Personal Process in Child-centred Play Therapy

Personal Process in Child-Centred Play Therapy provides a very specific exploration of the play therapy process from the personal perspective of the play therapist.

This volume examines the personal challenges, opportunities, losses and gains, and numerous obstacles that one has to negotiate through the course of both training to become a play therapist and working as a qualified clinician with children who have complex life difficulties. The book aims to offer a forum within which the role, function and process of the "personal" within play therapy can be explored. Bringing together a number of experienced play therapists, the book shares often deeply personal accounts of their experience of training and clinical practice. Chapters challenge the unspoken therapist taboos of shame, childhood trauma, vulnerability and grief, shining a light on the more hidden areas of therapist experience. Clinical issues around the unconscious process are also explored, but once again from the personal position of the play therapist, rather than the child.

With a unique and distinct perspective on the therapeutic process, this book is specifically intended for both trainee and experienced play therapists, but will be relevant to all psychotherapists involved in working therapeutically with children and young people.

David Le Vay is a qualified social worker and registered play therapist, dramatherapist and sandplay therapist. He has worked with children, who have experienced significant loss, trauma and abuse, as well as with their families and carers. He is also Senior Lecturer at Roehampton University and an approved BAPT play therapy supervisor.

Elise Cuschieri is Senior Lecturer and convenes the MA Play Therapy programme at the University of Roehampton. She is a BAPT-registered play therapist and works in the NHS and other sectors with children and their families who have experienced life-limiting illness, loss, trauma and abuse.