Theraplay is an action-based therapy aimed at building secure attachment between a child and their parent or caregiver. Although it has been popular in the US since the 1950s, it is only just beginning to build awareness in the UK, with the Chicago-based Theraplay Institute delivering regular training sessions over here.
The technique addresses four essential qualities found in parent-child relationships - structure, nurture, engagement and challenge - and uses a play-based approach to enhance interaction.
Touch, eye contact and 'parentese' are all important, as Finnish child psychiatrist Jukka Makela points out in a recent article for the institute's newsletter.
She says that the calming and stimulating way of speaking throughout the sessions helps to foster more positive interaction and 'creates a resonant hum of emotions, through noticing the minutest cues of the child and responding to them'.
She also emphasises the value of the therapy in addressing a variety of aspects of well-being. 'Theraplay aims to cause simultaneous changes in the child's experience of him or herself, of adults and especially of the outside world,' she says.
For Jay Vaughan, director of therapy at Family Futures, an adoption support agency in Islington, London, it is the flexibility of the technique that makes it effective.
'We have used it for a special therapy project with two- to six-year-olds and also carried out a more energetic version with teenagers,' she says.
'A typical session will take the form of a parent and child interaction game which is organised around the four domains of nurture, structure, engagement and challenge. In each one there are appropriate activities. Nurture, for example, could involve feeding a child or playing peekaboo with them, or for an older chid this could be combing their hair.'
The first step is always to meet the parents, and then the parent and child are seen together. 'We encourage the parents to participate in a variety of games and then we do an assessment. This provides the basis of the programme,' says Ms Vaughan.
'The ideas are adaptable. The practitioner looks at the child and judges how they function within each of the four domains. Many of the families we work with are traumatised and haven't experienced nurture, so it is a gradual and sensitive process. It's important to be sensitive about the child and their needs, and ensure that both child and parents enjoy the session.'
She reports that Theraplay made a huge difference to one four-year-old girl who was the subject of an inter-country adoption and was struggling to engage at nursery school. 'She had 12 sessions, and by the end she was taking great delight in her nursery sessions.'
At the Theraplay Institute, training director Dafna Lender recommends that anyone interested in learning more should attend one of the conferences. 'Delegates can hear a diverse range of practitioners talking about their work. These range from working with AIDS orphans in Botswana, to children with autism and juvenile offenders.'
The next training session in the UK will be a one-day overview taking place in Nottingham on February. This will be followed by a five-day Introduction to Theraplay course in London during March. Check out the Theraplay website for full details, including cost.
Certification
Certification requirements include completion of the Introductory and Intermediate levels of training, plus completion of a supervision programme with the Theraplay Institute. Only certified graduates may refer to themselves as Theraplay therapists or to their practice as Theraplay.
Learning supervision is available from the US via tape, DVD and e-mail.
For more information - www.theraplay.org
- Jukka Makela is based at Helsinki University in Finland.
WHAT IS THERAPLAY?
Theraplay is a short-term, therapist-guided play therapy for children and their parents/carers which:
- enhances attachment, self-esteem and trust in others through joyful engagement
- is based on the natural patterns of healthy interaction between parent and child
- focuses on four essential qualities found in parent-child relationships: structure, nurture, engagement and challenge
- creates an active and empathic connection between child and parents
- results in a changed view of the self as worthy and lovable, and of relationships as positive and rewarding.
Extensions of this are the MIM Interaction Method, which is a structured technique for observing and assessing the interaction between caregiver and child, and Group Theraplay, where a therapist or professional works with groups of children, and children and parents.
