Doing play therapy from building the relationship to facilitating change 1st edition terry kottman -
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ACA Partners in Play an Adlerian Approach to Play Therapy 3rd Ed 3rd Edition Terry Kottman
This series highlights action-oriented therapeutic approaches that utilize art, play, music, dance/movement, drama, and related modalities. Emphasizing current best practices and research, experienced practitioners show how creative arts and play therapies can be integrated into overall treatment for individuals of all ages. Books in the series provide richly illustrated guidelines and techniques for addressing trauma, attachment problems, and other psychological difficulties, as well as for supporting resilience and self-regulation.
Creative Arts and Play Therapy for Attachment Problems
Cathy A. Malchiodi and David A. Crenshaw, Editors
Play Therapy: A Comprehensive Guide to Theory and Practice
David A. Crenshaw and Anne L. Stewart, Editors
Creative Interventions with Traumatized Children, Second Edition
Cathy A. Malchiodi, Editor
Music Therapy Handbook
Barbara L. Wheeler, Editor
Play Therapy Interventions to Enhance Resilience
David A. Crenshaw, Robert Brooks, and Sam Goldstein, Editors
What to Do When Children Clam Up in Psychotherapy: Interventions to Facilitate Communication
Cathy A. Malchiodi and David A. Crenshaw, Editors
Doing Play Therapy: From Building the Relationship to Facilitating Change
Terry Kottman and Kristin K. Meany-Walen
DOING PLAY THERAPY
From Building the Relationship to Facilitating Change
Terry Kottman
Kristin K. Meany‑Walen
Series Editors’ Note by Cathy A. Malchiodi and David A. Crenshaw
370 Seventh Avenue, Suite 1200, New York, NY 10001 www.guilford.com
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Last digit is print number: 9 8 7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the publisher.
ISBN 978-1-4625-3605-4 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-4625-3611-5 (hardcover)
As usual, I dedicate this book to Jacob (who is the world’s best kid, even though he technically isn’t a kid anymore) and to Rick (who is supportive, patient, and loving, and reads everything I write before I send it to the publisher— which might make him a bit crazy, in addition to being my definition of the world’s best husband).
—T erry
I dedicate this book to my husband, Terry, and my children, Skyler, Parker, Zoey-Anne, Bennett, Lake, and Ryder! You make my life meaningful, fun, and a wonderful sort of crazy.
—K risT in
About the Authors
Terry Kottman, PhD, NCC, RPT-S, LMHC, founded The Encouragement Zone, in Cedar Falls, Iowa, where she provides play therapy training and supervision, life coaching, counseling, and “playshops” for women. Dr. Kottman developed Adlerian play therapy, an approach to working with children, families, and adults that combines the ideas and techniques of Individual Psychology and play therapy. She writes about play therapy and regularly presents workshops nationally and internationally. Dr. Kottman is a recipient of Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Association for Play Therapy and the Iowa Association for Play Therapy.
Kristin K. Meany-Walen, PhD, LMHC, RPT-S, is Assistant Professor of Counseling at the University of North Texas. She was previously in private practice, where she worked with a variety of clients who reinforced her belief in the significance of play and creative expression. Dr. MeanyWalen regularly publishes and presents on play therapy with children and adolescents. She conducted the first Adlerian play therapy study, which was instrumental in Adlerian play therapy becoming recognized as an evidence-based treatment for reducing behavioral problems in children.
Series Editors’ Note
The central role of play is now recognized by mental health professionals as an important developmental experience. Through play, not only are children encouraged to create and imagine, they also have opportunities to master stressful or overwhelming situations and practice healthy interactions with others. For people who have experienced trauma, crises, or loss, play is a way to rehearse new behaviors and use symbol and metaphor to communicate perceptions about events, feelings, and relationships.
Play therapy is the systematic and formalized application of play to help prevent or resolve psychosocial challenges and achieve optimal growth and development. It is predicated on many different theoretical models and approaches, but in all cases its goal is to support therapeutic communication through the use of toys, games, props, and other media. Above all, play therapists provide clients with a safe and attuned relationship through which they can master troubling emotions, practice new skills and responses, and experience positive attachment.
Up until now, there has been no book that clearly defines just how to go about applying play therapy and, more importantly, how to cultivate an effective and successful relationship through play therapy principles. Fortunately, Doing Play Therapy: From Building the Relationship to Facilitating Change fills this gap in current play therapy literature—a practical and timely text that articulately explains methods and best practices. While many play therapy books focus on a single theory or application, this volume not only masterfully integrates multiple approaches, but also addresses key questions that most practitioners have about successfully using play therapy methodology to accomplish two critical tasks: how to
establish and support a therapeutic relationship through play and ways to strategically apply play therapy principles to effect positive change.
The appeal of this volume begins with the authors. Terry Kottman is a recipient of the most coveted recognition given by the Association for Play Therapy: a Lifetime Achievement Award. Dr. Kottman is an acclaimed presenter at play therapy conferences statewide, nationally, and internationally. Terry founded The Encouragement Zone in Cedar Falls, Iowa, where she has treated countless children and families and trained numerous play therapists. As a teacher and presenter, she is known for her unfailing sense of humor. If you go to a play therapy conference and you hear gales of laughter coming from one of the rooms, Terry is the likely presenter. Both authors’ humor is laced throughout this volume, making it even more enjoyable to read.
