Mar 29, 2024  
2020-2021 Course Catalog 
    
2020-2021 Course Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

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MFTH 593 - Child Development and Play Therapy


3 Credits
This course is an overview of Play Therapy with children ages 2 through 12 years. We will examine a variety of children’s issues with an emphasis on understanding how to therapeutically use a combination of play therapy and psychotherapeutic techniques with children. This course will sensitize students to the power of play as a symbolic communication and its capacity for therapeutic growth, healing and transformation in children. The class will review the definition, history and basic assumptions of play therapy. Special attention will be given to process and skills along with the application of therapeutic strategies to high-incidence childhood emotional and behavioral disorders and problems. The course will include lecture, instructor-led discussion of assigned readings (books and journal articles) and case material, discussion and self/instructor critique of student role play, experiential activities and student presentations. Play therapy instruction will assist students to actively participate in a process by which they strive to:

  1. Demonstrate culturally and developmentally appropriate therapeutic skills to work with children and their families
  2. Become and remain aware of how their own cultural backgrounds, influences and biases (i.e., self-of-therapist) impact their work with children and families
  3. Acquire and continually seek knowledge about how cultural backgrounds, influences and biases operate in the lives of their clients.



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