Play Therapy as a Treatment Approach for Children With Anxiety

Published on Friday, February 18th, 2011 at 10:14 am and is filed under Mental Health

A lot of children especially young children that suffer from anxiety have trouble expressing their feelings and thoughts. That is the reason why play therapy is important because it allows the children to express what is going on with them, as well as allowing them a way to cope with those feelings.

Children are better able to communicate their thoughts and things that they are going through using play than they would be able to if they were communicating it verbally. As a child plays a therapist looks at the themes and patterns that may emerge, and they are able to analyze and interpret and be able to see what is going on with the child.

Through this process they are able to see whatever issues that the child is going through that is related to the anxiety that they are feeling.

Play therapy has been shown to be beneficial for children not those that are suffering with anxiety, but also:

•    Children who have parents that have gone through a divorce or a separation

•    Children who have gone through traumatic experiences such as abuse. This includes emotional abuse, physical abuse as well as sexual abuse. It is also recommended for children who were witnesses to those types of abuse.

•    Children who have gone through adoption or who have had to go through foster processes

•    Children who have dealt with the loss of a loved one

•    Children who have had to go through serious situations such as illnesses or accidents or those that had to be hospitalized.

•    Children who suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder

Play therapy for a child is supposed to eliminate or at least reduce the difficulties that they may experience emotionally or behaviorally. These may include children who are struggling with fear, worry, tantrums, temper nightmares or have difficulty sleeping.

Play therapy is both beneficial for both parents and the children, because children get to communicate better what is going on with them and parents with the help of psychologists get to understand better what their children are going through.

When it comes to anxiety in children, the best resource for parents is Anxiety Free Child Program. Click Here and learn more about it, and learn how it can help your child eliminate anxiety.

Read the Anxiety Free Child Review and find out how it can help you help your child

About the author: Michael Newman is the founder and the author of this psychology dedicated blog. He is a psychologist leading training sessions, an expert in NLP (neuro-linguistic programming), transpersonal psychology and Eastern philosophy.

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