Overview
Community agencies, hospitals, private practices, universities, and other places of business that provide services to children are often invited to events to pitch their services, educate the public, and spread the word about their fields. In the field of play therapy specifically, this is one of the primary ways our profession spread in popularity before the Internet came along. In this activity, you will be preparing a presentation of information related to the origins of play therapy that would be shared with other professionals as well as the broader public.
Instructions
Your clinic is involved in child advocacy and research and has developed an excellent presentation series. The clinic is often invited to play therapy workshops to present. You have been asked to write up a presentation (6-8 slides plus title and references) on a historical contributor to the field of play therapy.
Your presentation should be well organized to communicate key information quickly and in logical order. Headlines should be easy to read from a distance. PowerPoint is recommended for creating your presentation, as it is a very flexible tool for type, pictures, and other design elements. However, you can use any software or method that results in a PPT or PDF document. Do not submit your assignment in any other format unless you get special permission from your instructor.
After you have selected one historical contributor to the field of play therapy, use your course readings, the Internet., and other scholarly resources to find information about them. Your presentation should address the following criteria:
Explain the background of the historical figure in play therapy.
Explain the formation of this person’s ideas: How did those ideas develop, and what might have influenced the person?
Consider providing information on who influenced this person’s ideas, what kinds of educational experiences they had, and any other kind of relevant biographical information.
Explain the research and theoretical contributions this person has made to the field.
Very briefly review and summarize at least two original (primary) sources that this person wrote.
Explore what has been done with this theory since the time the person developed it and who continues with the theory today, if any.
Analyze how this play therapist’s theory frames problems in living.
Describe how the case child’s current situation can be explained with theor tical language used by this contributor.
Describe strengths and weaknesses of the theory in describing problems in living.
Summarize how this person conducted play therapy.
What kind of office or setting did this person work in?
What kinds of materials or procedures did they use?
Design a play therapy session conducted by this contributor.
Give a brief example of what a portion of a session would look and sound like with this contributor.
Additional information:
Week 4: Scientific Study of Play Therapy
DeRobertis, E. M. (2006). Deriving a humanistic theory of child development from the works of Carl R. Rogers and Karen Horney. The Humanistic Psychologist, 34(2), 177–199. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15473333thp3402_5
Moustakas, C. E. (1951). Situational play therapy with normal children. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 15(3), 225–230.
Kottman, T. (2001). Adlerian play therapy. International Journal of Play Therapy, 10(2), 1–12. http://library.capella.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pdh&AN=2002-10102-001&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Freud, A. (1931). Psychoanalysis of the child. In C. Murchison (Ed.), A Handbook of Child Psychology (pp. 555–567). Clark University Press. http://ezproxy.library.capella.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pzh&AN=2009-16680-017&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Klein, M. (1955). The psychoanalytic play technique. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 25(2), 223–237.
