Play is an important, and often enjoyable, aspect of childhood. Children can use play to express their thought, emotions, and fears. Play can provide an opportunity to use their imagination, fostering creative thought processes. While this type of play differs from that used in play therapy, it highlights the approach’s functionality when working with children.
Therapists can use guided play practices to help children work through psychological difficulties so that they can develop and learn as needed. With play therapists, clinicians meet children where they are in terms of their language use, development, and understanding of the world. You may use sessions to promote awareness of internal experiences in a safe manner.
Play therapy can be used with children of varying ages, experiencing a diverse range of psychological and behavioral difficulties. There are different types of play that can be incorporated into sessions, such as construction toys, toys that require hand movement, mimetic play, and play of pretense. Energetic play is common and can include physical activities such as sports. Play therapy can be more effective than traditional talk therapy because it can feel fun and safe for children.
Research has shown the efficacy of play therapy when working with children who experience high levels of stress, expressive challenges, and anxiety stemming from chronic illnesses. It can also be impactful for children who experience environmental stressors such as divorce, moving, or the death of a loved one.
For more valuable resources, view our Play Therapy Tools and Resources hub
9 Play Therapy Techniques
Play therapy is known for using creative techniques to help children express emotions, build coping skills, and process challenging experiences. These techniques can be directive or non-directive while being developmentally appropriate. Clinicians take active steps to use language the child understands to help them reach their goals.
1) Sand Tray Therapy
Sand tray therapy is an expressive technique where children can create symbolic representations of their internal experiences.
What It Is: Sand tray therapy uses sand and miniature figurines. Children can build specific scenes or worlds that depict their experiences, thoughts, and emotions.
How It Helps Clients: Sand tray therapy can help children externalize their experiences, making them less overwhelming to focus on. It can also help make feelings concrete and create emotional distance, which can be effective when addressing trauma or conflict they’ve experienced.
How To Do It: You begin by providing your client with the needed supplies, such as a sand tray and miniatures. Encourage them to create a scene while you observe themes that appear. This can be tailored to each child, including what miniatures are provided, how you guide the technique, and their presenting concern. Try to focus on observing them as they create their scene, without interpreting it before they’re finished.
2) Roleplaying
Roleplaying is a common play therapy technique, often using dolls or figurines.
What It Is: Roleplaying uses dolls, action figures, or playsets that allow children to create or reenact situations that they’ve experienced. This can focus on relationships in their life or specific experiences they’ve had.
How It Helps Clients: Clinicians can use role-playing to better understand interpersonal conflicts, emotional patterns, and family dynamics. This can also give children an opportunity to practice different responses and explore alternative outcomes based on their responses.
How To Do It: Begin by letting your client choose from a variety of dolls or figurines, and let them lead as they play. You can reflect on patterns you observe after giving them the time needed to express their experiences. When appropriate, you can gently introduce different perspectives or endings, helping them begin to see how changes could be made in the future. This could include incorporating emotion regulation or communication skills.
3) Art Expression
Art is a nonverbal medium that provides an outlet for emotional expression and processing.
What It Is: You can use drawing, painting, or other creative materials to help children express their ideas, feelings, and experiences.
How It Helps Clients: As a non-verbal activity, children can experience an emotional release while creating their art. You can use this technique to increase their self-awareness and help them process things that they were unable to talk about. This could include conflict, thoughts, and challenging emotions.
How To Do It: Provide your client with the appropriate materials and use open-ended prompts to encourage free creation. The focus of this technique is the process, not the creation. Encourage your client to describe their work and what it was like to create it.
4) Building
Building activities can help promote cognitive development and emotional expression.
What It Is: Building techniques can use blocks, Legos, or other materials to create a building or scene.
How It Helps Clients: These play therapy techniques can help children build problem-solving skills and frustration tolerance while learning to move through various stages of chaos and organization.
How To Do It: This can be a directive or non-directive activity, based on your client and their needs. You can offer simple prompts or allow them to build freely. Observe patterns in their play and join them as they build when appropriate.
5) Movement-Based Play
Movement-based play combines emotion-regulation support with physical activity.
What It Is: Movement techniques can include activities like pushing, stretching, jumping, or sensory-based actions.
How It Helps Clients: Movement-based play can help release stored energy, gain body awareness, and help regulate their nervous system. This can help children find healthy ways to calm their minds and bodies.
How To Do It: You can offer movement options or provide space for free movement, depending on your client and their needs. You can pair physical movements with emotional expression and help them learn to transition into calming activities afterward.
6) Therapeutic Limit Setting
Therapeutic limit setting is a foundational play therapy technique that provides structure while maintaining emotional safety.
