Am J Dance Ther

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10465-018-9274-8

Becoming the Storm: Using the Energy and Imagery

of Symptoms in Play Therapy to Help Children Heal

Dennis McCarthy1

 American Dance Therapy Association 2018

Introduction

A version of this keynote lecture was presented in May of 2017 at a play therapy
congress in Santiago de Compostela, Spain entitled ‘‘Play is the Way.’’ Santiago is
the end of the famous pilgrimage trail, often called The Milky Way. From the hotel
where the congress was being held, I could see pilgrims descending from a
mountain pass to the famous cathedral of Santiago—the end of their journey. Some
walked for over a month to arrive there—seeking transformation. I thought then
how this innate longing in us as humans to realize ourselves is present even in the
youngest child. It may be this impulse that makes psychotherapy possible.

Premise

What I want to talk about today is how to help children be less afraid of themselves,
of that which lives within them as emotion and impulse and fantasy, in the context
of an approach to psychotherapy with children that is both body centered and
imagination driven and that uses play as the vehicle. Every child longs to be able to
express and to regulate emotions and impulses. This innate desire combined with
children’s need to play and play’s innate ability to enable children to change, make
it possible to help them. This was true forty plus years ago when I began practicing
and is still true today despite the increasing complexity of the world children live in
and the problems they develop.
It is often possible to find both the underpinning of the problem as well as its
potential for resolution within the energy and imagery of the symptoms that bring
children into treatment. The impulsive movements, the tantrums, the dysregulation

& Dennis McCarthy

metamorfosinstitute@gmail.com
1
PO Box 4073, Kingston, NY 12402, USA

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that disturbs others and disrupt the child can have a curative and positive energy and
meaning embedded within these impulses. The phobic child may use the energy and
imagery of their phobia to eliminate the phobia. And they will emerge in better
health than they were prior to the onset of the phobia. The traumatized child may
manifest images and movements in their play that speak of both the trauma and of
the resolution of the trauma.
In fact, the intensity of the presenting symptoms often makes the problem easier
to reconcile. So much energy is going into the organism’s impulse to heal—
manifesting as symptoms. The child who enters treatment with a vast array of
symptoms may be easier to help due to this vast array. The organism is speaking
loudly about its dysfunction. This can be a sign that the child has an innately strong
life force that will not be thwarted without crying out via symptoms. Even the most
severe symptoms are often directly related to what is thwarting the child as well as
their desire to resolve this. In fact, the approach to play therapy that I want to share
with you today may be most helpful with the more problematic child—the one who
is throwing chairs in school or panicking at night or afraid to go outside.
It is helpful to understand and address the external causes to the problem as well
as the internal causes, and the details of the symptoms can support this
understanding. It is helpful to know what the child’s parents or caregivers might
do or not do that would help us help the child. Assessing whether the root of the
problems lies within the child’s own neurology in the form of learning or sensory
issues or other neurologically based problems is very important. But both in
diagnosing and treating these problems, play is the way.
Having long ago understood the efficacy of play as a healing modality, I am more
and more interested in looking for the moments in play when a point of entry into
the crux of the problem is revealed—when the child’s defense system’s structure is
open to being restructured, or when a deep wound may be healed or a ruptured life
may be made whole. The more I anticipate these moments the more easily they
arise.

Preparing for the Storm

Before we descend into the inner world of the child, I want to lead you on a guided
visualization in which we travel together to a more elemental place. Close your
eyes. Settle into the seat of your chair. Take a few deep belly breaths. Imagine you
are standing on a path by the sea. There are no buildings—just earth and sky and
sea. The air is warm and dry, there is a slight breeze and in the distance a mountain
looms. As you begin to walk along the path slowly, use your senses to orient
yourself to this imagined place. See if you can relax into this experience by
deepening your breathing, letting each exhale be a letting go. First notice what you
see. The sea is silver close to shore and deep blue further out and has small
whitecaps. There are ancient olive trees along the path, as well as some other small
fragrant shrubs. Notice the feel of the sun and the breeze on your skin and the
solidity of the ground beneath your feet. Notice the smell of sea and the aromatic
herbs. Perhaps there is a taste of salt from the breeze as well. And the sound of the
waves and the wind accompanies us as we walk.

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Now the mountain is near and you walk and sit by it. The sea is on your right, the
mountain is on your left. There is a cave opening into the mountain. Settle into the
place you are sitting and see if you can feel a mix of excitement and curiosity about
the cave. There is no danger—just a sense of mystery. In opening your eyes, see if
you can bring the atmosphere of the place with you.

