Play Therapy

This a course which is individualised with trained artists to develop the creative, perceptive, process oriented, intuitive right brain. In Daniel Pink's book 'A Whole New Mind' the emphasis in stress reduction in a management context is to hire staff with 'Masters in Fine Arts' as a trend away from Masters in Business because of their intuitive, novel, problem solving ability. The ability to think outside the box today is highly desirable in addition to contemporary, analytical, detailed left brain thinking still in the ascendancy.

The concept of using play to facilitate recuperation, relaxation, and as an aid to stress reduction is not new. The British Medical Association has offered courses for doctors as an antidote to physicians' time urgent, multi-tasking, high pressured environment. In the United States this is a trend not only in the reduction of stress, but because artistic experience, (whether as an aesthetic interest in visiting art galleries, and craft and design shows, or in using the medium of pens, pencils and paint) to produce a shift to a different kind of thinking experience i.e., synthetic syncretistic, lateral, and geared towards the ability to see the possibility of ideas, images, and possibilities which do not exist yet.

In the first session clients do a series of diagnostic tests to measure stress symptoms: -

• Type A/B personality
• Myers Briggs personality test
• Empathy levels

The results of these diagnostic criteria are discussed with the client and a problem list is drawn up collaboratively to identify specific aims and objectives for treatment.

This course is not in itself a therapeutic medium but can be used in conjunction with standard CBT where there is also a specific need for stress reduction. The purpose of working with an artist is to develop new thinking skills to gain an insight into new ways of experiencing life and develop clients potential in ways that they had not previously had the opportunity to explore.

Clients discuss specific themes and subjects they would like to be creative in, and the artist uses their skills as a way of seeing the world, others, and themselves differently.

In most life stages both significance and meaning are enhanced by changes in perception and understanding, and the ability to suspend a critical, judgmental approach to living, has dynamic, life changing results.