Serving together: Play therapy to foster attachment for grieving military families.

Abstract

Military-connected children are forced to manage the unique challenges that characterize military life. These experiences include frequent relocations, deployments, recovery from combat, and sometimes the death or injury of their caregiver. Although militaryconnected children are known to be very resilient, they are faced with the difficult task of adjusting to frequent changes and coping with experiences of grief and loss, particularly in the case of combat-realted death. In addition, military-connected children face constant disruptions of attachment bonds, which can complicate the grief process. In order to promote a secure attachment after a combat-related loss, military-connected children would benefit from a family-based and attachment-based play therapy approach that centers on rebuilding the parent-child relationship, repairing disruptions and ruptures in parental attachment, and restoring attachment bonds. Child-Parent Relationship Therapy (CPRT) is one approach that focuses on repairing the parent-child relationship by using the parent as the therapeutic agent of change, hope, and healing. Through CPRT, military-connected children can repair and restore disruptions and ruptures of attachment.

Introduction to the 30th Anniversary Special Issue on play therapy with military families.

“…The current special issue offers two more articles focused on play therapy with military families: “Culturally Responsive Play Therapy With Military-Connected Children and Families: Opportunities for Rigorous Research” (Burgin & Prosek, 2021) and “Serving Together: Play Therapy to Foster Attachment for Grieving Military Families” (Villarreal-Davis et al, 2021). These four manuscripts, over a 30-year period, demonstrate the need for more research and writing exploring play therapy applications with children of servicemembers and veterans as well as their families.…”