A Few Ideas

The Paradox of Play

Paradox, from the Greek meaning beyond thinking, implies the combining of two
seemingly opposite and incompatible things towards a positive end. It is this very
opposition that may allow for transcendence or change and freedom. Carl Jung said
that only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life
(Fig. 1). DW Winnicott talks about paradox and urges the therapist working with
children to tolerate rather than attempt to resolve the paradox. And the most useful
definition of play for our purposes today is itself paradoxical—along with being
2500 years old.
Plato saw the model of true play in the need of all young creatures, animal and
human, to leap. To truly leap you must learn how to use the ground as a
springboard, and how to land resiliently and safely. It means to test the leeway
allowed by given limits, to outdo and yet not escape gravity. Thus wherever
true playfulness prevails there is always an element of surprise, surpassing
mere repetition or habit. And at its best suggesting some virgin chance
conquered, some divine leeway shared. (Erikson, 1977, p. 17)
Please keep this definition in mind going forward as it will make more sense in the
context of cases and children’s drawings. There are a few more things to consider
before we enter the child’s play world, and before we let them enter the play space
with us.

The Child Mind

When children look at a painting by Marc Chagall that hangs in my office entitled ‘‘I
and the Village,’’ they often tell me that it is exactly how they think. Chagall depicts
people, animals, houses and other images floating in space, upside down and
distorted in size, and all in motion. Children are surprised that an adult has depicted
the child mind so clearly. For children think in images, not words, and they often
feel in images as well. What this painting depicts is both movement and narrative, or
the potential for narrative in the images. If we offer the child a play environment
and materials and a process in which they can move freely and express themselves
in images, they will be able to more fully articulate themselves. What they say via
moving and imagining may be very profound. And for the playing child, without a
fixed sense of identity yet, enormous change can happen more easily.

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Fig. 1 ‘‘A boy imagines himself becoming a monster’’

The Energetic Underpinning

The child experiences life first and foremost through their bodies, their senses.
This schema of the personality by Lowen (1990) (see Fig. 2) is helpful to
consider when we attempt to communicate with a child in their language. The basis

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Fig. 2 ‘‘The Hierarchy of the

Personality’’. Reproduced with
permission from Lowen (1990)

of all human structures are the energetic processes that activate us—such as
respiration, peristalsis, the beating of the heart. These processes express themselves
through movements which give rise to feelings that result in thoughts (Lowen,
1990). Ego arises out of the interplay of these. Dance/movement therapy comes
closest to using this schema in its entirety. Most other therapies, including
traditional play therapy, are focused on the top tiers of the pyramid. Without the
bottom being invited into the process the child feels less seen, less accepted. Playing
from the ground up or into the underground allows for the whole of the child’s
experience of life to be expressed and explored. And the play therapy process I
espouse, based as it is on the body, is a very physical, visceral experience for the
child who is truly engaged.

Symptoms

The symptoms that bring children into treatment are not the problems. They are a
manifestation of the problem whose function is to alert both the individual and their
caregivers that something is wrong. In that way they are a necessary, and often
brilliant, expression of the organism’s desire to get help resolving whatever is
causing imbalance. This could be the child’s family system or the child’s own
neurological processing. It could be an undiagnosed medical condition or learning
disability. It could be abuse or trauma of some sort. Or it could be, simply put, a
very big child who is not being mirrored in his or her bigness. With all children, the
symptoms are vital to healing and they often contain what is needed to heal, as
energy, movement or imagery. If we accept that what the child is entering treatment
with is usable, albeit in need of transformation, then therapy begins the moment the
child enters the play space, the moment the door opens. The child will sense
immediately who we are, what we believe, and what roles we are ready and willing
to play.

The Roles of the Therapist

In dynamic play therapy, the therapist plays certain roles that facilitate change.
These roles are: witnessing, containing, mirroring, envisioning and provoking. For

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me the most important and the most difficult is this latter role. Provocation must
take place in the context of the other roles for it to be effective. And it must be heart
felt, not ego driven. Play is by its very nature provocative, so children often provoke
themselves with their playing.

Helping Things Fall Apart

When play is therapeutic, there is often a disorganization and reorganization of the

child’s defense system that occurs which is visible in the child’s play configurations
and in the child’s body organization as well. I call this ‘‘helping things fall apart’’ in
the service of the ego. The child experiences this with delight. It may happen in the
deep sandbox I use with children, in which they create and then demolish and then
recreate worlds. This type of play often has an immediate positive effect on their
behavior and mood. It may happen using art materials such as clay or drawing, or it
may happen via moving play. But the need to have things fall apart in the service of
growth is a key to the dynamic play process.

