How Play Therapy Works spinsight

Play Therapy in Detail

Overview

Parents and pediatricians often ask, “What is play therapy?” The answer begins with understanding how children naturally communicate. Unlike adults, children express their emotions, fears, and experiences through play. Play therapy is a developmentally sensitive approach that allows children to process trauma, anxiety, grief, or behavioral challenges in a medium they understand best — play.

When comparing play therapy vs talk therapy, the biggest difference lies in communication. While adults use words, children use play as their language and toys as their words. In structured sessions led by trained therapists, play becomes a powerful vehicle for emotional healing and behavioral change. Research from institutions such as Harvard and Duke highlights that play therapy helps children build emotional regulation, resilience, and self-awareness—especially when trauma or stress makes verbal expression difficult.

Play therapy often involves allowing children to play and express feelings. These are miniatures sometimes used in play therapy.How Does Play Therapy Work?

A common question parents ask is How does play therapy work?” In practice, it creates a safe, structured environment filled with toys, art materials, and sand trays where a child can freely express themselves. The therapist observes, reflects, and occasionally guides, allowing the child to symbolically communicate what they cannot yet say aloud.

In comparing play therapy vs talk therapy, the latter depends on cognitive and verbal skills that young children may not have. Play therapy, by contrast, bypasses these limitations. Through symbolic storytelling, role-play, and creative play, therapists uncover underlying emotions or experiences such as fear, sadness, or trauma. A Stanford University overview on child therapy emphasizes that play offers insight into a child’s world and gives clinicians access to deeper, unconscious material that traditional talk therapy may miss.

The Five Stages of Play Therapy

As a way to understand the process, therapists traditionally conceptualize the process as unfolding in 5 main stages over time:

  1. Engagement and Trust-Building – The therapist builds safety and rapport
  2. Testing Boundaries – The child experiments with limits, ensuring the environment is secure
  3. Working Through Themes – Emotional or trauma-related material surfaces symbolically
  4. Growth and Change – New coping and relational skills appear in the play
  5. Closure and Reflection – The child gains mastery, and therapy prepares for completion

Across these stages, parents will start to understand what to expect in play therapy: patience, trust, and gradual emotional expression rather than quick verbal breakthroughs.

When Should a Child See a Play Therapist?

Children ages three to twelve benefit most from play therapy, particularly when they show emotional withdrawal, aggression, regression, or unresolved trauma. Pediatricians often recommend it when a child struggles to verbalize feelings or when behavioral changes persist without medical explanation. Understanding what is play therapy and how does play therapy work helps clinicians make timely referrals. For many children—especially those with PTSD, PNES, or anxiety—nonverbal methods such as sand tray therapy open therapeutic doors that traditional approaches cannot.

Play Therapy vs Talk Therapy

The comparison of play therapy vs talk therapy underscores that these are not competing models but complementary ones. Play therapy engages the child’s imagination and body—crucial elements of early development—while talk therapy depends on advanced language and logic. In essence, play therapy is talk therapy translated into a child’s developmental language. Harvard’s research on child-centered interventions supports this approach, finding that children in play-based therapy show improvements in mood, attachment, and self-regulation comparable to or exceeding those in verbal interventions.

What is an Example of Play Therapy?

To visualize how play therapy works, imagine a seven-year-old child who has experienced medical trauma. In the playroom, they might use toy figures to recreate a “storm” scene that destroys a house, then slowly rebuild it with “helpers” and “protectors.” Over time, the child’s scenes evolve toward safety and mastery. This example shows what to expect in play therapy: symbolism, repetition, and gradual transformation through metaphor. This link is one of the best videos showing examples of Play Therapy - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ba_cFEaNvw.

Understanding Sand Tray Therapy

A specific branch of play therapy, sand tray therapy, involves miniature figures and a tray of sand. Children use these materials to create worlds that represent inner thoughts or feelings. The tactile and sensory qualities of sand provide grounding and calm. In studies from Duke and Stanford, sand tray therapy was shown to reduce anxiety, foster emotional regulation, and promote storytelling through nonverbal means. It exemplifies the essence of play therapy vs talk therapy—a nonverbal pathway toward deep healing.

play therapy is a gradual process that allows children to express their feeling through play rather than words

How Sand Tray Therapy Facilitates Healing

Sand tray therapy gives children a safe, physical space to express their internal world. For trauma survivors, it externalizes overwhelming emotions, allowing them to reimagine and reconstruct their experiences. Meta-analyses reveal that sand play therapy significantly reduces both internalizing (anxiety, depression) and externalizing (acting out) symptoms. In these sessions, parents observing the process often discover firsthand what to expect in play therapy: emotional release, symbolic play, and steady behavioral improvements.

Disadvantages and Limitations

Despite its strengths, play therapy has limitations. It requires a trained play therapist, time commitment, and patience. Some children may resist symbolic play or progress more slowly than in structured behavioral programs. For these cases, pediatricians should integrate other supports, understanding how play therapy works best within a multidisciplinary care plan. Knowing what is play therapy helps families maintain realistic expectations and measure success through emotional, not just verbal, milestones.

What Should Parents and Pediatricians Expect?

Parents frequently wonder what to expect in play therapy. Initially, children may test limits, act silly, or refuse to play—this is part of trust-building. Over time, emotional themes emerge in symbolic form. Therapists may include parents in feedback sessions but rarely during the child’s play itself. Pediatricians should recognize that play therapy vs talk therapyreflects developmental appropriateness rather than effectiveness; for many children, play therapy is the optimal route to healing, not an alternative of lesser value.

Final Thoughts with Dr. Pam Wright

Play Therapy can be an incredibly power tool if used correctly by the therapist. Our counselors and psychologists have extensive experience in play and sand therapy. This is a research-backed, developmentally appropriate method that lets children express themselves through play rather than words, and this can be vitally important to the process of getting children to interact and communicate. It's a gradual process with no promises of consistent gains and improvement. Play therapy only works by providing structure, safety, and symbolism, enabling therapists to reach the root causes of emotional or behavioral distress.