Description:

In Adlerian play therapy, therapists use the concepts of Alfred Adler’s Individual Psychology to conceptualize children and their parents and teachers, while using toys, art, play material, and metacommunication to connect and communicate with them. The process of co-creating a relationship with the child through play allows therapists to communicate (mostly through metaphor, but sometimes through direct verbal interaction) in a way that facilitates exploration of the child’s patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving, helps the child gain insight into those patterns, and invites the child to make changes in any patterns that are self-defeating or destructive. Engaging the child’s parents and teachers, exploring their own lifestyles and their interaction with the child, helping them to understand the child’s patterns, and teaching them skills for improving the relationship is an integral part of the custom-designed parent and teacher consultation component of Adlerian play therapy.  

Learning Objectives:

1. List and describe the four stages of Adlerian play therapy.
2. Describe what lifestyle is and why thinking about it is important in Adlerian play therapy
3. Explain how tracking, a restatement of content, and reflecting feelings are used in Adlerian play therapy.
4. Explain how to use encouragement as a play therapy skill in Adlerian play therapy.
5. List the Crucial Cs (Courage, Connect, Count, and Capable) and describe how the Crucial Cs are used in Adlerian play therapy.
6. List the personality priorities (Comfort, Pleasing, Control, and Superiority) and explain how the personality priorities are used in Adlerian play therapy.
7. List the goals of misbehavior (Attention, Power, Revenge, Proving Inadequacy), and explain how the goals of misbehavior are used in Adlerian play therapy.
8. Describe two play therapy skills and two play therapy techniques used in exploring the client’s lifestyle in Adlerian play therapy.
9. Describe two play therapy skills and two play therapy techniques used in helping the client gain insight in Adlerian play therapy.
10. Describe two play therapy skills and two play therapy techniques used in facilitating the client making changes in their patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving in Adlerian play therapy.