Helping Children Through Divorce

    There are numerous books on play therapy for children. Therapists on television suggest it to help youngsters get through a life trauma. But play therapy seems like a foreign idea to people going through divorce. What exactly is play therapy about?

Play therapy is a means to learn what is going on with children, explains Deborah Hohimer, who runs Tender Hearts Child Therapy Center, a group of offices devoted strictly to play therapy in Jackson, Ironton and Marble Hill, Mo. "Play therapy is the best therapy for children, because children do not communicate as well as adults by talking. They use play to express themselves," she says. "This is a non-threatening approach. They are not asked their feelings or opinions, but are expected to play," says Hohimer.

When children are playing, a therapist can frequently determine what is going on through what the child does. "A lot of the things that they say comes from the play itself, in terms of projecting feelings and thoughts," says Jack Dymond, a therapist in Las Vegas, Nev.

First, what does a play therapy facility look like? "A play therapy room is a room filled with toys. These toys include toys that will help address issues of children, such as abuse, neglect, divorce, school failure, depression, anxiety, hyperactivity, social skills, grieving or other needs," Hohimer says.

Next, what does the therapist do to help children during each session? Peggy Utecht, a social worker in Houston, Tex., likes to let children speak to her as they play, instead of asking them direct questions. "Most of the time, you follow the children. I don't bring up the topic. When they're kids, they will take you where you need to go," she says.

The process used during play therapy is to treat the topic and find an answer to it as the child is playing. "A child leads the therapy sessions, at their pace. When they are ready to address an issue, it will become a part of their play. They resolve the issue in their play, with the guidance of a trained play therapist, and the issue disappears from their play," says Hohimer.

Jack Dymond says that one of the most powerful means of a child showing inner emotion is through pictures and artwork. "Sometimes, what is a good idea is to have them draw a house, a tree and a person, drawing with a pencil, and getting an idea of how they see themselves, view their home and surroundings and whether they're well grounded or not, if they have windows in the house to let light in. Those kinds of things are helpful in learning where they come from, in terms of their family."
 
"Another thing I ask is to draw their family and position in the family," he says.

Subtle things in the drawings show more than hidden meaning. The way a child draws explains what he or she is going through, things a parent may not immediately recognize. "Are they [the people in the drawings] really tiny, or normal size? Are they huge, and bigger than they are? Are they leaving out one member of the family? Maybe that kind of indicates that they don't like that member of the family," Dymond says.

"I have a little girl right now who left the grandfather out of the picture entirely. She's have trouble communicating with the grandfather. He's kind of restrictive and punitive. She left him out, because she doesn't regard him as part of her family."

Dymond says that sometimes, drawing a picture gives clues to a much darker problem. "It's kind of a projective approach, such as children who are victims of incest or abuse will often draw pictures of big hands that have touched them, but they don't draw themselves as much as the hand in kind of a nightmarish landscape."

Sometimes, parents are involved in the therapy session as well. "Most often, what we do is attachment work, and a parent is in the session," she says. "I structure it more with games.  You get to see where you need to go, in terms of connecting with the parent, where their weaknesses are."