Paramitha 1

Shinta Viani Paramitha

Linda Hart, Ph.D., CSC, LPCS, RPTS

COUN 5313 1 Counseling Children and Adolescents

Tuesday, April 4th., 2021

Reflection 1: Best Approach

There are some of the approaches to play therapy commonly used by practitioner

nowadays. They are Adlerian play therapy, child-centered play therapy, cognitive–behavioral

play therapy, ecosystemic play therapy, Gestalt play therapy, Jungian analytical play therapy,

psychodynamic play therapy, and Theraplay (Kotman, 2011, p. 41).

In this reflection, I would like to reflect the best approaches that might be best fit as my

role as a homeroom teacher. This first approach that would I choose is Adlerian play therapy. I

chose this approach because I have observed the children in my class are unique, each child has

their own uniqueness. Children as a human being are socially embedded that subjective and

creative being whose behavior are purposeful and goal directed. Kotman (2011) explains that

“Teaching children to value connection with other people and learn the skills for building

relationships and fostering social interest is an integral part of the process of Adlerian play

therapy” (p. 42). It is aimed the children to see how they desire to connect with others and to

gain significant in their life. How someone connects with others, how someone gains significant

in life, how someone feels like, are sometime mistaken because of the child’s childhood

experiences. It is interesting how the Adlerian therapy have detailed four phases that I believe it

could help us (as therapist / teacher) to know who the child is and how we can intervene with the

child to help him.

 Paramitha 2

The thing that appealed most is “Adlerians believe that all people are socially embedded

and cannot be understood without comprehending their social system (which starts with the

family), whenever possible, they work conjointly with children and their parents.” (Kottman,

2011, p.46). I believe that Adlerian therapy approach is best fit my role as homeroom teacher to

observe my students’ behavior. I am not only observing in the class through play therapy,

storytelling and their creativity (drawing). I do communicate with the parents to do some

consultation to build a relationship with the parents to add more information into the parents and

their relationship with their children at home.

The second approach I would choose that I can integrated with Adlerian approach is the

child-centered play therapy. I believe this would work best to observe my students which are

young learners. And this is a good approach where I can have faith to my students are able to

work on whatever they need to resolved. I just need to play with my student, and observe their

feelings and attitudes.

“Filial therapy is a strategy for teaching parents the skills involved in child-centered play

therapy. These skills were defined by VanFleet (1994, 2000a, 2009a) as (a) structuring skills, (b)

empathic listening skills, (c) child-centered imaginary play skills, and (d) limit-setting skills.”

(Kottman, 2011, p. 51). This is the approach to working with parents to build parenting skills,

family relationships and interactional patterns with their children. What really interests me the

most is this approach led children to know sad things happened and learn how to control their

emotions. It affects in many ways, self-esteem, moods, grades and social behavior. Furthermore,

it works really well for children, because they love to play and became self-centered than others.