Part 1: Monsters—The Doorway and the Key

From my first session forty plus years ago, children have brought one consistent
thing into the play space—and that is monsters. They imagined them under their
beds or in their closets or lurking outside their windows or doors or in their dreams.
These imagined beings seemed to me to be children’s first creative acts—part
impulse, part deity, part mystery. Intuitively, monsters seemed like a language that I
could speak with children and in doing so they responded. So, early on, I began in
my first visit with a child to ask them to imagine they had drunk a magic potion and
turned into a monster. Then I ask them to draw this monstrous self. I also ask them
to tell me what their monster does that makes it such a monster. I even ask them to
give it a name. This invites the whole of the child into the space—their fear and
their fury, their impulses and their barely formed sense of the world and its
hugeness. Even the most timid child has always been delighted to draw themselves
as a monster in their first visit to me as well as in many subsequent ones. Even
children that have had monstrous things happen to them have been relieved to be
invited to turn into one and to place this image on the walls of my play space. I think
this opening gesture can itself become a portal to change. If the whole of the child is
allowed to enter the space, all the instincts and impulses that live within them, then
nothing is rejected. The potential for them becoming integrated is present, even if it
takes many play experiences to realize this.
Because the monster is an exaggeration of impulses that many children have, this
exaggerated form can be curative. The basic human instincts are embodied in
monsters—hunger, aggression, sexuality, creativity and even spirituality. For those
of you who have seen the film ‘‘A Monster Calls’’ you will know exactly what I
mean. In that movie, it is the hugeness of the monster mirroring the hugeness of the
child’s emotions that allows him to heal—and not without making quite a mess. (if
you haven’t seen the film I urge you to do so.) Again, because the monster is an

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exaggeration of emotion and impulse and because it lives beyond the laws of society
(but not the laws of nature) it can help the child reconcile many things. It is always a
good beginning. For many children this drawing is like the leap that Plato speaks of,
both defying and affirming the ground the child lives on.

Monsters as Portals

The idea of portals is one that all children relate to. And many an adult in treatment
has dreamt near the onset of treatment of finding a door in their home that lead to an
unknown wing or series of rooms or underground labyrinth—parts of the self yet to
be discovered. For the adult, these doorways offer the potential of finding a new way
forward in their lives. As you look at the following images of children’s monsters
consider the movement they embody, the dance they are doing, the choreography of
the emotions and impulses embedded in and expressed by them.
A 6-year-old child began treatment in a state of profound regression. His father
was in a rehabilitation program yet again, his mother was a weary enabler. He had
regressed from going to the bathroom in his pants to actually not going to the
bathroom at all. Before using more drastic medical intervention, his doctor
suggested that his mother try play therapy. When I invited this very small, very
tense boy to become a monster, he first looked around my play space checking out
the possibilities it offered, noticing the monsters that other children had drawn—and
then he drew himself as a key monster. He then proceeded to use the bathroom near
my playroom, the first time he done so in over a week. He then went back to the
drawing and added a heart next to his monster and told me it was the key to the
heart, and that I needed to take care of it. His key monster had opened the doorway
in himself to new energies that moved him forward into life. His subsequent
monsters were seething with life force. He went on to experiment with many
manifestations of this new energy, and in his daily life began experiencing and
expressing healthy aggression in the service of growth. His parent and teachers
needed support to tolerate this newly energized child as he integrated the aggression
of these monstrous forms into his life. But the intense state of regression he began
treatment with made everyone more willing to do so. And because so much energy
was bound up in his symptoms, this same energy moved him forward into life very
quickly once he was able to access it positively. His mother, too, used her son’s key
to unlock the door to her own emotions. She got in touch with her anger and moved
on in her life.
For a child traumatized by years of parental discord, to depict himself as a bloody
pulp (as horrific as it may seem) was a relief (see Fig. 3). Again, the paradox of play
is such that he could depict himself as such and yet feel joy in having done so at last.
When at session’s end, he proudly showed his parents this drawing and they began
to wake up to the effect they were having on their child. The image said more than
any words I could say might convey. They got it. By the next visit he no longer felt
bloodied but rather enlivened which was reflected in his demeanor and his monster,
which was a large, multicolored beast with spikes (see Fig. 4).
The monster ‘‘scared the poop out of parents that were fighting’’ according to the
child. This monster went on to inspire many other children whose parents were

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Fig. 3 ‘‘Bloody Pulp’’

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Fig. 4 Monster as guardian

battling. They would point it out to their parents and nod as if to say ‘‘get it?’’ And
they often did.
A girl that had been sexually abused by a neighbor depicted a monster that, like
herself, was oozing with toxins (see Fig. 5). We used this as a paradigm for negative

