Themes in Play Therapy

Adapted from Helen E. Benedict, Ph.D., RPT-S

Children’s Play Themes

THEMATIC CONTENT CATEGORIES
POWER AND AGGRESSIVE THEMES: These are themes characterized by aggression or assertion of power in some form,
whether expressed directly or indirectly through the play theme. Several categories of aggression themes are suggested
below:
Good guy verses bad guy:
Aggressive play where there is a clear good vs. bad character component. Example: child and therapist are sheriffs shooting
imaginary bad guys. Clearly good popular figures as police, superman, and power rangers would be included here.
Possible meaning to child:
1) child feels he is bad with concomitant low self-esteem and probably poor self-control;
2) child is engaging in splitting as a defense against simultaneous awareness of contradictory feelings about the self or
others (while normative in infancy, child may not have made developmentally appropriate progress in being about to accept
the good and bad parts of the self or the caretaker).
3) child may be preoccupied with questions of goodness and badness, being “super good” to win approval of others. Child
must be constantly vigilant in play so “bad” behavior doesn’t occur.
4) developmentally appropriate playing out of big-little issues.
5) child may have unstable, un-metabolized part-objects that indicate a lack of integration of representations of the object
that occurs under not good enough circumstances.
Aggressive-victim play:
Aggressive play in which there is a clear aggressor and clear victim without the element of good-bad. Example: the lion
beats up the baby tiger “cause he’s mean”. The mode of aggression may include throwing toys, hitting, biting, verbal
aggression, shooting, knifing, etc. This play has aggressive content and feel as well as a clear victim. Includes play where
the child is aggressor and therapist is victim as in child shooing and “killing” therapist.
Possible meaning to child:
a. child in aggressor role:
1) child feels a victim in daily life and tries to shift to be the one in control in play
2) child may have strong angry feelings expressed this way
3) child may feel powerless in daily life and acts as aggressor to gain sense of control
4) aggressive role may indicate way child in is in daily-life-may include significant feelings of being unable to control one’s
angry feelings
5) by looking at what character is in the victim role may learn where conflicted relationships exist in child’s life. For example,
Jose, a 4-year-old boy in a violent home, constantly played angry daddy tiger beating up baby tiger.
6) passive role in real life is shifted to active role in play
b. child in victim role:
1) child may be indicating that child is a victim of experience that feels abusive to him/her
2) child may be indicating a sense of control over daily life
3) child may be seeking a way to increase sense of safety by involving the therapist in caring for the victim.
General aggression*:
This category would include a “room wreck” where the child dumps toys all over room in anger. Also includes hitting, kicking,
biting, throwing toys in the room without being part of an explicit theme.
Possible meanings to child:
1) child may have angry feelings without any clear sense of why feeling angry
2) child may be angry with therapist and unable to express it directly to therapist
3) child may lose control because play touches on a different issue and child is angry that the feelings or events have been
recalled.
4) child may be effectively stimulated which leads to an explosion of feeling.
Death play:
This play involves one or more character (or inanimate object that have been given animate properties by the child) dying of
natural or aggressive causes. Qualitative research of death themes suggests seven death play categories below (McClain,
1998)
1) anger-death: child uses death as a marker to indicate anger, his own or someone else’s;
2) separation-death: child uses death play to indicate real life separation between people;
3) overwhelmed and harmed death: child uses death to indicate feeling overwhelmed or harmed;
4) safety-death: here death is used to provide safety to a play character or the child by killing a character that was
threatening or scaring others;
5) dependency-death: here death is used to show dependency needs or to elicit being taken care of in the play;
6) control-death: here the emphasis is on death to indicate character or the child’s life or death power over another;
7) devouring death: this is the only category based on way character dies; eating death suggests rage or extreme oral
aggression.
Other possible meanings
8) child may have experienced a death and is using play to try to understand that death;
9) an end or completion to prepare for rebirth
Powerful figure overcoming weaker figure:
This play involves power relationships without clear good-bad distinction or aggressive component. Emphasis is on strength
and power. Example: Davy (5) has an airplane that is stronger than all the others who aren’t allowed to land on the best
landing place. Includes boss-worker and teacher-student play where one figure has the power.