What It Is: This technique involves setting clear, consistent limits in the playroom while allowing the child freedom of expression within those boundaries. Limits are typically focused on safety, respect, and responsibility.
How It Helps Clients: Limit setting helps children feel safe and contained, which supports emotional expression. It also teaches self-control, responsibility, and respect for boundaries.
How To Do It: Use a structured approach such as the ACT method (Acknowledge the feeling, Communicate the limit, Target an alternative). For example, acknowledge the child’s feeling, set a clear limit, and offer an acceptable alternative behavior. Maintain a calm and consistent tone when enforcing limits.
7) Tracking Behavior
Tracking behavior is a core non-directive play therapy technique used to demonstrate presence and understanding.
What It Is: Tracking involves verbally describing the child’s actions during play in a neutral, non-judgmental way. This is similar to a play-by-play narration of what the child is doing.
How It Helps Clients: Tracking helps children feel seen and understood, which can strengthen the therapeutic relationship. It also increases their self-awareness and sense of control.
How To Do It: Observe the child’s play and reflect their actions using simple, descriptive language (e.g., “You’re lining up all the cars in a row”). Avoid interpretation or leading the play. Focus on being present and attuned.
8) Reflecting Feelings
Reflecting feelings is a central play therapy technique used to build emotional awareness and validation.
What It Is: This technique involves identifying and verbalizing the emotions the child may be experiencing during play.
How It Helps Clients: Reflecting feelings helps children connect their behaviors to emotions, increasing emotional literacy and regulation. It also fosters validation and trust.
How To Do It: Observe emotional cues in the child’s play and reflect them using simple language (e.g., “That seems really frustrating”). Avoid over-interpreting and allow the child to confirm or correct your reflection.
9) Returning Responsibility to the Child
Returning responsibility is a key play therapy technique that promotes autonomy and problem-solving.
What It Is: This technique involves allowing the child to make decisions and solve problems independently rather than directing or rescuing them.
How It Helps Clients: It builds confidence, independence, and problem-solving skills. It also reinforces the child’s sense of control and competence.
How To Do It: When a child asks for help or direction, gently return the responsibility (e.g., “You can decide how you want to do that”). Support their efforts without taking over the task.
5 Play Therapy Interventions to Use in Sessions
Play therapy interventions are the intentional, goal-driven ways that the techniques above are used. Interventions are used by clinicians to target specific goals or areas of growth for their clients. This could include increasing frustration tolerance, building emotion regulation skills, processing trauma, or reducing anxiety. Interventions are flexible, allowing you to tailor your sessions to your client’s unique needs.
1) Emotion Labeling
Emotion labeling interventions can help children learn to identify and express their emotions.
What It Is: This intervention can use a variety of tools, such as dolls, cards, or drawings depicting various emotional states. Clinicians help children identify and label their internal experiences in real time using the correct vocabulary.
How It Helps Clients: Learning to identify their feelings is a key component of emotion regulation. This can help decrease emotional outbursts and improve communication with caregivers.
How To Do It: Begin by introducing different feelings using play prompts. You can then reflect and expand on these emotions using age-appropriate language. Reinforce your clients’ attempts to identify emotions, not only their accuracy in doing so.
2) Corrective Role Playing
Role-playing can help children practice healthy behaviors and responses to stressors and challenges.
What It Is: This intervention allows clinicians to help children reenact difficult situations while introducing and practicing more adaptive responses.
How It Helps Clients: Practicing new skills can reinforce the use of new behaviors in a safe, supportive environment. Ultimately, this intervention can improve impulse control and build important social skills.
How To Do It: Begin by identifying a real-life difficulty that your client has experienced. Using toys or role playing, reenact the situation while introducing healthier responses to the stressor. Repeat the exercise as needed to reinforce the new response.
3) Exposure-Based Play Intervention
Gradual exposure in play therapy can help children who are struggling with a fear or distressing experience.
What It Is: Clinicians can incorporate symbolic play to introduce elements of a feared situation, at a pace that the client is comfortable with.
How It Helps Clients: This can help reduce avoidance behaviors and desensitize your clients to the fear response they are experiencing. Therapy sessions can provide a safe and supportive background for skill development.
How To Do It: After identifying your client’s feared situation or stressor, start with a distant representation of it in session. Over time, you’ll gradually introduce more direct elements of their feared situation, while closely monitoring their use of emotion regulation and distress tolerance skills. This can be done using age-appropriate grounding or calming strategies.
4) Parent/Caregiver Involvement Intervention
Parent or caregiver involvement is a key play therapy intervention that supports generalization of skills outside of sessions.