Kristin K. Meany-Walen is a highly respected scholar and researcher, currently teaching at the largest play therapy training program in the world, at the University of North Texas. She is a prolific writer and scholar and provided the scientific data that led the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in 2017 to recognize Adlerian play therapy as an evidence-based modality. As if this were not enough to keep Kristin busy, she also manages to be the mother of six children.
Our book series, Creative Arts and Play Therapy, highlights actionoriented therapeutic approaches that utilize art, play, music, dance/movement, drama, and related modalities. Emphasizing current best practices and research, experienced practitioners show how creative arts and play therapies can be integrated into overall treatment for individuals of all ages. As coeditors of the series, we feel fortunate to include this seminal book on play therapy by Drs. Kottman and Meany-Walen. This highly readable volume will greatly enhance the therapeutic skills of graduate students and will serve as a foundational text for play therapy, counseling, and psychotherapy courses. Although crafted as a comprehensive text, seasoned practitioners will find a wealth of clinical knowledge throughout, including play therapy strategies that can be immediately applied to address a variety of situations and challenges.
C aT hy a . M alChiodi, PhD david a . Crenshaw, PhD
Preface
Between the two of us, we have taught introductory play therapy classes an innumerable number of times. (Okay, it’s not really innumerable, but it’s a lot.) And both of us have longed (yes, longed —not just wanted or wished to have—but longed ) for a different kind of introductory play therapy book designed for folks who wanted either to learn play therapy or to deepen their play therapy expertise. We longed for a book that helped readers to examine their own beliefs about people and how they change—as a vehicle for helping them choose a theoretical orientation that would serve as a foundation for their play therapy practice. We longed for a book that featured practical information about the various skills, strategies, and techniques that make up play therapy. We longed for a book that addressed using play therapy with children, adolescents, adults, families, parents, and teachers. We longed for a book that described tools for building a relationship with clients; exploring their issues and underlying dynamics; helping them gain insight into their issues and underlying dynamics; and working with them to make changes in cognitive, emotional, behavioral, interpersonal, attitudinal, and bodily patterns. We longed for a book that inspired play therapists to be intentional and systematic in their work with clients. We longed for a book that gave readers permission to give themselves permission to adapt techniques for specific clients and to “make stuff up” for the playroom. We knew that was a lot, and we believe all of those elements are essential for exemplary practice of play therapy. We never found such a book, so we decided to write it. This is the book you have in your hands (or on your tablet if you are e-reading).
We framed this book around the story of Zan, a student (or maybe an experienced mental health or school professional) you’ll meet in the
prelude who wanted to learn play therapy. She (or maybe he—we want to acknowledge that not all play therapists are female, and alternating pronouns is confusing, so we are just using the feminine pronoun for simplicity) represents our students and the readers of this book. She is meant to embody our desired audience—learners who, like Zan, love to tell stories, have adventures, dance, hear stories, make up songs, build worlds in the sand, do art, and generally love to play—folks who want to learn to use all those loves to help clients through the process of play therapy.
In working to help you learn how to do play therapy (or how to deepen your practice of play therapy), we first wanted to explicate the basics of play therapy (the what, who, where, and how)—that’s in Chapter 1. We also wanted to cover counseling theories applied to play therapy— we think having a theoretical orientation or a systematic way of conceptualizing clients and developing treatment plans is important to becoming an effective play therapist. In order to help you explore this approach, we have included a chapter on theory applied to play therapy and on how to decide on a theory that will work for you (Chapter 2). Chapter 3 contains an overview of the broad strategies that play therapists can use throughout the play therapy process—we have techniques from each of those broad strategies in the five chapters that are about some things you can do in the playroom (Chapters 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8). In Chapter 4, we describe the basic play therapy skills and techniques for building the relationship in play therapy, which is foundational for everything else you do, regardless of your approach to play therapy. Chapter 5 is about exploring clients’ interpersonal and intrapersonal issues—deciding whether and how to go about investigating “what’s up” with your clients. For those play therapists who believe it is important for clients to gain insight into their patterns of thinking, behaving, and feeling, Chapter 6 is designed to give you ideas for helping clients begin to understand themselves (and maybe even others) better. Chapter 7 is about helping clients make changes; it is filled with skills and techniques designed to give you a plethora of directive (and some not-so-directive) methods for assisting clients to move forward with shifts in behavior, thinking, feeling, attitudes, and so forth. There is also a chapter (Chapter 8) with practical suggestions and activities for including parents and families (and teachers, when appropriate) in the play therapy process. Chapter 9 covers what to do when challenging situations come up in the playroom. Interspersed between the chapters, we have also included small bites of knowledge (or maybe even wisdom—we aren’t sure which) on a number of topics designed to inspire you to be present, intentional, creative, and innovative; we called these small bites “Interludes.”