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Fig. 5 Monster as detox

discharge, as she pounded on a mattress in my office with every part of her body to
dislodge the toxic emotions that lay there, howling with rage as she did so. When
her next monster showed up, it was well armored, covered in spikes and unavailable
to assault. Her defense system was reorganizing.
Another child beaten down by parental battling and a molesting older brother
entered the play space in our first session with stooped shoulders and misery in his
eyes. He drew a long serpentine monster covered with razor sharp spikes. He found
expressing himself as monsters to be liberating and he experimented with
externalizing some of the sadistic feelings his parents and brother had filled him
with that he had been turning on himself. As his monsters elongated over time, they
grew more ferocious, and he slowly but surely became bigger—taking up more
space in his own body and in the world he lived in. He left even after one session
standing taller and feeling heard. Of course, the parents had to stop their battling and
needed help to do so, and the older brother had to get help as well. But the child’s
expanding through cathartic play went a long way to helping the family to change.

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Storming

The title of this keynote comes from numerous experiences I have had working with
children with storm phobias. These are children who become terrified of
thunderstorms. This eventually leads to fear of rain and then cloudy skies. It often
leads to fear of sunny days for as several of these children said to me ‘‘you never
know.’’ By the time they entered treatment, they had become house bound, unable
to go to school or out to play. Despite the severity of the symptom, or perhaps
because of it, they were able to resolve their phobias very quickly. In my first
meeting, I invited each child to become a storm in my office. This involved having
them leap around, roll on the ground, making lots of thunder and lightning like
sounds. I would accompany them on percussive instruments—drums, rattles,
marimba, and other instruments. I also have a small device made out of a cylinder
and a spring that when shaken sounds like thunder and lightning. I began these
storm dances by assuring the child that by becoming the storm they would master
their fear of them. And it has always worked. These dances were very intense, a
mixture of catharsis and joy. Often by session three, the phobia was gone or greatly
abated. Why?
The family situations the children came from were all different, but all of these
children were more intense than their parents. There was the lack of a mirroring for
the fullness of their intensity. Was this the issue? They were also children who had
never gone through the so called ‘‘terrible two’s,’’ the age at which children begin to
assert themselves using the word ‘‘no’’ often to great excess. But the stage is crucial
and helps children begin to regulate their own intensity. It is as if the thunderstorm
mirrored the child’s own undeveloped ‘‘no’’ with its loud wildness. The symptom in
its severity forced the child’s family to make room for a child who was louder and
more expressive than they would have preferred. But in all cases the parents
benefited by becoming more assertive and more expressive themselves. It is a
perfect example of a child becoming afraid of themselves and thus of life itself. And
a simple example of using the energy and imagery of the symptom to make them
unafraid (see Fig. 6).
What is a storm? The forces of nature intensified or run amok. Storms wreak
havoc but also bring fertility and the need for building new and better defense
systems. Children’s psyches are made fertile by the efforts at healing caused by the
emotional storms that bring them into treatment and their defense systems are made
stronger and more resilient. The images that children use in their play are not that
different than the images that adult patients dream about…tidal waves, tornadoes,
hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, meteor showers…events that alter form. Children
play with these potent images and use them to alter their own defense systems.

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Fig. 6 Storm Monster

Part 2: The Materials of Play

Sandplay

In my play space, I have many materials including clay, paints, blocks, a dollhouse,
balls, puppets, 2 small guillotines, a small trampoline, paper airplanes, foam bats for
fighting and many other items. But the centerpiece of my play space is a deep
sandbox. Even when it is not being used, its presence has an effect. Like the cave

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opening in the guided visualization we began with, the deep box is an enticing and
mysterious presence that is both empty and full. The deep box, like the cave, is full
of possibilities. For those of you not familiar with sandplay, along with a sandbox
there are many small figures that the child may use to construct worlds and
narratives. The shelves near the sandbox are filled with people, houses, trees,
animals, monsters, stones, etc. The box is on the floor. The child sits or kneels by it
and begins to dig into it and there is often a palpable shift in the child just by their
putting their hands in the material and opening the sand. The material of sand,
existing in the overlap of sea and land, is a paradox. It can be made very firm with
the addition of water or remain very porous. Especially when it is deep enough it
may allow things to sink and to emerge. It is very much like the psyche—in many
respects, it is the psyche in moments of engaged play. This descent/ascent process is
a large part of the power it has for the child. Things can be lost or discovered, buried
or unearthed. The child’s narrative can descend into the underworld or be elevated
to the top of a mountain or even into the heavens. The creation of caves or tunnels
allows for further deep exploration. For children who have experienced loss it
allows for a better dealing with the descent into earth and/or ascent into the heavens
that death entails. Trauma may be described via metaphor within the container of
the box and the relationship. Neurology can be altered by the multilayered capacity
of the deep sand.
Often, children playing in the sand are simply exploring the possibilities for self
expression and self exploration. This can be therapeutic as well. But at some point,
if we are lucky, the sand process takes on a charge. There is a palpable sense that
what is happening is altering the child’s psyche, the child’s physiology, even to
some extent their neurology. We may notice that there is a descent into the
Underworld. Many a child in dealing with a parent’s death, sought them in the
underworld and, finally, found their own grief there. A tall mountain is erected and,
on top of it, a battle between the conflicting forces that live in a child may take
place. Or the sand world depicted may suddenly explode or implode, and this falling
apart of form feels functional. In the sand we have a perfect vehicle for symbols,
and symbols depicted may describe and/or help initiate a dynamic process of
change. Sandplay in a deeper box is a very physical experience for the playing child.
The child squatting or kneeling by the deep sandbox will often sweat, pant, pass gas,
and become flushed in the process of making a world. The use of a deep sandbox,
though not the traditional method, allows for play that is messier and wilder and
more curative in my experience. It is moving play, both emotionally and
energetically.

