Non-directive play therapy, as we have said before, may be described as an opportunity that is offered to the child to experience growth under the most favorable conditions. Since play is his natural medium for self-expression, the child is given the opportunity to play out his accumulated feelings of tension, frustration, insecurity, aggression, fear, bewilderment, confusion.
By playing out these feelings he brings them to the surface, gets them out in the open, faces them, learns to control them, or abandon them. When he has achieved emotional relaxation, he begins to realize the power within himself to be an individual in his own right, to think for himself, to make his own decisions, to become psychologically more mature, and, by so doing, to realize selfhood.
The play-therapy room is good growing ground. In the security of this room where the child is the most important person, where he is in command of the situation and of himself, where no one tells him what to do, no one criticizes what he does, no one nags, or suggests, or goads him on, or pries into his private world, he suddenly feels that here he can unfold his wings; he can look squarely at himself, for he is accepted completely; he can test out his ideas; he can express himself fully; for this is his world, and he no longer has to compete with such other forces as adult authority or rival contemporaries or situations where he is a human pawn in a game between bickering parents, or where he is the butt of someone else's frustrations and aggressions. He is an individual in his own right. He is treated with dignity and respect. He can say anything he feels like saying - and he is accepted completely. He can play with the toys in any way that he likes to - and he is accepted completely. He can hate and he can love and he can be as indifferent as the Great Stone Face - and he is still accepted completely. He can be as fast as a whirlwind or as slow as molasses in January - and he is neither restrained nor hurried.
It is a unique experience for a child suddenly to find adult suggestions, mandates, rebukes, restraints, criticisms, disapprovals, support, intrusions gone. They are all (16) replaced by complete acceptance and permissiveness to be himself.
No wonder the child, during his first play contact, often expresses bewilderment. What is this all about? He is suspicious. He is curious. All his life there has been someone to help him live his life. There may even have been someone who was determined to live his life for him. Suddenly this interference is gone and he is no longer living in the shadow of someone who looms larger than he on his horizon. He is out in the sun and the only shadows are the ones which he himself wishes to cast.
It is a challenge. And something deep within the child responds to this clearly felt challenge to be - to exercise this power of life within himself, to give it direction, to become more purposeful and decisive and individual.
He tries it out - gingerly at first- then, as he feels the permissiveness and security in the situation, he sets forth more boldly to explore the possibilities of this arrangement. He is no longer blocked by exterior forces and so the drive within him for growth has no barriers to go around. The psychological resistance that he has formerly met is gone.
The presence of an accepting, understanding, friendly therapist in the playroom gives him a sense of security. The limitations, few as they are, add to this feeling of security and reality. The participation of the therapist during the therapy contact also reinforces the child's feeling of security. The therapist is sensitive to what the child is feeling and expressing through his play and verbalization. She reflects these expressed, emotionalized attitudes back to him in such a way as to help him understand himself a little better. She respects the child and his ability to stand on his own two feet and to become a more mature and independent individual if he is given an opportunity to do so. In addition to helping the child gain a better understanding of himself by the reflection of his emotionalized attitudes, the therapist also conveys to him the feeling that she is understanding him and accepting him at all times regardless of what he says or does. Thus, the therapist gives him the courage to go deeper and deeper into his innermost world and bring out into the open his real self (17).
-Virginia M. Axline, from Play Therapy
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