As far as the techniques/activities go, certain things were important to both of us: (1) providing activities that could be used across several theoretical approaches to play therapy; (2) keeping the “mechanical
communication” (S. Riviere, personal communication, September, 2015) aspect of each technique as the primary focus of the intervention— paying attention to what the client is doing ; (3) encouraging readers to be intentional in their play therapy process—to think about what they want to accomplish with each activity they use with their clients; (4) supporting play therapists in balancing goal-directedness and flexibility both within and across sessions; (5) providing enough concrete detail in our descriptions that you can actually use these interventions in your practice; (6) creating an atmosphere of permission so you feel comfortable adapting the activities to your population and your practice; (7) challenging you to keep in mind the interests, talents, preferences, passions, likes, and dislikes of your clients as you choose activities tailored to appeal to and work with individual clients; (8) encouraging/inspiring you to invent your own activities; and (9) modeling how, with some clients and some interventions, asking questions can facilitate optimal growth, and with other clients and other interventions, not asking questions can facilitate optimal growth.
There are many, many skills and techniques/activities scattered throughout the book. We want to remind you (probably over and over and over again) not to consider the skills and techniques as recipes. There is no “right way” to do an activity. How each technique should be delivered “depends.” It depends on you (and your ideas about how people grow and change) and on the client (and what is going on with him or her right then in the session and in general). Even though we have provided you with skills and intervention techniques, it is up to you to custom-design the application for the specific clients with whom you are working. We believe a big part of the play therapist’s job is to tailor interventions to meet the needs and interests of individual clients. It is our conviction that paying attention to what is important to specific clients, paying attention to their preferred ways of expressing themselves, and paying attention to the best way to engage them in directive activities are all key elements to being successful and congruent in play therapy.
Acknowledgments
Our thanks to Rebecca Dickinson, Jill Thomas, Melissa Wehr, and John Young for answering our call to friends and students to contribute techniques to the book. A note of gratitude to all of our clients, our play therapy teachers, our colleagues, and our students for helping us figure out how to do play therapy so we could teach it to you. We also want to thank the baristas at Cup of Joe and Cottonwood Canyon in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and Island Joe in North Padre Island, Texas, for creating safe spaces for us to write.
Prelude Once Upon a Time
Once upon a time . well, maybe it might have been kind of recently, actually . . . in a kingdom kind of like ours (though not exactly like ours), there was a child named Zan. Zan was a delightful child— filled with joy and love and laughter. (And sometimes tears and anger and frustration and disappointment and hurt . Zan was like a lot of other kids— filled with lots of different feelings.) Zan liked to tell stories and have adventures and dance and hear stories and make up songs and build worlds in the sand and do art—Zan loved to play!
Now, as Zan grew up, some hard and scary things happened to Zan. Maybe Zan’s parents got a divorce, and Zan thought she had to decide which one she loved most . . . Or maybe Zan’s mom (or dad) got drunk and hit her . Or maybe the other kids in Zan’s school made fun of her for being different than they were . . . Or maybe Zan’s parents told her they didn’t love her and didn’t want her . Or maybe school was hard for Zan, and she felt like she was stupid and couldn’t learn like the other kids . Or maybe sometimes Zan was so scared and sad, even though she didn’t know why, she didn’t want to get out of bed . Or maybe . Or maybe . Or maybe . (You get the idea . . . some hard and scary things happened to Zan—you know, like in real life hard and scary things happen to kids (and sometimes even teenagers and grownups.)
Nobody really seemed to notice that Zan had stopped telling stories and having adventures and dancing and hearing stories and making up songs and building worlds in the sand and doing art and playing. Zan felt that nobody really cared that she was struggling with the things that happened to her, and she often felt sad and lonely. She wished she had someone in her life who would help her understand what was going on with her and maybe even help her feel a little better . . . about herself and about her life.
One day (finally), Zan’s school counselor did notice that she was struggling and arranged for her to work with a play therapist— someone who used play and stories and adventures and dance and music and art to create a safe space for Zan to tell her story. The play therapist had special training to be able to hear and see her (her whole self), to be her companion on her journey to reclaim the parts of herself she had lost, to create a safe space where she could tell stories and have adventures and hear stories and dance and make up songs and build worlds in the sand and do art to help her begin to heal herself. Play therapy helped Zan figure out some things about what had happened to her; it helped her to learn new ways to express her feelings and thoughts; it helped her to learn to understand herself and her feelings better. By giving her permission to use play to express herself, play therapy reminded her how much she loved playing.
Zan got older (as people do), going through puberty and adolescence (never an easy journey for anyone). As a teenager, she struggled . feeling lonely and isolated . feeling like no one else had ever experienced the hard times, the difficult situations she had suffered. Recognizing that she needed help getting through the tough times, she went back to play therapy. The play therapist used all of the amazing play therapy tools to create a safe space for Zan to tell her story—it might have been a retelling of the story she had to tell when she was younger, and it might have been a new story she had to tell. Again, play therapy helped Zan figure out some things about what had happened to her, helped her to learn new ways to express her feelings and thoughts, helped her to learn to understand herself and her feelings better. By giving her permission to use play to express herself, play therapy reminded her how much she loved playing.
