网爆门

Aim or purpose

This research aims to:

• answer the question of how older children and teenagers play
• to consider the extent to which the principles of play therapy with young children apply to older age groups

This research addresses the themes of diversity and inclusion directly relating to age, gender and learning styles, and how these enter the counselling room.

Adolescence is a time of huge physiological and emotional change, and the use of play in the therapeutic space directly supports these clients as they negotiate these changes.

Design and methodology

Discussion

At the earliest stages I used a PRISMA model to screen databases and a university library for existing academic research. While there were thousands of articles about play therapy and other search terms applied, only two focused on older children or teenagers.

Online forums/groups were also used to explore outside of traditional academic databases in this developing field. This has proven to be more fruitful, and has led to discussions with other therapists who have written outside of academic literature. From this themes have been identified, as have clear gaps in the existing literature, and this work will form the basis for later stages of the research.

Using the principles of play with older children and teenagers also links to diversity and inclusion by opening a connection with groups that may find talking based therapies harder to engage with. Within my own work I have found RPGs, computer games, and links to sports teams and clubs have all been ways that have extended the inclusivity of counselling and opened the door to clients that would not otherwise have engaged. Play has been the bridge.

There is extensive research into how young children play, but limited papers and other discussion of how older age groups use play. This is an ongoing process however, and I maintain regular checks for new work that would add to the exploration of this field.

Role Playing Games (RPGs)

One aspect of play that is an important of my practice, and is something that will be key to the later research is the use of聽 RPGS. These are a helpful way to use play to explore within therapy topics that may be difficult for the young person to open up about. They can be used in groups, as therapeutic games played between members, or individually to explore through character creation and story telling. Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is perhaps the best known, but other forms of RPG can be equally useful. A selection of others that could be considered are-

Masks: adventures here are set around the lives of a group of teenage superheroes finding their identities and path. They are the fourth generation in a superheroic world of heroes and villains, and everything in-between.

Thirsty Sword Lesbians: especially useful for exploring themes round relationships, LGBT+ matters, and the intersection of gender/sexuality and other aspects of life such as religion or culture.

Little Fears: in this game players have characters that are children (aged between 6-12) who fight childhood terrors in the form of monsters.

The use of things such as RPGs, interactive storytelling and superheroes as an aspect of play in older children has started to be discussed online within blog posts and discussion boards and in some cases offline such as Lawrence (2006) or the self-published Scott and Hoberg (2019).

Results and findings

Ethics

To date this research has been into the surrounding literature only, through searching academic databases and online discussions with other professionals about emerging work.

Moving forward the aim is to reflect on my own client work and build on case studies. I am investigating ways to obtain ethical approval for this outside of the university system in anticipation of this next stage of research. With my Supervisor鈥檚 support I continue to look for a way to do this.

Conclusions and implications

Future directions

This project is at an early stage, but I hope it will ultimately be useful in exploring the gap in discussions around the helpfulness of play when working with young people.

In the future, once ethical approval issues have been resolved, the use of case studies and input from young people about the role of play in their therapeutic journeys can add to explorations of their use of play and further discussion in this area.

References

Masks: Created by B.G. Conway
Thirsty Sword Lesbians: Created by聽 A.P. Walsh
Little Fears: Created by R. Jones
Axline, V.M., (1989) Play Therapy (Churchill Livingstone: London)
Lawrence , C., (2006) Using Superheroes in Counselling and Play Therapy (Springer: New York)
Scott, R. and Hoberg, B., (2019) Existential Dragons (Independently published)

Acknowledgments

Thankyou to Severin#4224 on Discord for their input into exploring RPGs, and suggestions for further reading. I look forward to working with them again.