Possible meanings to the child:
1) child is feeling weak and wants to feel strong; the child is identifying with the strong person
2) child is encountering a negative power figure (bully, demanding teacher, etc.) in daily life;
3) child is demonstrating normal needs for initiative and mastery
Devouring:
One character eating or devouring another. The character is usually described or enacted as eating up the other character
or devouring a non-food object. For example, a monster came after Hetty (4) and eats her all up.
Possible meanings to the child:
1) child sees eating as a form of aggression, perhaps because the child’s caregiver withheld nurturance as punishment or
because eating situations have become imbued with high levels of conflict within the family: oral aggression.
2) child is expressing intense rage toward the eaten object.
3) child feels endangered by some attachment object that is either abusive or lacks appropriate psychological boundaries.
4) child is experiencing distressing feeling that feels overwhelming to the child.
5) child is using incorporation to take the important object into the self.
Seeking:
Seeking or consulting a power figure such as a parent, judge, teacher, boss, or mystical/supernatural power such as a
Wizard, Good Witch, God, or Jesus.
1) child wants an authority figure to make things right
2) child is hoping for a magical solution
3) child’s spiritually seeking some higher authority, whether explicitly taught in a formal religion or arising from the natural
spiritual nature of the child.
Juvenile Delinquency:
Noted when the child is acting out actual crimes such as robbery, murder, vandalism, etc. Only noted when child is explicit
playing the role, not when another character is stealing and the child police trying to stop it.
Possible meanings to the child:
1) child is showing significant conduct problems in real life and showing this to therapist
2) child may be indicating depth of anger at a specific target.
FAMILY AND NURTURANCE THEMES
Constancy play: includes games to establish identify of child or caregiver such as hide and seek, peek a boo, hiding things
including objects and intangibles such as pretend objects, and naming games where activity consists of repeatedly saying
the child’s name or therapists name to establish identity. Other examples of this type of play include mirror play, when the
child uses a mirror to identify self or others or takes pictures of characters or objects in room and separation games such as
“catch me” where the child runs out and the therapist is supposed to catch the child. Also include pretend phone calls to
teacher or caregiver.
Possible meanings to child:
1) child has a tenuous sense of trust and is using these games to test the trustworthiness of the therapist;
2) child has difficulty maintaining a constant mental image of important adults and uses the separation and reunion inherent
in such play to help build such an image. Commonly seen in children with attachment issues.
3) child is trying to develop object constancy and self-constancy by testing itself and others are still the same after brief
separation
4) child may use pictures, drawings of things in the room or objects brought home as transitional phenomena
Separation play:
Whenever someone leaves or separates from someone wise, such as mother going shopping and leaving the child home, or
some character moving away.
Possible meanings to the child:
1) child is reenacting through play separation/individuation play of toddlers either at the practicing or rapprochement stage
2) child has experienced a traumatic separation and reenacts it through play
3) child has an anxious attachment to the caregiver and practices controlling who moves away
4) child may wish to separate from an abusive situation
5) child may view separation from the caregiver as a punishment.
Reunion play:
Include here reunions or returns following separation
Possible meanings to child:
1) child is re-enacting the reunion play seen in the separation/ individuation process (Mahler) perhaps emotion; refueling”
like a toddler in the practicing sub phase.
2) child wishes to be reunited with a significant other and plays this out in a fantasy
3) separation and reunion sequences may suggest ambivalence about attachment or about the loss and reunion
characteristics of rapprochement
4) child may be reenacting a previous reunion in order to process his/her feelings about the loss and reunion.
Nurturing play:
Positive nurturing activities such as one character feeding, giving things to another, holding, hugging, taking care of as with a
baby or sick person, etc.
Possible meanings to child:
1) child has strong need for nurturance from others.
2) child has been parentified and tries to gain acceptance from therapist by nurturing or taking care of him/her.
3) child has a healthy ability to nurture and care for other.
4) child identifies with the baby and caring for the baby feels cared for; often children will care for the baby first and then
become the baby to be cared for by the therapist.
Self-Nurturing:
Anytime the child uses baby things to obviously comfort him or herself, as when the child takes a bottle, hides under the bed
and sucks.
