In a dream she had many years ago, noted child psychotherapist Doctor Ma. Lourdes A. Carandang found herself looking deeply into a child’s eyes. The child was looking back into hers. Later, during a spiritual retreat, Carandang realized the dream’s significance. It was not only an affirmation of her calling.
Shortly after, her career as a therapist took an even more focused direction. It moved toward the healing of children.
In her latest book “The Magic of Play: Children Heal Through Play Therapy” (Anvil, 2009), Carandang and the therapists who had trained and worked with her share their experiences and journey with children. The book is not just about the therapists’ view but also about the children who were themselves a source of learning and inspiration. One could even consider the children as “co-authors” because their insights, drawings, written and art works are a vital part of the book.
“Play is the child’s natural medium of expression,” says Carandang, whom friends and colleagues fondly call Honey. “I dare say that it is the child’s natural way of being. It is an essential part of the child’s total development. But its value is often unrecognized and unappreciated by the people who take care of children.”
But play as therapy, despite having been practiced for decades and having yielded beneficial results, is still the least understood approach in the field of psychotherapy, Carandang notes.
Child-directed play therapy (CDPT) is what Carandang and her team have used in helping children who need to heal, to cope, to become their best or to make sense of difficult, confusing or traumatic situations. At the core of this kind of therapy is the therapist’s belief that each child is unique.
Therapist Wash Garcia, one of the book’s contributors, explains that most children are resilient and may not need extra help in dealing with life’s difficulties. “[But] some events may be too overwhelming for children to handle,” Garcia says. “These children can benefit from play therapy.”
“Play therapy,” Garcia says, “is an intervention where the child’s natural means of expression, that is, play, is employed as a therapeutic tool to assist them in coping with personal difficulties or trauma.”
If in traditional psychotherapy adults “talk it out,” in CDPT children “play it out,” Carandang explains. Play involves all parts of the child’s total person, she adds, quoting well-known developmental psychologist Erik Erikson, who said, “Making sense of the world is an enormous task for young children. They are constantly at risk of being overwhelmed by events and feelings. Play remains an indispensable harbor for the overhauling of shattered emotions after periods of rough going in the social seas. To play it out is the most natural self-healing method childhood affords.”
“Magic of Play” cites real cases where children indeed “played it out.” There was Rita who tortured the stuffed mother turtle repeatedly. There was Renato, 5, who built, destroyed and rebuilt a doll house 10 times. There was Joel, 10, who was afraid of the rain. And so many more. It was through play that these children were able to surface the hidden negative feelings that lurked inside them.
“When the child does what he wants to do repeatedly in play,” Carandang explains, “he is in control. The child can master emotions, get hold of the experience, grasp it, and in the process, the intensity of the trauma lessens.” Adults do this too, she adds, when they repeatedly recount traumatic events.
“Magic of Play” can be a good read if you’re looking for something real that is stranger than fiction. But, more than that, it is a great source of insight and information for those who work with children. Despite its serious content, the book is very readable, even entertaining because it is about children, their stories, their games. Read “Magic of Play” and enter a world so amazing and so familiar. Remember how you played as a child.
Carandang had worked with children who survived the 1990 killer quake and other recent disasters. A best-selling author, she has written several books on the situation of Filipino children and families. She is a scientist, practitioner and researcher. She has been recognized as an outstanding psychologist and honored as National Social Scientist in 1995.#
Sidebar: (Excerpted from “The Magic of Play”)
Six ways to maximize the use of play to help kids overcome trauma and stress
1. The therapist establishes rapport or a warm and caring relationship with the child by tuning in to his or her present emotional state.
2. The therapist respects the child’s pace and does not hurry him/her up. Sinasabayan niya ang bata, hindi inuunahan.
3. The therapist unconditionally accepts and validates the child’s feelings. Doing so makes children know that they have a right to their feelings.
4. The therapist has a basic and genuine respect for the child’s innate wisdom and ability to heal herself/himself when given opportunities.
5. The therapist sets clear and firm limits to help the child feel a sense of clarity and safety. The child knows that he/she is free to express his/her feelings but hurting another or oneself is not allowed. This makes the child feel physically and psychologically safe.
6. The therapist gives the child permission for free expression of feelings in different ways or languages the child uses to communicate, such as: games, clay, story telling, music, art. Expressive therapies are used as the language, but the six principles of child-directed play therapy cited above are the basic guides.
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