more time in the presence of their children.

4. Competitive games, because they are concerned with outcomes in addition to the intrinsic enjoyment of the game, are not as fully playful as other forms of children’s play but still make an important contribution to children’s social development.

5. Similar observations have been reported in other cultures. In Childhood and Society (1950), Erik Erikson tells of his conversation with a young Sioux boy who boasted that “he could catch a wild rabbit on foot and with his bare hands.” Erikson gently laughed (with, he thought, not at the boy) and “I was made to feel that I had made a social blunder. Such daydreams are ….preparations for skills which, in turn, assure the development of… identity” (pp. 142–143).

6. Identifying information has been omitted from all clinical case material to preserve patient anonymity.

7. Some therapeutic programs for children and families, based on different theoretical models, include this recommendation (Barkley, 2013; Greenspan & Wieder, 1998; Landreth & Bratton, 2006; Smith, Rogers, & Dawson, 1994; Steele et al., 2007; Zisser & Eyberg, 2010). Many other programs, however, do not.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kenneth Barish

Kenneth Barish, PhD, is Clinical Professor of Psychology at Weill Cornell Medical College and Visiting Professor at Wuhan Mental Health Center, Tongji Medical College, in Wuhan, China. He is on the faculty of the Westchester Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy and the William Alanson White Institute Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Training Program. Ken is the author of How to Be a Better Child Therapist: An Integrative Model for Therapeutic Change (W. W. Norton, 2018) and Pride and Joy: A Guide to Understanding Your Child’s Emotions and Solving Family Problems (Oxford University Press, 2012). Pride and Joy is winner of the 2013 International Book Award and the 2013 Eric Hoffer Book Award.

Portions of this article have been adapted from the author’s previous publications, used with permission of the publishers: Emotions in Child Psychotherapy: An Integrative Framework, Oxford University Press, 2009 and How to Be a Better Child Therapist: An Integrative Model for Therapeutic Change, W. W. Norton & Company, 2018.