Possible meanings to the child:
1) child needs nurturance but doesn’t trust the world to provide nurturance so self-nurtures
2) child comforts self after difficult, emotional play
3) child has attachment problems characterized by parentification and thus is hyper-responsible
4) pseudo autonomous, false independence so won’t be disappointed if seeks nurturance and is rebuffed
5) child may show self-nurturance, where the child gets bottle and other comforts for the self and moves away from the
therapist; suggests the child does not trust others to meet needs and must do it alone
Failed Nurturing:
Any time that nurturance type activities are actually negative such as one character withholding nurturance from another;
one character needing nurturance but not getting any; one character abusing another; neglect or poor care (e.g. dropping
baby while caring for it); or one character punishing another.
Possible meanings to child:
1) child may be presenting current or past experience of abuse, neglect, or poor care;
2) child may be punishing his/her “baby self” for bad thoughts or actions he/she may have/ had in the past
3) child may be expressing jealousy and anger toward a younger sibling
Neglect, abuse, or punishment of the self:
Anytime the child withholds nurturance from the self or punishes the self as when a child hits himself when he was doing
something he thinks is wrong. Includes child placing self in danger by climbing in dangerous places, etc.
Possible meanings to child:
1) child has experienced physical or emotional abuse and is showing that experience
2) child has developed a negative internal working model of the self and feels he/she must be punished for some “badness”
or wrongdoing
3) child feels guilty and wants to punish the self
4) child may have an insecure, anxious attachment where the self is “bad” and needs to be hurt or punished
5) may indicate the development of an obstinate attachment (Fairbairn) where the child needs to keep the self bad to defend
against perception of the bad object
6) child can exhibit self-abuse, which suggests a more severely impaired sense of the self as good and worthy of care
giving; particularly likely to be seen when severe abuse or attachment failure has occurred
Store and shopping: Any activities where a child sets up a store, has the therapist be a storekeeper, or has character go
shopping for things.
Possible meanings to child:
1) child is feeling needy and wants things to fill those needs
2) child wants to have control of all the good things in the room
Adult activities:
Any activities clearly associated with being an adult such as going steady, going on a date, putting on make-up, etc.
Possible meanings to child:
1) child may be preoccupied with adult activities in a wish to be older and more powerful and hence safer in the world
2) child may be “parentified” and parent may push child (perhaps through protective identification) to meet the parent’s
needs.
3) child has identified with an older sibling or adult and wants to be like them either to receive their approval or to magically
provide safety or comfort to self as if the other is parent
CONTROL AND SAFETY THEMES
Fire play:
This is where something is burning or on fire.
Possible meanings to child:
1) fear of destructive power of the child’s rage;
2) aggression or expression of anger; the thing burning may indicate what feels unsafe or what has disappointed the child in
the past as a child who burned rescue vehicles after child and mother were mugged in their own home
3) kinesthetic memory of pain such as sex abuse
Burying or drowning:
Often children bury characters or objects under the sand (if there is a sandbox) or under piles of toys or under a beanbag
chair. Similarly, when there is water present, children often have a character drown.
Possible meanings to child:
1) hopelessness or depression for the child, especially with water
2) secrets, as in things hidden under the sand
3) in burying, it may indicate safety, as in when a character hides under the sand from an aggressor
4) anger or aggression toward the buried, drowned person
5) concern with death, especially with a recent death in real life
6) mastery or empowerment when the child buries a dangerous figure
Broken play:
Here some character or object is broken, sick, or hurt and needs to be fixed. Special coding is used to indicate when the
child is broken or hurt in play (broken self) and whenever a house is destroyed or broken (broken house). Is not treated as a
theme when one of the toys actually breaks.
Possible meanings to child:
1) this may indicate the child’s fear that he/she is broken or damaged in some way;
2) the child may be indicating self-image issues with feeling that he/she is sick or damaged;
3) child may be re-experiencing past injuries or illnesses, such as Davy (age 5), who himself had undergone surgeries, who
operated on the bobo doll who got hurt in an angry fire and gave him such big shots that he would scream his insides out.
4) child may be indicating broken relationships in his life
5) child may be indicating the world feels broken and thus unsafe
6) broken house: child may be indicating that the home is unsafe, unstable, or breaking apart as in divorce
7) child’s developing self-representation may be fragmented
Fixing play:
Fixing play occurs whenever something broken and is fixed by repairs like gluing, doctoring, etc. It differs from rescued
because the character is not “endangered” first. Includes child-initiated attempts to repair broken toys.
