Non Directive Play Therapy Essay

“Without this playing with fantasy, no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.” C.G Jung.
Non – directive play therapy is an effective and non – intrusive approach to working therapeutically with troubled children and young people. It is intended for all those who, through their professional role, may be asked to work directly with emotionally damaged children, whether in statutory child care agencies, or in other mental health or voluntary and not for profit settings (Wilson and Ryan 2005). Non – directive play therapy makes no effort to control or change the child and is based on the theory that the child’s behaviour is at all times caused by the drive for complete self realization.
He pioneered a major new approach to psychotherapy, known successively as the “non – directive,” “child centred,” and “person – centred approach”. Carl Roger’s enabled countless of people throughout the world to be themselves with confidence. His impact has been enormous through his voluminous writings, through the indirect influence of his work on many areas of professional activity where the quality of human relationships is central (Throne and Sanders). Rodgers developed what is probably the most commonly used method of counselling and active listening in the health, social care and education fields. It adopts the humanistic pre-concepts of adaptive developments as encapsulated in Maslows Hierarchy of Needs (Maslow, 1970), which holds that human development always strives towards becoming all that one can be. Rodger’s client centred therapy is based on the principle that the therapy is non – directive – that the relationship is one of equals, that the client is able to grow and develop given suitable conditions, and that the practitioner’s role needs to be empowering of the clients abilities to reach their human potential (Webb, 2011). These three core conditions that he developed
Based on person – centred theory and therapy, congruence is less a skill and more an experience. Congruence therapists are described as genuine, authentic, and comfortable with themselves. Congruence includes spontaneity and honesty; its usually associated with the clinical skill of immediacy and involves some degree of self – disclosure (Sommers – Flanagan, 2010). Rodgers also emphasized that congruent expression is important even if it consists of attitudes, thoughts, or feelings that don’t, on the surface, appear conductive to a good relationship. He is suggesting that it is acceptable – and even good – to speak about things that are difficult to talk about (Sommers – Flanagan, 2010). The closer our self image and ideal – self are to each other, the more consistent and or congruent we are and the higher our sense of self – worth. A person is said to be in a state of incongruence if some of the totality of their experience is unacceptable to them or is denied or distorted in the self – image (Simply Psychology,