Play therapists’ empathy levels as a predictor of self-perceived advocacy competency.

Abstract

Advocacy has long played a central role in play therapy and is one vehicle play therapists utilize to help clients reach their goals as well as achieve their truest potential. Exploration of variables that may influence play therapist advocacy to improve client outcomes is needed to inform decisions about how to improve clinician advocacy effectiveness for clients. In this survey method–based quantitative study, a purposeful sample of 303 play therapists completed empathy and advocacy competence measures. The researchers determined higher levels of empathy to be a positive, statistically significant predictor of play therapy advocacy for clients at the individual as well as community levels. Researchers discovered play therapists possessing high levels of empathy would be better able to advocate effectively. Implications for practice, education, and research are discussed.

Systematic review of common and specific factors in play therapy for young people with intellectual disability

“…Winburn et al. ( 2020 ) describes the empathic ability of the play therapist as the vehicle for establishing a therapeutic relationship within which the child accepts the therapy into its world. These potential common factors: empathy, safety, unconditional acceptance and witnessing can all find their place within the therapist-client relationship.…”

Establishing play therapy competencies: A Delphi study.

“…While Nalavany et al’s (2005) investigation represents the single study aimed at identifying the full scope of professional competencies in play therapy, other studies have explored individual and specific, rather than global, competencies in play therapy. Winburn, Perepiczka, Frankum, & Neal, 2020 examined empathy levels as a possible predictor of advocacy competency in play therapy, and in another study, Flasch, Taylor, Clauber, and Robinson (2017) utilized the Play Therapy Comfort and Competency Survey , which targets the outcomes of students’ personal feelings self-efficacy and self-perceived play therapy competence developed through educational coursework. Additionally, competencies in play therapy skills associated with a particular theoretical model have been targeted through assessment and skill-evaluation instruments, such as the Play Therapy Skills Checklist (Ray, 2004) for child-centered play therapy skills as well as the Adlerian Play Therapy Skills Checklist (Dillman Taylor & Kottman, 2019) and the Group Play Therapy Skills Checklist (Garza, Kinsworthy, & Morrison Bennett, 2014) in Adlerian play therapy.…”