Play therapy is the formal and informal recourse to pleasurable activities to promote social, mental, spiritual, and physical wellbeing. In formal health care settings, play therapy denotes the systematic use of a theoretical model to establish an interpersonal process in which trained therapists use the therapeutic powers of play to help clients prevent or resolve psychosocial difficulties and achieve optimal growth and development (Association for Play Therapy 1997, p. 4). While play therapy applies as an effective approach to psychotherapy and physical wellbeing across age and gender categories, it is formally applied particularly in interventions for helping children to discover their own problems and participate in resolving them. The therapeutic dimension of play is embedded in the potential for self-gratification and leisure activities to contribute to health sustenance and restoration. Play as activities facilitate recreation, individual and mutual amusement and contribute to...
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Mulemi, B.A. (2016). Play Therapy. In: Leeming, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27771-9_9209-1
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