Child-Centered Play Therapy and Strategies for Supervision

Introduction

According to Bernard and Goodyear (2019) the process of supervision serves to strengthen supervisees’ clinical skills while safeguarding clients’ well-being. Casado-Kehoe and Ybañez (2018) further emphasized that the ultimate goal of supervision is to increase supervisees’ self-awareness by assisting them to critically explore the self, the client, and the supervisory relationship. Addressing supervisees’ chosen theoretical framework is essential to advance their clinical competence. Thus, when supervising child-centered play therapists (CCPTs), focusing the supervision process on the specific skills and attitudes needed to practice child-centered play therapy is important.

Landreth (2012) provides an in-depth understanding of child-centered play therapy in his book and highlights characteristics that increase CCPTs’ ability to provide children a relationship guided by Axline’s (1969) nine conditions. Supervisors need to address CCPTs ability to use skills such as reflecting feelings, enlarging the meaning, encouraging, returning responsibility, and understanding themes (Landreth, 2012; Ray, 2011). In addition, CCPTs set limits in a way that shows empathy for the child and promotes child’s engagement in self-control. The steps to set limits are summarized as ACT and include: Acknowledge the child’s feelings, wishes, and wants; Communicate the limit; and Target acceptable alternatives (Landreth, 2012). Similarly, the non-verbal skills of CCPTs are important to address in supervision as they are part of how CCPTs convey the core conditions. Thus, body posture, tone of voice, and facial expressions are all important skills that are linked to the therapist’s ability to convey empathy, congruence, and unconditional acceptance. Equally important is to work on CCPT’s ability to understand the metaphorical manner in which children express through play by using toys as their words (Landreth, 2012). Understanding the language of play is needed to assess themes and to enhance one’s conceptualization skills using the child-centered philosophical tenets.

Authors in the field have proposed the use of expressive media as a means to deepening play therapist supervisees’ experience and maximize their learning during supervision (Bratton et al., 2008; Edwards, 2010; Drewes & Mullen, 2008). Because the use of expressive art media engages both sides of the brain, supervisees are able to bring unconscious material to the surface that otherwise would not be processed (Degges-White & Davis, 2018). In addition, expressive arts offer a non-verbal means of expressing one’s internal thoughts and feelings in a more holistic way than with words alone (Malchiodi, 2005). These characteristics have the potential to increase CCPT’s self-awareness. Bratton et al. (2008) further elaborated that the use of expressive media can enhance the supervisory experience of play therapists by facilitating client conceptualization, exploration of theoretical frameworks, and development of play therapy skills. In light of the plausible benefits of integrating expressive art media in supervision, the authors of this chapter propose using expressive art media in child-centered play therapy supervision.

This chapter explores the specific needs of CCPT supervisees, how to address these needs through the use of expressive arts, and important multicultural and ethical considerations for supervisors to follow. The authors use a case example to illustrate the use of expressive arts to enhance CCPTs’ self-awareness, proper use of play therapy skills, and case conceptualization. This case example illustrates the integration of person-centered within the discrimination supervision model (Bernard and Goodyear, 2019) to exemplify supervisors’ intentionality when using expressive arts to address the needs of CCPTs.