As Zan got older, moving into adulthood, she recognized that she wanted to find a way to help other kids (and maybe even teenagers and grownups) who were struggling like she had struggled. She wanted to help children (and teens and grownups) who felt sad and lonely and needed someone to help them understand what was going on with them and maybe even help them feel a little better about themselves and their lives. She remembered how much she liked going to play therapy and telling stories, having adventures, dancing, hearing stories, making up songs, building worlds in the sand, and doing art—how much she loved to play with the play therapist when she was younger. She also realized she still loved doing all those things and thought, “Maybe I can learn to use all of those things I love to help other people.”
Zan became very curious about how people get the way they are . . . why they think the things they think . . . why they feel the things they feel . why they do the things they do. . The more curious Zan got about what caused people to struggle, what helped them learn to express their thoughts and feelings, how to create safe spaces for them to tell their stories, the more Zan explored and studied. As Zan matured, going to college, going out into the world after she graduated, she set out to find a way she could use all her loves (for hearing stories, having adventures, dancing, telling stories, making up songs, building worlds in the sand, doing art, and playing) to connect with kids (and maybe even teenagers and grownups) and maybe even help them understand what is going on with them and maybe even help them feel a little better about themselves and their lives. And she decided the best pathway to help others, doing the things she loved, was to study play therapy. . She set out to learn about play therapy. She knew if he could learn to be a companion/ mentor/witness/healer/teacher/play therapist, she could help other kids (and teens and grownups) to rediscover their joy and delight again. (Not that anyone could make what happened to them and their lives go away, but having a companion/mentor/witness/healer/ teacher/play therapist could start them on the journey back to gladness and playfulness.)
So . she started her search for knowledge and wisdom, looking for a teacher (or two)—someone who could answer some of her questions about play therapy. (And she had a lot of questions.)
Luckily, she found us . and we happen to be teachers . who happen to know something about play therapy . . . and love using play therapy as the foundation of our relationships with kids (and teens and grownups) on their journey. The following few hundred pages are our attempts to answer Zan’s questions as she studies how to use play therapy as a tool for connecting, facilitating understanding, and supporting growth. We hope you love taking this adventure with her as much as we have loved writing this book to teach her (and you, of course) many of the things you need to know about how to use play therapy as a healing modality.
CHAPTER 1
An Introduction to Play Therapy
If you are someone who loves to hear stories and have adventures and dance and tell stories and make up songs and mess around in the sand and do art, and if you might be interested in exploring ways to use play to work therapeutically with children, welcome to the world of play therapy! This is the introductory chapter, wherein we lay out the basics of play therapy. In this chapter, we have outlined multiple definitions of play therapy, danced through a brief explanation of the various approaches to play therapy, described possible clients who would be appropriate for play therapy, delineated the personal and professional qualifications of people who want to be play therapists, described various settings for play therapy, explained some ideas about how play therapy works, and defined some of the logistics involved in play therapy.
WHAT, EXACTLY, IS PLAY THERAPY?
As the title suggests, this is a book designed to teach you how to do play therapy. Before we get into the nitty- gritty details, though, we thought it would be good to explain what play therapy is. Keep in mind, though, that it is a little tricky to answer the question posited in the heading of this section of the chapter (“What, exactly, is play therapy?”) because there are a lot of different ways to define play therapy.
The Merriam Webster Dictionary (n.d.) defines play therapy as “psychotherapy in which a child is encouraged to reveal feelings and conflicts in play rather than by verbalization.” According to the British Association for Play Therapy (2014a), “Play Therapy is the dynamic process between child and Play Therapist in which the child explores at his or her own pace and with his or her own agenda those issues, past and current, conscious and unconscious, that are affecting the child’s life in the present. The child’s inner resources are enabled by the therapeutic alliance to bring about growth and change. Play Therapy is child- centered, in which play is the primary medium and speech is the secondary medium” (para. 13). Wilson and Ryan’s (2005) definition focused on children and adolescents: “Play therapy can be defined as a means of creating intense relationship experiences between therapists and children or young people, in which play is the principal medium of communication” (p. 3). Landreth (2012), in Play Therapy: The Art of the Relationship, suggested that play therapy can be useful for people of any age when he defined play therapy as “a dynamic interpersonal relationship between a child (or a person of any age) and a therapist trained in play therapy procedures who provides selected play materials and facilitates the development of a safe relationship for the child (or person of any age) to fully express and explore self (feelings, thoughts, experiences and behaviors) through play, the child’s natural medium of communications, for optimal growth and development” (p. 11). According to the Association for Play Therapy (2017), play therapy is “the systematic use of a theoretical model to establish an interpersonal process wherein trained play therapists use the therapeutic powers of play to help clients prevent or resolve psychosocial difficulties and achieve optimal growth and development” (para. 1). (Sounds like a definition made by a committee, doesn’t it ?) If we synthesize and summarize all of these definitions, play therapy can be best described as a modality of therapy in which trained professionals use a theoretically based, consistent way of understanding and communicating with their clients through doing rather than just talking.
