Play Therapy for Children Inspired by Experiential Dynamic Therapy (EDT)

ABSTRACT

The demand for short-term therapy with a clearly defined therapy plan and operative goals, which provides deep and lasting change, is constantly increasing. This demand is especially challenging for child psychologists. While classic psychodynamic approaches to child therapy are rich in theory, they do not provide the therapist with systematic steps for conceptualization, from which detailed therapy techniques could be derived. To fill this gap, this article provides an original extension of Experiential Dynamic Therapy (EDT) well-suited for children, adolescents, and families. This method facilitates the assembly of a clear, dynamic conceptualization of the difficulties encountered by children and their families; proposes clear therapeutic tools for achieving the therapy goals derived of this conceptualization, and enables deep, stable therapeutic achievements within a relatively short time. The paper presents a case study to demonstrate these principles. This novel adaptation of the theoretical principles of EDT for child psychotherapy opens a new horizon for application of EDT in diverse types of interactions.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Jonathan and his parents, Dr. Ferruccio Osimo, my mentors, colleagues, patients, students, and supervisees over the years who all contributed to developing the model described in this paper. Special thanks to Rachel Baranski, Michal Almagor, Shlomit Kanotopsky, and Dori Derdikman for their support and comments while I wrote this article. I would also like to thank Shira Derdikman for the illustrations.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ruth Derdikman Eiron

Ruth Derdikman Eiron, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and licensed supervisor in clinical psychology in Israel and a certified EDT therapist and teacher. Following a BA in psychology (cum laude) in Tel-Aviv university she has completed a Masters (cum laude) in child clinical psychology in Bar-Ilan university, Ramat Gan, Israel. She wrote her Masters thesis under the supervision of Prof. Ruth Feldman, titled: “Conflict management and antecedents of social competence at the age of two years”. She received a PhD in 2012 from NTNU, Trondeim, Norway. Her Doctoral thesis titled: “Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression and Psychosocial Function in Males and Females from Adolescence to Adulthood”, under the supervision of Prof. Matthew Colton and Prof. Marit S. Indredavik. Her training in EDT was completed under the supervision of Dr. Ferrucio Osimo, Milano, Italy. Currently Dr. Derdikman works as a director of the Meuhedet public mental health clinic in Haifa, Israel. The clinic consists of 20 psychologists, all of them trained and working in EDT under her supervision. She has taught courses in EDT in Haifa University, and in many public and private clinics. She teaches, supervises, and practices psychotherapy in a private clinic.