ABSTRACT
In this chapter, two questions are discussed in the framework of the interdisciplinary seminar: (a) how is the play therapy experience in the clinic generalized and transferred to the clients' real life? (b) how are changes achieved by play therapy in a session carried over to further sessions and accumulate in the therapeutic process? The main answer given to the first question was: Play-therapeutic moves that manage to restore emotion-balance, bust bugs and promote learning and development affect the ways clients feel about and understand themselves, the others and their life. They process information differently, in more functional ways, and produce output that restores their ability to mobilize corrective feedback. A question asked was what the differential advantage of play therapy vs. verbal therapy is, from the viewpoint of transfer and generalization from the clinic to the real world. It was argued that the emotion-balancing powers of make-believe play and the play bug-busters bypass the defenses and create an immediate emotional experience that also makes it possible to gain insight, without going into elaborate explanations and interpretations. Another question discussed was cases in which generalization and transfer from the play room to real life do not work. Such failures can result from cognitive limitations, from over-heated emotions or from resistance. Make-believe play is apt to traumatize post-traumatic children. Various ways to overcome such failures are discussed. As to the second question, it was pointed out that the results of play therapeutic interventions are not always predictable. However, one should consider the following: Changes achieved in one session can prepare the ground for further changes that can be reinforced by our new play-therapeutic moves. Repeating the same play over and over again in different sessions can strengthen and stabilize what has been achieved. Since all the programs within the person and between persons are inter-related, changes that take place in one program can spread to other programs or co-occur in other programs.
