ABSTRACT
It is important to understand all clients, not just children, in the context of their developmental journey. Creative Play Therapy seeks to conceptualize a client and the client’s behaviors within the appropriate developmental context, seeking to understand earlier challenges and traumas and current functioning in the context of developmental norms and expectations. Seeking to understand the client’s life experiences and learning in the context of these norms and expectations gives the therapist a fuller understanding of the client’s attempts to meet unmet Core Needs in sometimes unhelpful ways. Authors summarize leading developmental theories in the areas of physical, social, cognitive, moral and spiritual development, including models from Havighurst, Erikson, Piaget, Kohlberg and Fowler. Tables present each theorist’s models side by side through Infancy, Early Childhood, Middle Childhood, Adolescence, Young Adulthood, Middle Adulthood and Older Adulthood. Authors also present stages of Identity Development which can help the reader conceptualize how clients develop personal labels, or identities, which may be true or false, readily noticed by others or private. Challenges in relying on stage models are also discussed.
