Hunter Play Therapy

 


THERAPLAY

Theraplay is a child and family therapy for building and enhancing attachment, self-esteem, trust in others, and joyful engagement. It is based on the natural patterns of playful, healthy interaction between parent and child and is personal, physical, and fun. Theraplay interactions focus on four essential qualities found in parent-child relationships:

Structure, Engagement, Nurture, & Challenge.

Theraplay sessions create an active, emotional connection between the child and parent or caregiver, resulting in a changed view of the self as worthy and lovable and of relationships as positive and rewarding.In treatment, the Theraplay therapist guides the parent and child through playful, fun games, developmentally challenging activities, and tender, nurturing activities.

Theraplay is suitable for all ages of children and especially so for ages 3 to 7 years who have had a disrupted early life which may have hindered their development and attachment. Adoptive and foster children,  children from trauma backgrounds of any kind.  Theraplay has been known to help:

  •  Shy, withdrawn, or clingy behaviour
  • Acting-out, angry, or disruptive behavior
  • Defiant, oppositional or controlling behavior
  • Behavioral problems at school or with peers
  • Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
  • A history of trauma, abuse, or neglect
  • Attachment disorder due to adoption or multiple changes in living arrangements

   The very act of engaging each other in this way helps the      parent regulate the child’s behavior and communicate love, joy, and safety to the child. It helps the child feel secure, cared for, connected and worthy. We call this “building relationships from the inside out.”

 

         The goals of Theraplay are:

  • Increase child's sense of felt safety/security

  • Increase child's capacity to regulate affect

  • Ensure that caregiver is able to set clear expectations and limits

  • Ensure that caregiver’s leadership is balanced with warmth and support

  • Increase caregiver's capacity to view the child empathically

  • Increase parent and child's experience of shared joy

  • Increase parent's ability to help child with stressful events

    Treatment components:

  • Interactive and relationship-based and utilizes innate capacities for social interaction (rhythm, affective resonance and synchrony, and mirror neuron functions)
  • Provides a direct, here and now experience and utilizes now moments, non-congruence, and multiple foci of change
  • Guided by the adult and utilizes concepts of holding environment, authoritative parenting, and resilience building
  • Responsive, attuned, empathic, and reflective and utilizes contingency, primary intersubjectivity, attunement to vitality and categorical affects, empathy, mindfulness, and reflective function
  • Geared to the pre-verbal, social, right brain level of development and utilizes concepts of experience-dependent brain development, primacy of right brain development in early life, and co-regulation of physical and emotional internal states
  • Multisensory and utilizes touch and appropriate stimulation of body senses for social development, attachment, regulation of physiological development, stress reduction, and positive body image
  • Playful, but does not employ a lot of toys or props and utilizes affective synchrony and amplification of interest and joy to connect with the child
  • Involves parents/carers in the treatment and strives to give parents/carers a more positive, empathic view of their child, to teach them about appropriate developmental expectations, and to consult about behavior management.

                MIMS - (Marschak Interaction Method)

  • During this structured observation technique, a caregiver and child complete a set of simple tasks designed to evaluate four dimensions of a healthy caregiver-child relationship: Structure, Engagement, Nurture and Challenge. The MIM assessment is  videotaped (session 1) and then evaluated by the therapist (session 2) in order to determine areas of weaknesses and strengths across the dimensions. The therapists’ recommendations for further treatment are then presented to the caregiver (session 3).
  • It evaluates the caregivers’ capacity to:

  • Set limits and provide an appropriately ordered environment (Structure)

  • Engage the child in interaction while being attuned to the child’s state (Engagement)

  • Meet the child’s needs for attention, soothing and care (Nurture)

  • Support and encourage the child’s efforts to achieve at a developmentally appropriate level (Challenge)

  • And the child’s ability to respond to the caregivers’ efforts

NOTE: The MIMs can be used as a stand alone mini treatment that gives parents/carers great insight into how they interact with their child and how the child interacts with them. The feedback given by the Theraplay practitioner helps guide the parent to improving the quality of the relationship with their child.