Therapeutic approaches
Therapeutic approaches most suitable to child and adolescent counselling emphasize the relationship between the client and counsellor and provide a non-threatening expression medium for deep-rooted feelings and emotions. At the Centre for Cognitive & Behavioural Change, child and adolescent therapists are trained in using talk, play, and experssive art therapy.
Play Therapy
Through the therapeutic use of play, children are given the opportunity to express their feelings naturally and safely in a calm and soothing manner, thus enabling the healing process to begin. Play therapy is based upon the fact that play is the child’s natural medium of self-expression. Children are given the opportunity to “play out” their feelings and problems, just as in certain types of adult therapy, adults are given the opportunity to “talk out” their difficulties.
The younger the children are, the more limited are their ability to express themselves verbally. Play therapy allows the child to show what they think, feel, and how they experience and understand the world in which they live. In play therapy, the therapist provides a wide variety of carefully chosen play as well as other expressive materials to help the child bring into the open the behaviours or blocked feelings that have interfered with healthy emotional growth. Through this expression, a child discovers inner strengths that can help them deal with past experiences and cope with present life situations in more adaptable ways.
Art Therapy
Art therapy is an expressive technique that is well respected as an alternative to traditional verbal therapy. Art therapy allows your child to express themselves through different mediums. It taps into their creativity and offers a form of communication that is nonthreatening and which they have control over. The art produced can make visible your child’s unexpressed emotions and can help you and the therapist gain a deeper understanding of their concerns and life circumstances, especially those situations that are too risky to reveal, are forbidden from verbalizing, or too personally embarrassing to relate. This understanding helps the therapist and parents protect, support, and encourage the child during this difficult time in their life.