What does it mean to be a Play Therapy therapist?

Being a Play Therapy therapist is not just about knowing the therapeutic tools. If the therapist focuses mainly on them, then he depersonalises himself in the therapeutic relationship with the child. This is already a serious problem that the therapist has to face in supervision or even in his own therapy.

Being a Play Therapy therapist means being open and extraordinarily sensitive to the child's life.
The therapist loves children, loves to play with them and is able to enter the child's world without fear.
The Play Therapy therapist is in the world of the child's feelings and thoughts, he is in the world of the child's wishes and plans. He follows the child.

If a therapist is not able to answer the question after a session with a child: what did I learn from this child today during his Play Therapy session? - this could mean, among other things, that he or she was not in the child's world, witnessing the child's process, let alone being a creator of it. It could also mean that the therapist was, for example, focused on interpreting the child's play, pursuing his own goals.

To be in the child's world the therapist must have respect for the child, must accept the child and must believe in the child's potential.

RESPECT for the child is a core value of the Play Therapy therapist.

ACCEPTANCE OF EVERY CHILD'S EXPRESSION- creates a climate for the child to express themselves in a safe and authentic way.

THE THERAPIST'S BELIEF IN THE CHILD'S UNIQUE POTENTIAL TO DIRECT THEIR LIFE-is the basis for the child to believe in their own potential, to trust their feelings and to trust themselves.

As you can see, the Play Therapy therapist must be present first and foremost as a person, in a relationship with whom the child also becomes a person.

Becoming a Play Therapy therapist is an active process of consciously becoming a person in relationship with the child, a person who is not afraid to entrust the child with responsibility for his/her choices, because he/she believes in the child's potential to develop, to solve his/her problems. The Play Therapy training process is therefore not a training. It is an active process of the therapist getting to know himself, getting to know his inner child, who has grown up somewhere, who has had his ups and downs, and who now decides who this therapist is, who is there for the child and who is responsible for what the child-client discovers in himself during therapy. And this is a great responsibility.