Natural Disasters as Healing

While I was preparing for this talk, a 10-year-old boy with an eating disorder began
treatment. He was a very bright and very rigid child who felt he had no imagination.
He suspected his rigidity might be part of the problem and he was right. Initially
when the word ‘‘food’’ was mentioned he would begin to weep. But after a short
while his response turned to anger. The ‘‘no’’ that is expressed in the symptom of
refusing to eat was beginning to show itself. He began to engage in aggressive play

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and also spent time each week seeing how high he could leap into the air (recall
Plato’s definition of play as leaping to affirm our sense of gravity). He also created a
sequence of worlds in the sand box over the course of several weeks that, once it
became charged, reflected and helped the changes that took place within him. See if
you can imagine you are this rigid child who has been starving himself as I share the
sequence of his sand worlds. And consider the movement both described and
experienced in the images he created.
First, he depicted a meteor crashing into the earth that freed up animals that had
been trapped below the ground. He was very surprised by this, as if it had happened
without him making it so. He was also amazed to learn that when giant meteors hit
the earth, they bring to the surface rare minerals buried below. He was very moved
by this. Next he depicted a giant whirlpool that sucked everyone into its mouth,
including a hero who managed to emerge from it in tact. He was amazed to know
that there was in fact a famous hero, Odysseus, who also had to go down to the
bottom of a whirlpool and did and survived. This idea of his process reflecting
natural history and mythic story was very reassuring to him. The next week, a tidal
wave came in which everything was destroyed but the hero and an ally of his (he
and I?) managed to survive by going below the level of the wave. And the next
week, he depicted a volcanic eruption in which the hero leapt into the volcano which
then became a portal to another dimension, one in which everything was upside
down. This is a frequent image that arises at some point in working with children
with eating disorders. Which makes sense as their orientation to life is upside down.
When the hero came back through the portal to his own world he had to look at
himself in a mirror and ask himself ‘‘who am I?’’
During this period of several weeks of charged sandplay, he began to feel hungry
and began to eat, more and then more. The natural disasters depicted combined with
his leaping had a curative effect on his psyche and his metabolism. The
externalization of the ‘‘no’’ combined with the form altering power of his
imagination became a pathway out of stasis. And considering Lowen’s (1990)
pyramid again, the metabolism thwarted in an eating disorder can be freed up if we
can engage a child on a level that is about deep movement such as this boy’s leaping
or that moves them deeply, such as the images that emerged did.
On occasion, I have let children who were sexually abused make a volcano in the
deep sandbox with a lit candle in the bottom. At the right moment in treatment, I let
them make their abuser out of paper and throw him or her into the volcano. Here are
two brothers burning their abuser father, which was a profound healing for these two
boys (see Fig. 7).

Tornado in the Box

A very dysregulated 6-year-old, who kept being removed from school for throwing
tantrums and shoving other children around, came to play. After several sessions of
very unfocused exploratory play he sat in the sand box and announced that he was
going to become a tornado. I expected sand to fly everywhere but he sat very still for
quite a long while. When he stepped out of the box he seemed different (see Fig. 8).

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Fig. 7 Boys throw their abusive father into a volcano

His teachers had described him as tornado-like in school and yet after he became
a tornado in the box, he seemed centered. This was followed by a long period in
school of no tantrums and no shoving. When the shoving erupted again, he came
and spent a long time ‘‘shoving’’ a large ball at me, using his head, his feet and his
hands. This went on for several session, until, once again, he stood up and seemed
changed. After this he went again and sat in the sandbox and became a tornado.
Then he had me place a dragon on his head. After this the shoving stopped for good.
I must add that this boy who obviously had sensory issues also worked with a
Feldenkrais practitioner at my suggestion. This had a very positive impact as well.
But becoming a tornado in my deep sandbox, initiated by him, altered the way he
regulated.