In our very broad definition of play therapy, we would describe play therapy as a therapeutic modality that uses a wide variety of methodologies to communicate with clients, including adventure therapy, storytelling and therapeutic metaphors, movement/dance/music experiences, sand tray activities, art techniques, and structured play experiences in addition to free, unstructured play. To us, interactions in play therapy should always allow for and even encourage self- expression, creative representation, and imagination. Simply put, play therapy is a relationship in which a trained therapist creates a safe space for clients to explore and express themselves through telling stories, having adventures, dancing, hearing stories, making up songs, messing around in the sand, doing art, and playing.
APPROACHES TO PLAY THERAPY
There are many different approaches to play therapy. Some of these approaches are based on major models of counseling and psychotherapy (e.g., Adlerian, person- centered, object relations, existential, cognitivebehavioral, Gestalt, Jungian, narrative, psychodynamic, prescriptive/ integrative). Other approaches were developed specifically for play therapy (i.e., dynamic play therapy, experiential play therapy, synergetic play therapy, schema-based play therapy, Autplay, Somaplay, release play therapy, ecosystemic play therapy, and Theraplay). Recently, there has been a major upsurge in the development of additional approaches to play therapy. Each of these approaches has underlying philosophical assumptions about people, how they develop their personalities, how dysfunction develops, how people grow and change, how clinical interventions can be helpful. Adequately describing all of these approaches to play therapy is beyond the scope of this book (and beyond the capacity of our brains), so we have chosen certain widely used approaches to explicate. (See Chapter 2.) We did want you to know that there are many, many different ways to approach play therapy—if you are interested, please explore . . .
WHO ARE PLAY THERAPY CLIENTS?
We believe play therapy is for everyone . . . for people of all ages and in any configuration that works best for clients and their families: individual, family, and group. It’s for children, teens, and adults who’ve experienced loss, divorce, sadness, anxiety, guilt, anger, fear, or hurt. It’s for people who are uncertain. It’s for people who have been abused or neglected. It’s for individuals, groups, or families. Play therapy is for people who are having a hard time at school or work, struggling with their families, or spending a lot of time in hospitals. It’s for scared people, brave people, lonely people, loved people, artsy people, shy people, and anyone else who has goals of living a more fully alive and functioning existence. While play therapy is often done with children under the age of about 12, there is a growing body of literature that supports the use of play therapy and play strategies with clients who are older (sometimes significantly older) than 12 (e.g., Ashby, Kottman, & DeGraaf, 2008; Frey, 2015; Gallo-Lopez & Schaefer, 2005; Gardner, 2015; Green, Drewes, & Kominski, 2013; Ojiambo & Bratton, 2014; Schaefer, 2003). Because we believe play therapy is appropriate for all ages, we made the conscious decision to broaden the scope of this book to include skills, strategies, and techniques you can use with children, adolescents, adults, and families.
WHO DOES PLAY THERAPY?
There are some specific personal qualities that are important in being a play therapist, and there are professional training and experiences that are essential in preparing people to become play therapists. The British Association for Play Therapy (2014b) has provided a list of personal characteristics desirable for play therapists. They believe play therapists must be empathic, sincere, honest, respectful, ethical, knowledgeable, self-aware, self-responsible, congruent (authentic and genuine), compassionate, critically reflective, and committed to personal and professional development. According to Kottman (2011), effective play therapists should like children and treat them with respect and kindness, have a sense of humor and be willing to laugh at themselves and with others, be fun- loving and playful, be sufficiently self- confident not to depend on positive regard from other people to bolster their self-worth, be open and honest, be flexible and able to deal with ambiguity and uncertainty, be accepting of others’ perceptions without feeling vulnerable or judgmental, and be willing to think of play and metaphor as vehicles for communication with others. They should also be relaxed and comfortable being with children and have experience building relationships with them, be capable of firmly and kindly setting limits and maintaining personal boundaries, be self-aware and able to take interpersonal risks, and be open to considering their own personal issues and the impact of those issues on what transpires in play therapy sessions and relationships with clients and their families (Kottman, 2011).
In general, we think it’s important for those who practice play therapy or want to become play therapists to be creative, cognitively flexible (physically flexible is nice and not a requirement, especially since only one of us is physically flexible—that would be Kristin, not Terry), fun, passionate, caring, trustworthy, and responsible. This isn’t a whole lot different from counselors or therapists who do other types of therapy. We think an important consideration for professionals who do play therapy is a willingness to enter into the creative world of the client and to think symbolically. These qualities are important because your primary “tool” in play therapy is you—the person who loves to play—the person who loves to listen to stories and have adventures and dance and tell stories and make up songs and mess around in the sand and do art.
If you have already been trained as a traditional counselor, social worker, psychologist, or other mental health professional and you want to be a play therapist, it is also essential that you are open to thinking about the play (or what the client does), rather than words (what the client says), as the healing channel—the path for communication and facilitation of movement and growth. You must be willing to jump the chasm of the paradigm shift from focusing on talk as the vehicle for building
relationships, exploring dynamics, helping folks gain insight, and facilitating them in making changes to the understanding that play can be an effective medium for those same therapeutic processes—in play therapy, the play is the therapy.
