Playing means to kids what speaking means to grown-ups. It is a good environment for them to express their feelings, to explore human relationships, to confess their wishes, describe their very own experiences, and to achieve a feeling of fulfillment.

The problems children may come across do not exist outside themselves. Thus, game therapy actually accounts for the dynamic inner structure of the child.

In the process of growing up, many problems are actually caused by the adults’ incapacity to understand or to really respond to what the child feels or tries to communicate to them.

This “communication gap” is enlarged by the grown-ups’ persistent stress on teaching children to simply adopt the ways of expression typical for adults. That is why the children’s efforts to express themselves only verbally require a quite developed capacity to express oneself in that manner, which limits and confines little ones to a rather uncomfortable, restrictive environment.

Because children belong to a world of action and activity, game therapy gives the therapist the possibility to enter this world. The child has no obstacles in telling what happened to him/her. While playing, the child in fact lets out past experiences and the feelings associated to them. If, for instance, a child was brought to the therapist because of his/her aggressive behavior, the doctor can explore the child’s aggression, while the child hits a doll or tries to shoot the therapist with a toy-gun, and he can also teach the child to defend himself/herself using therapeutic methods within established limits.
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