a therapeutic mechanism whereby the child can resolve problems that are blocking normal development of selfhood in a complex world.
There are two main kinds of play therapy, directive and nondirective. As the term directive play therapy implies, that modality is structured around purposeful activity, such as games or make-believe in which the therapist takes the lead in structuring an environment of play while also eliciting imaginative responses from the child client (Landisberg & Snyder, 1946). Structured play therapy has been employed with some success as an intervention for infants and toddlers with symptoms of autism (Chazan, 2000). Directive play therapy for younger children appears to have utility in cases of short-term treatment, such as intervention in acute or an especially intensive trauma like child sexual abuse (Gallo-Lopez, 2000). Play therapy in general does not appear to be considered as appropriate for children of about 12 years old (Lebo, 1956; Lebo & Lebo, 1957), who have arrived at an age that makes them self-conscious at the prospect of acting out in a supposedly uninhibited way. Indeed, Reynolds and Stanley (2001) take the view that children who are 10 years old may already be equipped to express themselves via language; undoubtedly the developmental stage will vary with the individual. The point is that the language skills of older children may have developed in ways that may make psychotherapeutic intervention structured along the lines of more conventional psychotherapy more appropriate.
Nondirective play therapy is derived in part from principles of humanistic and person-centered psychology. Nondirective psychotherapy in general is based on "the assumption that the individual has within himself not only the ability to solve his own problems satisfactorily, but also this growth impulse that makes mature behavior more satisfying than immature behavior" (Axline, 1981, p. 15). Nondirective play therapy per s...