ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces play as an essential language of childhood. It focuses specifically on how play is defined and understood within FELT, and it offers a framework of five important features of play within the FELT mode, namely that it 1) is fun, 2) uses metaphor, 3) is relatively unfiltered, 4) promotes skill building, and 5) demands interpersonal exchanges. Next, the chapter makes a distinction between “regular” play and “therapeutic” play. FELT also places an emphasis on storytelling; so this chapter also reviews how storytelling tactics are used to maximize the familiarity of play-based stories to a child client’s actual, real-life narrative. Finally, the chapter concludes with an overview of the rest of the book.