Clay

Clay may be the best material for the expression of negative aggression and
cathartic play. This is in part because of the capacity for the expression of fury via
the clay to turn into a creative act—often simultaneously. It can be pounded,
smeared, chopped and then reshaped—facilitating the disorganization/reorganiza-
tion of form that I find so therapeutic for most children. It, too, is a very physical and
visceral experience. Clay therapist Michelle Rhodes talks about using clay with
children to ‘‘get the inside out’’—meaning, to help them access what lives in them
that is being thwarted.

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Fig. 8 ‘‘A boy becomes a tornado and a dragon lands on his head’’

A 5-year-old boy who had been sexually abused and neglected began treatment
in a state of profound dissociation, such that it was difficult for him to play initially.
He was plagued by the fear of zombies. After several sessions of attempting to
engage this very dissociated child, we made zombies out of clay and he chopped
their heads off using a small guillotine. My job was to then make the heads try to
reconnect with the bodies. Then he would hammer the heads flat using a rubber

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mallet. He repeated this hundreds of times over several weeks, expressing both great
terror and delight, alternately. I cannot convey the combination of emotional
intensity and levity in this play. This allowed him to begin to move more freely.
Then, the same child, with my help, made a monster that was forced to swallow
poison and flush this out from his anus and genitals. Again, this was repeated may
dozens of times over the course of several weeks. I got very wet from this play,
which seemed like an important part of the process, as if I was sharing in his pain
and his recovery. At one point after engaging in this play he took a large rubber
mallet and hammered the monster flat. The he went to the sandbox and made a
world in which a group of children were stuck in an empty pool with a bunch of
ghosts. Some soldiers came and filled the pool up with water, which freed the
children and trapped the ghosts. Then, the soldiers covered pool with sand and
suffocated the ghosts. This was the first time he had been able to use the sand, his
first use of narrative. After this he became truly able to play like a normal child. He
became associative rather than dissociative. He liked playing a game where he
would hide behind a small trampoline and have me throw objects at him, such as
dragon puppets. These would bounce off helping him to further experience the sense
of filter he had begun to develop. What initially seemed like a small gesture of play
became something profound for him.
Really almost anything in the playing child’s field can become an object of play,
often used in ways other than one would expect. And this altered use, because of the
creative urge that initiates it, may be all the more potent. The child used a large
conga drum upside down as a soup pot. He added all my monster puppets to the
soup, with much drama and screaming as these monsters were stirred into the
bubbling broth. Then I was forced to sample this potent soup with another round of
dramatic reaction on my part. This same boy, at one point, flipped a small
trampoline on its side and began to use it as a see through defensive wall. He hid
behind it and had me throw the same monster puppets at it/him. This triggered fear
initially but as the monsters bounced off he shouted with delight. This had the effect
of strengthening his defense system, fostering a greater sense of filter.

Filter

Alexander Lowen (1990) was the first psychologist to talk about filter as a means of
describing the antidote to ineffectual muscular and emotional armoring. I think it is
one of the most important concepts in working with children today. It is now a term
neurologists use to describe what is lacking in children with poor impulse control
and attention issues. The ultimate filter is developing the capacity for a healthy
‘‘no.’’ Saying ‘‘no’’ is our first effort at establishing self-regulation.
This filter develops when the child begins to say no to what they don not want,
during the so called ‘‘terrible two’s.’’ As children asserts themselves by rejecting
what feels bad, they begin to know who they are. By saying ‘‘no’’ to what they do
not want, they begin to create an emotional and energetic membrane that protects
and defines them. If this membrane is too rigid then the child is imprisoned by it. If
it is too porous then the child is easily overwhelmed. But ‘‘no’’ is the key. Most
phobic children I have worked with never went through the ‘‘no’’ stage as toddlers.

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This has left them unable to regulate their own intensity or their response to the
intensity of the world around them. The ‘‘no’’ works hand in hand with the concept
of grounding where healthy contact with the ground allows the child to tolerate
more feelings and more sensations. Like a surge breaker in electronics developing a
grounded filter helps the child both tolerate and regulate excitation. Think back to
Plato’s definition of play, in which leaping affirmed gravity.

