Gestalt play therapy

Domain VIII · Creative & expressive arts therapies · Violet Oaklander · 1978

What it is

Gestalt play therapy in this sense is Violet Oaklander's adaptation of Gestalt therapy (Perls and the Gestalt school: contact, awareness, organismic self-regulation, the I-Thou relationship drawn from Buber) for children and adolescents, using creative, sensory and projective media as the way in.…

Format

• Oaklander describes elements, not fixed phases: they "are not strictly sequential" and the therapist moves back and forth between them in any session.
• Session format. Individual sessions, usually weekly; Oaklander's long case (Joey) ran weekly for about 1.5 years with parents joining every few sessions. Parents attend the first session together with the child and join family sessions every three to four weeks; sometimes the family is seen without…

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Gestalt play therapy in this sense is Violet Oaklander's adaptation of Gestalt therapy (Perls and the Gestalt school: contact, awareness, organismic self-regulation, the I-Thou relationship drawn from Buber) for children and adolescents, using creative, sensory and projective media as the way in. These Gestalt concepts belong to Oaklander and the Gestalt school; they are a theory of change, not established fact. Its…
• Professional frame. There is no separately regulated profession of "Gestalt play therapist". The model is used by already licensed or registered mental-health professionals with child training (counsellors, psychologists, social workers, play, art and family therapists). Oaklander-specific training: her former two-week Santa Barbara intensives, now continued by Karen Fried in Santa Monica (Oaklander Training; Violet…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• Does it involve intense or unusual breathing? Have you been told about the medical conditions for which that is not advised?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• How do you and the practitioner understand what is happening, in spiritual or cultural terms? Is that a source of comfort, worry, or both?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• Do not interpret symbols for the child.
• Pride, persistence and the child's own solution.
• Clear, owned statements and pleasure in being known.
• Strong material may surface quickly; leave time to ground.
• Distress beyond mild discomfort means drop the demand for now.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.