We have already addressed in a previous session the topic of psychotherapeutic care with little patients, as we tend to call them tenderly. I am referring to child psychotherapeutic care.
In the clinic with children, the vehicle through which we work with them is play. And you might wonder, but what problems could a child have?
It is not a simple matter to judge the appropriate time to bring a child to therapy. As we also mentioned in a previous session, schools are often the first to notice a situation in a child that requires attention, and yet psychotherapeutic care is not always the first option.
In some cases, parents will also have some resistance to their children being seen by a psychologist. Dad, mom, rest assured that the role of a psychologist will not at any time be to reproach you for any failure in parenting, point out, judge or criticize. In no way, it is a professional and specialized accompaniment that comes to help with the resolution of some particular problem. You may think that you are the one who needs help. This is not always easy to face, however, know that at all times the role of the mental health professional is to accompany you; join the health of the family.
The game could come to be considered as a banal activity, a way in which children entertain themselves and pass the time and not consider that among many things, the game is a tool. A tool used by the mental health professional to accompany the work with the patients.
It could be considered that the game is nothing more than the reproduction of a situation lived by the child, some trace of his daily life, in no way!
The child’s subjectivity is placed in the game. In the game something is solved. The child, when playing, overcomes painful realities and dominates the contents of his fears originating in the drives, projecting them outward in toys. It becomes his opportunity to put out something that in his internal world is generating a conflict.
Melanie Klein tells us that the child who plays represses himself less than the one who has difficulty symbolizing his conflicts through playful activity. The game reveals the child’s attitude towards reality.
If a child can repair in the game some situation that is painful, it will not be so necessary to symptomatic. Play to avoid getting sick.
The game in the child is equivalent to the act in the adult. The child plays, the adult acts. The game is a pleasant activity that is usually sought by the child for that purpose, to experience pleasure. An adult who did not play will hardly allow himself to enjoy her adult experience.
I do not intend to make a reduction in this, however, it is a reality that when an adult falls ill, it was perhaps due to not being able to carry out an act. The symptom takes the place that the act cannot yet have. The adult will then dispense with an analytical work that allows him to express that emotion that was not processed. The child will do the same through the game.
In the case of the little patients, if a symptom were to appear, the way we would work on it would be by playing.
Where there is a symptom, the game has not been possible; if that disturbance in playing is processed, the symptom would be expected to disappear.
In conclusion. In many cases, children are trained to love, learn, develop; cry, get angry Live life to the full. What they need sometimes is a space to play it. That space can be play therapy. Until next week. Peace and good.
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