Motion and Emotion

Structural or moving play which includes battles of some sort or throwing balls or
paper airplanes at each other or any spontaneous play. This allows us to better see
how the child hangs together, how they articulate themselves physically, and how
they connect with themselves and others while doing so. For many children, having
a chance to fully throw themselves into movement, with almost no limits, can
reorganize things. In unrestricted movement, the child may find balance and may
encounter their core. I think that this happening within the context of a therapeutic
relationship is key.
I often challenge children to enter contests such as a hitting or jumping or kicking
contest. This gives me a format to advise better ways for them to use their energy
and it allows children who are inhibited due to dysregulation the chance to really let
go. There are at least a dozen such contests going on now in my play office. At times
as I watch the highly dysregulated child pound intensely, using his or her whole
body gracefully, I can actually see it become more regulated. After the 300th hit,
what was initially the discharge of negative aggression becomes the expression and
experience of positive aggression. To be able to discharge the energy associated
with negative emotions that are lingering in the body—emotion has the word motion
in it and the body always wants to move when emotion is expressed. With most
children the repetition of an intense physical experiences can also lead to a feeling
of joy.

Part 3: The Mythological Perspective

The ancient Greeks imagined and described the outer world of nature and the inner
world of instinct and emotion as gods and goddesses, each a manifestation of the
energies of life. Mythology is not simply happenings in the remote past but eternal
dramas that are living themselves out repeatedly in our own personal lives. This is
why children love mythology so much—it speaks about their lives in a language
they can understand. The gods are in many ways monsters, just as children’s early
imagined monsters are like gods. This is especially true of Greek myth.
My interest in Greek myth arose from my work with children. Early on, they
spoke to me about Poseidon and Zeus and Artemis with great familiarity and great
warmth. As I read about the exploits of the Greek gods and goddesses I began to
understand why. These characters are deeply human and deeply flawed—and yet,
they are divine! Again, the gods were the Greeks’ way of describing both the natural

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world around them and the inner world of emotion and impulse, more than
5000 years ago. These descriptions are still true and still relevant.
Freud and Jung based many of their theories on Greek myth—not just
psychopathology but their ideas about the psyche itself. Writers of children’s
books and the makers of video games have understood the appeal of Greek myth to
children and have marketed it well. We too may understand the child better if we
consider the mythological perspective. I think these mythic figures must be part of
our DNA. And they often show up repeatedly in children’s play without children
consciously knowing about the mythic characters. Here are a few examples.
A young girl, whose mother had abandoned her, was being raised by a cold
father, who was trying to learn to be warm, and a mean older brother. She was, by
nature, a very strong girl. How could she both assert herself and also be nurtured?
She was very angry and very sad. Her first monster was called ‘‘three boobs’’ and
had an extra breast, as well as claws and fangs. It was a mix of nurturing and

Fig. 9 ‘‘Thousand Boobs’’ monster

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Fig. 10 Artemis as fertility goddess

ferocity. After several weeks of aggressive and imaginative play, her next monster
showed up. It was named ‘‘thousand boobs’’ (see Fig. 9).
In envisioning herself as a multi-breasted monster she was echoing Artemis, the
protector of young girls (see Fig. 10).
She had never seen this image, which I myself only discovered many years later.
Amazing! Yet it helped her affirm both her needs and her power. She went on to
work with a warm and strong female art therapist at my suggestion who helped
foster the Artemis in her. But how remarkable that she drew this! It was drawn pre
internet so the image arose from her—and yet, it connected her to a sense of female
power that had been described as such almost 3000 years prior.

Cyclops

The most common first monster for boys, especially those who are fully engaged in
the process, is the Cyclops. I only realized this a few years ago after sitting in the
midst of these one eyed beings for forty years. There were three different bands of
Cyclops in Greek myth. One group was wall builders, credited with building the
walls of ancient Mycenae. The second group was metal smiths, credited with

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Fig. 11 Cyclops with third eye open

forging the trident of Poseidon and the lightning bolt of Zeus. And the third group
was wild shepherds, one of which Polyphemus (whose name means ‘‘abounding in
song’’) plays a pivotal role in The Odyssey. But the earliest sculptures of Cyclops
show him thus, with three eyes, two closed and one open eye like a third eye! For
the children who use the cyclops image it is in some small yet significant way
enlightening (see Fig. 11).

Medusa

The most common first monster for many girls is that of Medusa. The roots of this
name mean ‘‘to protect’’ in Greek, ‘‘truth’’ in Egyptian and ‘‘female wisdom’’ in
Sanskrit. In the classical Greek version of the myth she is raped by a god and then
punished for this by being turned into a monster. But the early roots of her myth are
from Africa where she was a snake goddess. Medusa has much in common with the
Indian goddess Kali and also Durga, who both represent Shakti or female wisdom.
She is a brilliant first monster for the many girls I work with who struggle to feel
their power in a world that still rejects it (see Fig. 12).
Cyclops and Medusa are also portals for the child into a process of play that is
about healthy empowerment, in which a healthy defense system is being constructed

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Fig. 12 Medusa

via play. I like to think of them as ‘‘Original Faces’’ the idea in Zen of our original
non-dual state of mind, described in the Zen koan ‘‘what was your face like before
your parents were born?’’ I think these two faces may be our original faces, or one
variant of them. The child still lives in a state of non-duality, and there is an
immediacy to their play, which Zen is attempting to regain.