The Association for Play Therapy (APT) also has some important (okay, okay—necessary) standards as well. (The APT is the national professional society founded in 1982 to foster contact among mental health professionals interested in exploring and, when developmentally appropriate, applying the therapeutic power of play to communicate with and treat clients.) APT has defined a set of standards and requirements for a professional helper to become a registered play therapist (RPT). They have recently added the option for school counselors and school psychologists to become registered as well. (See Appendix C for the rules for becoming a registered play therapist, a school-based registered play therapist [SBRPT], and a registered play therapist- supervisor [RPT-S].)
APT provides detailed information about each of these points and the biannual continuing education requirements of RPTs. Because the credentialing process is subject to change, we don’t want to provide you with specific nitty- gritty details that might be outdated as you read this book. A major area to note is that the RPTs and SB-RPTs are licensed professionals before they are RPTs. That is, they must be licensed in their state before they can hold the RPT designation. We recommend that you clarify the expectations required of you to become an RPT and continuously review them as you start your journey so that you will not get blindsided with changes.
Recently, the Center for Play Therapy at the University of North Texas also established standards for becoming certified in child- centered play therapy (CCPT) and in child–parent relationship therapy (CPRT). The certification in CCPT involves two levels. Both levels have specific requirements that include licensure as a mental health professional, specific hours of education related to CCPT, an examination over CCPT, supervised experience conducting child- centered play therapy sessions, and self- evaluation papers. There are three levels to the certification for CPRT, and they have similar requirements. The details of these requirements can be found on the website for the Center (http://cpt.unt.edu). We are in the process of developing a certification program in Adlerian play therapy, and we suspect that other approaches to play therapy may have similar evolutions in their futures.
WHERE IS PLAY THERAPY DONE?
The short answer to this question is that you can do play therapy anywhere. While this is true, it helps to have a space that is private and (in a
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Title: The cardinal's musketeer
Author: Mary Imlay Taylor
Artist: Philippe de Champaigne
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THE CARDINAL’S MUSKETEER
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The Cardinal’s Musketeer
CHAPTER I
THE
CLOCKMAKER’S SHOP
ON the Rue de la Ferronnerie, near the end of the Rue St. Honoré, where Henri Quatre was stabbed, stood the clockmaker’s shop. In the days of the thirteenth Louis, the streets of Paris were narrow; the windows of one dwelling peeped curiously into those of its opposite neighbor, and especially was this true of the old Rue de la Ferronnerie and of the shop of Jacques des Horloges, the famous clockmaker, at the sign of Ste. Geneviève. It was shop and house united, the upper story overhanging the lower, and under the eaves of the gabled roof the swallows built their nests. It was a quaint little house, the weather stains upon its front and the narrow windows speaking plainly of its antiquity. The strong oak door, black with age, had iron clamps which formed crosses at the top and bottom, while in an alcove above was a rough stone image of Ste. Geneviève. Within, on the lower floor there were three rooms; the one in front was the shop, next to this was the living-room for the clockmaker’s family, and in the rear the kitchen. In the second story there were three small apartments, and above these again was the attic in the gabled roof. From the interior of the house this garret could be reached only by a ladder, put through a trap-door in the floor; but there was another entrance by a stone staircase which ascended to the roof on the outside of the house, from the court in the rear. From these steps two doors opened into the interior, one at the second story and one, a small one, in the roof; the first was frequently opened, the latter was always securely fastened. The family of the clockmaker was small; it consisted of only three persons and the great gray cat, called M. de Turenne. There were Jacques des Horloges, properly called Jacques Michel, a man of middle age and a master of his trade; his wife, an excellent woman; and one adopted child, the boy Péron. To this child, the long narrow
room which constituted the shop, was a chamber furnished with as many marvels as any grotto of fairy lore. Jacques Michel, who had supplied the clocks for the Louvre, who regulated the great clock on the tower of the old Palais de Cité, the first clock that ever told the hours in Paris, and who could make watches like the famous “Nuremberg eggs,” had a marvellous collection in his shop on the Rue de la Ferronnerie. There were many greater and wiser than little Péron who contemplated these elaborate pieces of mechanism with amazement. Horology had advanced by strides since the days when the caliph Aroun-al-Raschid presented the famous water-clock to Charlemagne; yet Jacques Michel did not scorn to imitate that curious machine, and one of his clocks, which especially delighted Péron, had, too, twelve horsemen, armed cap-a-pie, who appeared at twelve doors beneath the dial when the hour was struck. Here, too, in a dim corner stood a miniature of the great jacquemart of Dijon, which Philip the Bold of Burgundy carried away in carts from Courtray, the fruit of his victory at Rosbecque. In solemn rows upon either side of the shop, and in double tiers at the ends, stood tall clocks and short clocks, old-fashioned and new; here were clocks with the old steel spring enclosed in a little barrel, and others with the fusee with its catgut attachment; and here were some of the first with weights and flies. On the right was one with the signs of the zodiac on its face; to the left stood another on which perched a golden rooster, who crowed when the hour struck. There was one also, with silver doors below its solemn face, which opened to reveal the images of the Virgin and St. Elizabeth. There were watches, too, so diminutive that the child never ceased to marvel that they could tell the time; in a cabinet was a watch, shaped like a cross and set with jewels, said to be the one worn by M. de Guise when he was stabbed in the presence of Henri III. Here, too, was a watch set in a ring, which struck the hours; and here was the almond-shaped timepiece carried by two of the house of Valois and discarded, to come at last into the clockmaker’s hands; and here were marvellous little pieces of mechanism which set in motion figures of the Virgin, the apostles, and the saints. The clockmakers of Paris occupied a dignified position, protected by the statutes of Louis XI. and Francis I. They enjoyed rights and privileges of their own; nor could a man
