There are three basic principles behind the
Therapeutic Play Continuum:
Children have a spectrum of needs requiring
different levels of skill to enable their potential, solve emotional and
behaviour problems and alleviate mental health difficulties. A child
suffering the loss of a pet has different needs to one who bullies other
children, to one who is homeless, to one who has been persistently
sexually abused, to one who has severe personality problems, as
examples. However although children (the clients) are the main
beneficiaries of play and creative arts therapies they are not the only
ones who benefit from the service. There are also the carers/parents,
referrers, commisioners and funders. Each of these categories has different needs -
some clinical, some not. Unless they are adequately taken care of the
therapists will not get very far with the children.
To match the spectrum of needs there are a
number of levels of overlapping applications of play to deal with the
needs - see table below and also the diagram in the
Therapeutic Play Continuum.
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The Applications of Play Covered by the Therapeutic Play Continuum
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Play
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Play Work
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Therapeutic Play Work
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Therapeutic Play
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Filial Play
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Play Therapy
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Child Psychotherapy, Clinical Psychology, Psychiatry
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In order to clearly distinguish between each of these applications there is a need for
defining
variables based upon the attributes of each application. These are factors that are common to most
applications but where there is a different set of
values for most of the factors for each. For example the type of security
needed for pure play is different to that required for play therapy.
Parents encouraging their children to play do not require clinical
supervision. Someone using therapeutic play skills as an adjunct to their
main job as a Teacher requires a different level of supervision to that of
a Play Therapist.
