Why Play Therapy?

When I went to London 8 years ago I never thought where I would end up……funny thing I was only meant to go for a year. “My plan” was to come back to Greece…..

It was towards the end of my studies, I didn’t know what to do, I had in my mind to return to Greece but for a reason I couldn’t take that decision. I was also scared to stay in London….”what I was going to do there?” A friend from university suggested to attend a summer training programme in Play Therapy in France, she said it would be interested. Until then I didn’t know anything about Play Therapy, it was the first time that I heard something like that. I wasn’t interested in going to France for the training but I started researching about Play Therapy, how does it work, what is it? Are people just playing with children? Are people going to take me seriously if I tell them that I study Play Therapy? While I was researching I was becoming more interested in Play Therapy and then I found THE BOOK! “Dids……In Search of Self”.
It was the story of a little boy named Dids who was emotionally lost and found his own way back through Play Therapy. That little boy and his story spoke into my heart. All of my questions were answered and had no doubt on what I wanted to do.

Then, my journey as play therapist begun……I found the training in London and applied. It wasn’t the traditional training, it was very experiential and at the beginning I found it difficult to adjust to this kind of training. It was also very emotional at time.
Play Therapy is another form of psychotherapy and like with every therapy training things about you, your life as a person might come up and you need to deal with these and find ways to help yourself.
But no matter how difficult the training was at times and how challenging this job can be, Dids and his story is always in my mind.

Every time someone asks me about Play Therapy, or I feel stuck with a client or I doubt the process or even myself, Dids comes to remind me…..how it works and why I chose Play Therapy.

If you ever find the time read this book. It’s not a big book but it’s one of the most powerful books I’ve ever read.

The book is called ''Dids....In Search Of Self" and the author is Virginia M. Axline.

Belina x