Abstract

Therapeutic deep play has the capacity for children to express deep emotions, overcome seemingly insurmountable issues and resolve serious problems. Working with children in this profound way, therapists are able to not only eliminate symptoms, but to change the very structure of how children live with themselves, their defense and belief systems.

The contributors to this book all work deeply, allowing children to take risks in a safe environment, and become fully absorbed in physical play. Chapters include play with deep sandboxes, clay, water, and various objects, and look at a range of pertinent case studies to demonstrate the therapeutic techniques in practice, alongside the theoretical concepts in which they are grounded. A new theoretical approach is established that takes from psychoanalysis as well as neuroscience and behaviourism, and offers a depth psychology approach in the treatment of children.

This will be a valuable resource for anyone working therapeutically with children through play, including play therapists, psychotherapists, psychologists, arts therapists, counsellors, social workers and family therapists.

In this fascinating and moving book, Dennis McCarthy has drawn together very powerful material to show how deep play allows us to access that part of us which can be so well defended, but which, when found, enables the greatest transformation and healing.
The detailed but sensitive case studies not only fully illustrate the core concept, they draw the reader down into the playroom and on into the depths of the sandbox to sit right there alongside the child as if to witness their journey firsthand.
After reading this book, every play therapist will want a deep sand box in their playroom!

Ali Chown, Play Therapist and Specialist SMHE Practitioner
I am awestruck by the work of Dennis McCarthy, and the unique contribution of Deep Play to our understanding of fully embodied play's imperative. This wonderful volume teaches how to better support children's need for "descent" in claiming their potency and life-force, with support from adults so willing to engage!
Anna Kemble, Child and Family Therapist, Producer of The Moving Child Film
Beginners and experienced therapists will appreciate how this book, from start to finish, gives inspiration and guidance, examples and testimony, convincing evidence that imaginal processes and play-places can exist in our everyday lives, and that they heal.... I applaud Dennis McCarthy and his team of contributors for modeling ways of speaking about the work and presenting it, that reverberate with its bodily and energetic grounding together with the creative flights characterizing an immersion in play where the medium and the environment it creates are arguably the most potent healers.
from the foreword by Shaun McNiff, PhD, ATR, Author and Professor, Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Advanced Graduate Studies in Creativity, Imagination, and Leadership