Pulsation

If we look at the trajectory of a child’s monsters and their play configurations and
their movement patterns over time in treatment, we may see an interesting pattern,
often repeated, of expansion and contraction, what Wilhelm Reich called
pulsation (Reich, 1986). Pulsation is evidenced in peristalsis, respiration and the
beating of the heart (the bottom of Lowen’s (1990) pyramid) as well as in the very
cosmos. It is how life force lives in us. Reestablishing healthy pulsation is the basis
of Chinese acupuncture (yin and yang in balance). It is both the essence and
manifestation of prana and chi. When this pulsation manifests in children’s play, it

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is evidence that what the child is experiencing is affecting them very deeply. And I
believe it is the underpinning of the process even if we do not see it.
A child began therapy while undergoing treatment for a virulent form of stomach
cancer. Her surgeon believed that post-operative play therapy would better help her
survive. She had been a very contracted child even before she became ill. In her first
visit she insisted that her mother be present and they both drew themselves as

Fig. 13 Monster collision at treatment’s end

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monsters, without looking at each other. They both drew themselves as Medusa.
After this, the child was able to come in by herself and began a slow but steady
process of individuation. The sequence of her monsters over the many months she
came to play expanded and contracted in size and energy from week to week,
enhanced by smashing figures made out clay with great gusto. As her monsters
expanded and contracted, she too, was doing so in her life. Prior to her cancer she
had been a very timid clinging child, who had great difficulty separating from her
mother. As her monsters expanded and contracted, she was experimenting with
sleeping in her own bed, socializing more with friends. She went on to not only
recover from her cancer but to become a very alive and dynamic child. Her last
monster was a combination of all her monsters colliding together in one big
explosion (see Fig. 13).
Pulsation happens in children’s sand worlds, which often expand and fill up the
box or even overflow its boundaries into the play space and then contract into a tight
center and then move outwards and/or upwards again. This may manifest in how a
child moves within themselves and through the space. It may show up in their clay
construction/destructions. It will show up in the sequence of monster drawings if
there is a sequence. It is life force in motion before our very eyes, initiated by the
innate impulse to grow and embody that is our birthright.

Fig. 14 The Great Wave off Kanagawa—Katsushika Hokusai

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Epilogue

When I began to train as a dance/movement therapist and people asked me what

dance/movement therapy was, I was unable to describe it in words. This was true
when I began to work as a play therapist as well. Somehow they both seemed
ineffable, a process I understood but could not put into words. After writing two
books and editing two others on a movement based play therapy approach and
giving keynotes and workshops all over the world, I can describe theses processes
using words. But I would still prefer to offer the iconic image below as an
explanation. This print by Katsushika Hokusai entitled ‘‘The Great Wave’’ depicts
fishermen riding into the giant wave, not away from it (Fig. 14).
I would say that dance/movement therapy and play therapy are both a means of
entering the giant wave of life, and finding sustenance there.

Acknowledgements Some of the material in this keynote appeared in the following books published by
Jessica Kingsley Publishers. ‘‘If You Turned into a Monster…’’ Transformation through Play, A Body-
Centered Approach to Play Therapy, 2007 and A Manual of Dynamic Play Therapy—Helping Things Fall
Apart, The Paradox of Play, 2012.

Compliance with Ethical Standards

Conflict of interest The author declared that he has no conflict of interest. All images are printed with
permission.

Ethical Approval All case material has been altered to render the individuals unrecognizable. This
article meets the necessary ethical standards. It does not contain any studies with human participants
performed by any authors.

References

Erikson, E. (1977). Toys and reasons. New York: WW Norton and Co.
Lowen, A. (1990). The spirituality of the body. New York: MacMillan.
Reich, W. (1986). The function of the orgasm. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Dennis McCarthy
is a licensed psychotherapist in New York where he maintains a large private practice. He has worked for
over forty years with children using play therapy and with adults using dreams and the body. He has
authored/edited several books and numerous articles in professional journals, including ‘‘A Manual of
Dynamic Play Therapy-Helping Things Fall Apart, The Paradox of Play’’ published by JKP. He leads
training workshops and supervises professionals. He also leads a biannual workshop in the Greek islands
entitled ‘‘The Heart Leaps Up…’’ which explores myth using the expressive arts.

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