become a master of the trade unless he had served eight years as an apprentice and produced a chef-d’œuvre under the eyes of an inspector of the corporation. Jacques des Horloges was a past master of the art, and he had accumulated a sufficient fortune to gratify his taste for these antique and wonderful machines. Many of the timepieces in his quaint shop were kept continually in motion, and the soft tick and the loud tick rapped out their noisy contention hour after hour; the cock crew, the jacquemart struck the silver bell, and the twelve horsemen rode out, to the entertainment and delight of the lonely child, who sat day after day gazing at these marvels, and telling himself stories of what the clocks said to one another. He and the great cat, M. de Turenne, seemed to find their chief amusement in this occupation. Péron told himself that the deeptoned jacquemart was a great warrior, and that the Image de Notre Dame had the voice of a saint; and away over in the corner his quick ear heard the little voice of M. de Guise crying out that he was slain. The child was full of fancies, and many a tale he wove from the talk of the clocks. It was his custom whenever he crossed the Pont Neuf to go and look at the Tour de l’Horloge of the Palais de Cité, for to him the face of that clock had many expressions: when it smiled, little Péron was happy; when it frowned, he was sure to have ill luck. It was only the overgrown imagination of a solitary child, for the boy was very solitary; his only companions were Jacques Michel and his wife, his only playmate M. de Turenne. At this time he was eight years old, a handsome, sturdy, little fellow with a rosy face and golden brown hair, a thoughtful expression in his large dark eyes, and the sober, old-fashioned manners of a child who lived chiefly with his seniors and whose play was of the most sober sort. Although Jacques des Horloges was the possessor of a comfortable fortune, little Péron was plainly dressed; his short jacket was usually a well-worn blue taffety, and his breeches were of coarse wool, except on Sundays and saint-days, when he had the honor of appearing in a complete suit of black taffety with a collar of heavy lace. There was a still greater distinction reserved for Easter and Christmas,—a hat with a long curled plume, and then Péron felt that even Monsieur was not more grandly arrayed. At such times the child felt a certain shyness even of M. de Turenne, and walked about
stiffly until the solemn occasion was past and he was at home again in the old blue jacket. Little Péron was scarcely known to the visitors to the shop, although Jacques Michel had many grand patrons, from the queen to the Prince de Condé. Great ladies came there in their coaches and descended the carriage steps, assisted by liveried footmen, entering the shop with the rustle of marvellous satin and brocade gowns, little velvet cloaks on their shoulders and great ruffs of lace standing up to their ears. They moved about admiring, wondering, criticising; one loved the clock that was inlaid with gold, another wanted only the Valois watch, which was not for sale. All the while they furnished rare entertainment to the wondering child, who crept back between the tiers of clocks and watched them secretly, because he liked to look at their pretty faces and beautiful clothing; but he detested the airs with which they noticed him if he came out from the hiding-place. They either had haughty glances for him or condescending pleasantry, and the child, who was shy and proud, fled from both. He only peeped out at the great dames surreptitiously, and wove fanciful romances about them as he did about the beloved clocks which were his playfellows. And he saw all the beauties of the Marais; the Princesse de Condé came there, and Leonora Galigai, the favorite of Marie de’ Medici, and Catherine de Vivonne, and Mademoiselle de Montmorency, and even the Princesse Marguerite of Lorraine. Little Péron knew them all by sight, and he told the cat, M. de Turenne, in confidence, his opinion of each; but there was one visitor, an infrequent one it is true, but still a visitor, who made the child shrink back yet farther with his cat in his arms. This was a man whose very presence seemed to change the atmosphere of the shop, and who was received with great courtesy by Jacques des Horloges; a priest, clad in the habit of a bishop, with a pale, keen, Italian face, his eyes having a brilliance and penetration which always startled the child. Péron was not the only one, however, who was fascinated by the presence of the future ruler of France, Armand Jean du Plessis, Bishop of Luçon. The boy shrank and yet was attracted, creeping after awhile into some position of vantage where he could watch the pale, haughty face, the handsome, slender hands, the wonderful, dark eyes; but the bishop never saw his small admirer. Indeed, Péron had a reason besides
