Child-centered play therapy. Year of publication and magazine number: 2007, No. 4 Author: Landreth G.L. / Sweeney D.S. Commentary: Chapter from the book edited by G.L. Landreth “New Directions in Play Therapy,” published by Cogito Center (2007). Play therapy, like childhood itself, is a journey, an exciting process of exploration in which the therapist is lucky enough to participate. It is within this partnership or similar system of relationships that children in pain experience healing and understanding of their own self. Some of them make this journey within a personal relationship with the therapist, and others together with the therapist and other children. Group play therapy centered on child is truly a journey of discovery as children discover within themselves the resources for problem solving and healing. The psychotherapeutic approach, developed by Carl Rogers (1951) and adapted by Virginia Axline (1957) for counseling children, is based on creating an environment of permissiveness that promotes personal growth and allows the child to realize his full potential. The play therapist is not interested in the child’s problem, but in the child himself. For him, it is not the therapy that determines the prescription, but the prescription that determines the therapy. The play therapist does not concentrate on organizing the therapeutic process, but, trusting in the child’s inner strengths, strives to facilitate the development of the situation that arises in play therapy. It is a journey of discovery and exploration of the self. The therapist conducting child-centered play therapy groups must be well trained in both group and play therapy. These skills, however, remain secondary to the play therapist's attitude as defined by Landreth and Sweeney (1997): “Child-centered play therapy is not the robe that the play therapist puts on when entering the playroom.” , and takes it off, leaving there; rather, it is a philosophy that shapes the attitudes and behavior of a person whose life is spent in relationships with children. This is, on the one hand, the basic idea that the child inherently has a desire for growth and maturation, and on the other, a deep and abiding belief in the child’s capacity for constructive self-direction. Child-centered group play therapy is a complex psychotherapeutic system, and not simply the application of several techniques for building relationships" (p. 17). CHILD-CENTERED THEORY Child-centered play therapy is based on the theoretical constructs of client-centered therapy developed by Carl Rogers (Rogers, 1951). These constructs were used by Rogers' student and colleague Virginia Exline in play therapy with children. The child-centered approach to play therapy is based on the same principle that client-centered therapy is built on: the main thing is not to act, but to simply be there for the child. This is not so much a process of reparation as a process of formation. Rogers (1986) summarizes the essence of the approach as follows: “The client-centered approach is, therefore, primarily a way of being that is expressed in attitudes and actions that create an atmosphere conducive to personal growth. It is more of a basic philosophy than just a technique or method. It helps a person to freely develop the capabilities inherent in him and stimulates constructive changes in others. This philosophy gives a person strength, which, as experience shows, he strives to use for transformations both personally and socially” (p. 199). It is this constructive tendency, inherent in all people - and, generally speaking, in all living things - underlies a child-centered approach to child psychotherapy. The child-centered theory of personality structure is based on three main constructs: the organism (or person),the phenomenal field and the self (Rogers, 1951). OrganismThe organism is the whole child, the way he sees himself: his thoughts, feelings, actions, as well as physical characteristics. Since a person is always in the process of development, a child is “a complete organized system, a change in one part of which can lead to changes in any other” (Rogers, 1951, p. 487). The process of child development is emphasized because each child “exists in a constantly changing world of experience of which he is the center” (p. 483). Children interact with and respond to this constantly changing world of their own experience. Thus, there is a continuous dynamic intrapersonal interaction in which each child (organism), as an integral system, strives to actualize the self. Landreth and Sweeney (1997) argue that the dynamics of this living process create opportunities for movement towards the formation of a positively functioning personality, towards positive growth and improvement, towards independence, maturity and self-discovery. In this process, the child's behavior is directed towards a specific goal: he seeks to satisfy his own needs that arise in a unique phenomenal field, which is the reality for this particular child (Landreth, 1991). Phenomenal field The phenomenal field represents everything that happens to the organism in a specific period of time - on a conscious or unconscious level, both externally and internally, including sensations, thoughts, feelings and actions. In essence, the phenomenal field is an internal standard, a basis for a worldview; in other words, reality for the child is his subjective understanding of what is happening. This allows us to derive the basic rule of child-centered play therapy: if we want to understand the child and his behavior, we must understand his way of perceiving reality. Thus, what is in the child’s phenomenal field is more important than the events that actually occur. The strength of emotions experienced by a child depends on how important behavior is aimed at preserving and maintaining the body. Rogers (1951) proposed that “the essence of behavior is the organism's orientation towards achieving a goal—the satisfaction of needs arising in the phenomenal field” (p. 491). Reality is thus determined individually and subjectively. This concept is central to child-centered play therapy. The behavior of any child or group of children can only be understood by looking at them through a child's eyes. Consequently, the therapist deliberately tries not to judge or evaluate even the smallest manifestations of the child's behavior (for example, drawings, building with blocks, sand scenes) and works diligently to try to understand the internal reference system of each child in the group (Landreth, Sweeney, 1997). If the therapist is able to establish personal contact with the child, the child's phenomenal world must be a point of reference to be understood. Children should not be expected to meet predetermined criteria or fit into predetermined categories (Landreth, 1991). Child Self The third major construct of child-centered personality structure theory is the self. It is a distinct aspect of the phenomenal field that grows out of “the child's evaluative interaction with others” (Rogers, 1951, p. 498). The perception of others of the child's emotional and behavioral activity and their corresponding reactions lead to the formation of the self-concept. The self is formulated as “an organized picture existing in the mind as a figure... or background..., itself and self-in-relationships..., together with positive or negative values ​​that are associated with certain qualities and relationships perceived as existing in the past, present, or future" (p. 501). According to Rogers (1951), even infants have a process of "direct evaluation at the level.