Play is the natural world for a child and is essential for their social, emotional, cognitive, physical,
creative, and language development.
“In play therapy, toys are like the child's words and play is the child's language”
Dr Garry Landreth
Center for Play Therapy, University of Texas
Children often find it difficult to effectively express in words how they are feeling or how their
experiences have affected them. In Play Therapy, children are not expected to enter the adult
therapist’s world of talk.
Instead, the Play Therapist is trained to enter the child’s world of play and to interact with them,
providing them with emotional support to help bring understanding to their thoughts and feelings. In
this way, Play Therapy also helps children for whom talking may be difficult.
A relationship of trust is built up between child and Play Therapist and the Play Therapy room becomes
a place of safety.