his shyness for avoiding the customers; he felt instinctively that he was not wanted at such times. Jacques Michel seldom called upon the child for any service, and even dismissed him roughly in the presence of these visitors from the Marais. When more humble callers were there, he was unheeded, but the arrival of a nobleman was often the signal for his departure. Yet at other seasons the boy was not only kindly treated, but was privileged beyond other children of his years and condition. His hands were soft and white, for he had never been called upon for any menial service, and seldom even for errands; his bed was soft, and the clothing upon it was finer and more luxurious than that on the bed of Madame Michel herself. He had the little room next the workshop, because the rear apartment on the second floor, the one which opened on the stairs from the court, was full of apprentices. Péron’s room had a bit of tapestry on the wall, the picture of a stag hunt—the stag pulled down by a savage dog and the hunters in full career toward it; and there was a white curtain in his window, and over his bed was a silver crucifix. He had, too, a tiny square of Arras carpet on the floor, and a velvet cushion on which he kneeled to count his beads. He enjoyed the best at table, also: many a dainty found its way to his plate which was not shared either by the clockmaker or his wife; yet he was not indulged in all directions. He was kept indoors when he longed to run out in the sunshine and play with the children of the Rue de la Ferronnerie; he was forbidden playmates of his own age, and he seldom went anywhere except to the Rue de Bethisi to learn his lessons from Père Antoine, a truly sober diversion. At first he rebelled against these rules, but after awhile he accepted them, and turned for consolation to M. de Turenne and the jacquemarts. He peopled his world with fanciful personages, among whom there always moved a slender figure clad in a bishop’s robe. He was an observant child, and studied everything about him, watching the apprentices for hours and making endless little models of clocks out of paper or wax,—a dull life for a child certainly, yet not an unhappy one, for he was naturally dreamy and old for his age, and he had no troubles. No one crossed him, he had never received a blow in the whole course of his existence, and never a sharp word, except in the presence of Jacques Michel’s great visitors. As for Madame Michel,
he was—though he knew it not—the very apple of her eye, and it was one of her chief joys to train the soft, golden brown curls on the boy’s head. Many an hour did she spend washing and pinning out on a cushion the great lace collar he wore on fête days, and she sighed in secret over the linen one, and the worn blue taffety jacket of daily wear.
CHAPTER II
THE SECRET OF THE GARRET
THE little Péron enjoyed every privilege of the clockmaker’s house, but there was one spot in it which he had never entered. That was the garret under the gabled roof. It was not forbidden him, perhaps because the mere prohibition was unnecessary, when it was impossible to penetrate that mysterious corner. For mysterious it was, not only to Péron, but also to the apprentices; and there was no little gossip about the closely fastened door in the roof, and the child heard it when he wandered into the workshop to watch the men manufacturing the marvellous machinery for his well-beloved jacquemarts. No one went to that garret but Madame Michel, and she went only at stated intervals; entering sometimes by the outer staircase, but more frequently by the ladder which went up to the trap-door in the ceiling of her own room. When she was up there, the apprentices always knew it, as well as Péron, for they could hear her steps overhead on the loose boards of the attic floor What she did there was the subject of much idle, half-jesting conjecture. It could scarcely be a store-room, for she went up and came down emptyhanded; they knew this, for the more curious had surprised her in her entrances and exits more than once. It was suggested that she sought this retired spot for the purpose of devotion, but it was further observed that she was usually out of temper after these excursions, and always belabored with her tongue any one whom she caught spying upon her, which did not support the theory of prayer and meditation. The more simple explanation, that she went there to clean and dust the attic, did not suit them either, although natural enough; for the goodwife was scrupulously neat, and had more than once wrought mischief with her dust brush among the curiosities of the shop, until she had been driven out by Jacques des Horloges.
Many a jest was made about that garret, and when the apprentices found that little Péron shared their curiosity, they were only too ready to fill his mind with wonderful tales. The child began after awhile to feel a certain awe mingled with his interest in the secret chamber. The men amused themselves telling him of the hobgoblins who lived under the roof and blew the smoke down the chimneys into the house on days when they were angry. They dressed them up to please their own fancy and amaze the boy. Sometimes the goblins were little and grotesque and lived on eggs stolen from the swallows’ nests under the eaves; again they were large and fat, and sat squat on the ground like toads, and devoured only curious little boys who peeped into their dens in the attics. Again, they told him that the queen of the fairies lived there and ate nothing but cream of clouds à la Zamet. And so the garret became a wonderland to Péron, and he dreaded to see it as much as he longed to explore, with all a boy’s eager fancy for adventure. He was a sober-minded child, too, although so fanciful, and he did not altogether believe the tales that were told him. However, between belief and unbelief, his curiosity waxed strong, and he made many expeditions up the stone stairs from the court to try the handle of the door in the roof; but it was never unfastened, although he sat in the court below and watched it often. Nor was his success better with the trap-door; he could not reach this to try it, for the ladder was always locked up in a closet, except on the auspicious days when Madame Michel ascended. He asked once to accompany her, and was refused more sharply than he had ever been refused any favor before. He was not a child to fret or cry because of a denied pleasure; he neither repeated the request nor asked the cause of the refusal, but accepted the rissole that madame gave him, on her return, as an apology and peace offering. Indeed, all the rest of that day she was unusually indulgent and apologetic to him, and in the evening took him to the pastry shop of Archambault on the Rue des Petits Champs to purchase some of his favorite bonbons and a marvellous dove of sugar, with green eyes which sparkled like jewels. Yet, although she was unaware of it, she had not propitiated him, for the desire of his heart was now, boylike, to see the attic. He pattered along at her side without revealing his thoughts, however; and a strange couple they were on the streets.
