Therapists’ use of congruence in nondirective play therapy and filial therapy.

Abstract

Although the U.S. child-centered approaches of Garry Landreth and Louise Guerney have the same principles and practice skills as nondirective play therapy as practiced by therapists trained at the University of York, there are a few differences in their approach. Therapists' practice of "congruence" is actively encouraged for York-trained therapists but not for Landreth and Guerney-trained therapists. The theoretical and practice rationales for expressing congruence that underlie the York approach are examined here, as well as potential pitfalls. Examples of therapists and parents verbally expressing their congruent feelings in therapy are given from both play therapy and filial therapy practice. Special attention is paid to the need for and uses of congruence when helping children and young people who were maltreated.

The role of play themes in non-directive play therapy

“…In addition to these child-led experiences, therapists also use their own personal, cognitive and emotional processes in determining themes. UK non-directive play therapists are trained in a variety of ways, including undertaking personal therapy, being self-reflecting and distinguishing their own personal emotional reactions to play therapy contents from those arising within their relationships with children (Ryan & Courtney, 2009). Therefore therapists also base their judgments of what themes are important on their own personal emotional responses to children’s play with materials and interactions with them during sessions.…”

“…Their aim, through continually reflecting on relationships and processes, is to become more attuned and more able to anticipate a specific child’s feelings and reactions on an emotional level during their play therapy sessions. Therapists’ congruent feelings (Ryan & Courtney, 2009; Wilson & Ryan, 2005), which are those feelings arising within each relationship at a specific moment with each child for each therapist, are based on therapists’ empathy with the children they help. These feelings of empathy and congruence in turn help therapists to further attune themselves on an emotional level to a child they are seeking to help (see Ryan and Courtney, 2009).…”

Using Child Parent Relationship Therapy (CPRT) with our First Nations people.

“…Contemporary literature identifies Louise Guerney and Garry Landreth as leaders who train practitioners in nondirective FT, a well-researched psychoeducational technique in which parents and caregivers are trained and supervised in child-centered play sessions for the furtherance and development of the childparent relationship (Garza, Watts, & Kinsworthy, 2007;Ryan & Courtney, 2009). According to L. Guerney (2003), therapists train parents in providing play therapy with their own children.…”

Part 1: Why child-centered play therapists should care about play-based social interventions for youth with ASD.

“…Since its conception, child-centered play therapy has been fundamentally interested in how children play. Based on person-centered approaches (Rogers, 1942), Axline (1947Axline ( , 1982, who was a student of Rogers', integrated play into Rogerian therapeutic methods, thereby founding the field of child-centered play therapy, or nondirective play therapy as it was originally called (and as it remains in the United Kingdom; Ryan & Courtney, 2009). As the most popular approach to play therapy in the United States (Lambert et al, 2005), childcentered play therapy supports the development of a wide range of outcomes (Perryman & Bowers, 2018;Ray, Armstrong, Balkin, & Jayne, 2015;Ray, Bratton, Rhine, & Jones, 2001), such as academic success (Blanco, Muro, Holliman, Stickley, & Carter, 2015;Blanco, Holliman, Muro, Toland, & Farnam, 2017;Blanco & Ray, 2011), behavior outcomes (Cochran & Cochran, 2017;Ritzi, Ray, & Schumann, 2017;Stutey, Dunn, Shelnut, & Ryan, 2017), reducing relationship stress (Brown & Gibbons, 2018;Ray, Henson, Schottelkorb, Brown, & Muro, 2008), and improving parent-child relationships (Bratton & Landreth, 1995).…”