What It Is: This intervention involves working with caregivers to help them understand the child’s emotional needs and apply supportive strategies at home.
How It Helps Clients: Involving caregivers can strengthen attachment relationships and reinforce therapeutic gains in the child’s natural environment.
How To Do It: Provide psychoeducation to caregivers about play therapy principles and the child’s emotional needs. Offer coaching on communication, validation, and limit-setting strategies. When appropriate, incorporate filial therapy techniques to help caregivers engage therapeutically with their child.
5) Child-Centered Play Therapy (CCPT) Approach
Child-centered play therapy is a foundational intervention that guides the overall structure of treatment.
What It Is: CCPT is a non-directive intervention that emphasizes the child’s ability to lead the session, with the therapist providing empathy, acceptance, and understanding.
How It Helps Clients: This approach helps children process emotions at their own pace, build self-confidence, and develop self-regulation skills. It also strengthens the therapeutic relationship.
How To Do It: Allow the child to lead play sessions while you provide tracking, reflection, and validation. Avoid directing the play unless necessary. Maintain consistency in your responses and create a safe, accepting environment.
Other Helpful Play Therapy Resources
Mental health professionals have found that the customizable, evidence-based resources offered by TherapyByPro enhance their sessions and help them stay organized. Our resources are helpful for clinicians working in various clinical settings, with clients experiencing a range of mental health concerns. Examples of available play therapy resources include:
- Creating a Play Therapy Treatment Plan
- 75 Play Therapy Questions to Ask
- 9 Play Therapy Activities
- View all of our Play Therapy Worksheets you can use with clients.
Frequently Asked Clinical Questions
Below are FAQs clinicians are asking:
How does a clinician differentiate between standard behavioral resistance and a child’s natural process of externalizing trauma during sand tray or role-playing exercises?
Observe the affective quality and thematic repetitive nature of the play over multiple sessions. Routine behavioral resistance typically manifests as direct refusal to participate or intentional rule-breaking, whereas trauma externalization involves highly intense, symbolic re-enactments of threat or chaos where the child appears deeply absorbed or emotionally dysregulated.
What is the recommended protocol if a child becomes physically aggressive or destructive toward toys during a high-energy play session?
Implement structured therapeutic limit setting immediately using a calm, non-punitive, and predictable framework such as the ACT method. Acknowledge their underlying intense feeling, communicate the absolute safety limit clearly, and redirect their physical energy toward an acceptable, non-destructive alternative tool or movement-based play activity.
How do you manage a parent or caregiver who demands concrete verbal progress updates and expresses skepticism about the clinical value of non-directive play?
Provide intentional psychoeducation during dedicated caregiver involvement interventions to explain the developmental neuroscience of symbolic play. Demystify the clinical framework by clarifying that play serves as the child’s natural language, while toys function as their verbal designators for safely communicating complex psychological stressors that they cannot yet articulate.
When should a practitioner shift from a purely child-centered play therapy approach to highly directive, exposure-based play interventions?
Maintain non-directive play therapy until a secure therapeutic rapport is established and the child demonstrates basic emotion labeling capacities. Transition to directive or exposure-based interventions when treating a specific phobia or acute trauma memory where the child remains entirely stuck in an unresolvable loop of behavior tracking or avoidance.
Can advanced expressive play techniques be safely utilized with children who experience severe, acute sensory processing issues or executive dysfunction?
Yes, provided the physical layout of the playroom is modified to strictly control external stimuli and limit the volume of accessible toys. Utilizing low-arousal, movement-based actions and structured tactile building materials helps regulate their sensitive autonomic nervous system before introducing emotionally complex sand tray or projective role-play materials.
Final Thoughts on Using Play Therapy in Sessions
When used with clear intention, play therapy can be an effective treatment approach with children. Proper training and experience are needed to develop the needed attunement and responsiveness for this approach. Allowing children to take the lead in a safe and supportive manner can foster an environment that supports free expression and the processing needed for optimal emotional, behavioral, and psychological development.
To expand on our introduction to play therapy techniques and interventions, we encourage you to explore continuing education and training opportunities within your clinical niche. With the right knowledge and support, you can create a safe space for exploration, integration, and growth.
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View all of our Play Therapy Worksheets
References:
- Koukourikos K, Tsaloglidou A, Tzeha L, Iliadis C, Frantzana A, Katsimbeli A, Kourkouta L. An Overview of Play Therapy. Mater Sociomed. 2021 Dec;33(4):293-297. doi: 10.5455/msm.2021.33.293-297. PMID: 35210953; PMCID: PMC8812369.