Possible meanings to child:
1) can be child’s metaphor for therapy, which they see as fixing something wrong with the child;
2) child may be showing desire to feel OK or “fixed’;
3) child may engage in this play to “undo” previous aggressive play that the child fears in unacceptable, such as doctoring
the therapist after having shot the therapist.
4) child showing mastery of world by fixing things that have been broken. One child who had has a chaotic and unsafe past
spent many sessions using a screwdriver to “fix” some cardboard boxes over and over.
Failure to fix:
Noted whenever a problem or object cannot be fixed. For example, when a child has a fire and fire engines come to put out
the fire, but they crash and catch on fire themselves, or when the child states, “it can’t be fixed.”
Possible meanings to child:
1) child may feel hopeless or overwhelmed
2) child may be depressed and assume no one will help
3) child is testing the therapist to if therapist will try to fix what feels “unfixable”
Self-fixing:
Coded when the child fixes something broken about him or herself by him or herself
Possible meanings to child:
1) child may feel progress is entirely up to the child;
2) child may be “parentified” and feel responsible for “fixing” the family or him/herself
Bridge-building play:
Whenever the child builds a structure (broadly defined), which serves as a bridge between two places, objects, or character
Possible meanings to child:
1) child may be beginning to be hopeful about reaching out to others
2) child may be making connections between various roles or events in his/her life
3) child may be enacting rescue or other problem-solving solution to a situation
Instability play:
Whenever people or things are falling off surfaces or things are precariously balanced as if going to fall or things fall apart
such as a house walls falling down
Possible meanings to child:
1) child may feel his world is falling apart
2) the particular character falling may indicate roles or persons who appear unstable or unreliable to the child
3) child may see damage in the world
4) child may indicate a particular arena where he/she feel unstable and unsafe
Cleaning play:
Child plays about cleaning something that is dirty or nasty. The child typically plays about cleaning (e.g. washing dishes) or
spontaneously cleans up the playroom during the mid-part of a session. Can include rearranging the playroom either to get it
just right or to rectify changes made by other children who used the room. Do not include therapist initiated clean up at the
end of session.
Possible meanings to child:
1) may indicate a child who manages anxiety by keeping everything clean and perfect;
2) child may be fearful of parental disapproval if doesn’t keep everything clean and neat
3) child may be trying to “undo” or make OK angry, aggressive, or messy play.
Messing play:
Child engages in messy play (e.g. pouring water around room) or has characters “make a mess”
Possible meanings to child:
1) child may indicate aggression toward therapist;
2) child may be indicating a sense of things being out of control, a chaotic world;
3) child may be trying out messy in contrast to previous excessive needs to be in control
4) child may be testing therapist to see if the therapists will such play and by extension, be able to handle the child’s messy
feelings
Sorting play:
Whenever the child lines up or sorts them into categories such as lining all the good dinosaurs up in one row and all the bad
ones in another or putting the animals in family groups.
Possible meanings to child:
1) the child’s world feels chaotic and the child is trying to establish a sense of order;
2) the child is concerned with sorting out good from bad, either in reference to people in his/her world or in general as part of
the moral development appropriate for the child’s age
3) child is constantly sorting to regain control after particularly intense play, often sorting briefly as child calms down and then
resuming the play
SAFETY PLAY:
These themes focus on establishing safety for the child or identified character
Containing play:
In this play the child may build cages for animals, build a house of large blocks and put self or animals inside, build a jail,
putting a play figure in jail. In this play, the focus is on keeping something inside or outside a particular space. Includes
secrets. Differs from hiding, which emphasizes interaction, rather than containing something.
Possible meanings to child:
1) the child may feel it is important to keep his/her feelings contained, particularly angry feelings;
2) the child may come from a home where it is not OK to talk about things (like the “elephant in the living room” of home with
an alcoholic or mentally ill parent) and the child uses the container to carefully enclose things.
3) may indicate child’s attempt to gain power over the contained object or character;
4) child may be indirectly asking the therapist to keep the boundaries for him/her.
Protective play:
Here the issue is keeping something out of danger. Would include building a wall during play and shooting at something
beyond the wall with the wall protecting from some danger, or hiding in the play house, or having the therapist need to hover
to keep climbing safe, or hiding a character in a drawer to be safe
Possible meanings to child:
1) play where the therapist provides protection may be elicited by a child who often feels unsafe;
2) child may feel a need to protect important others, such as Ellie (age 8) who in real life feels responsible for her alcoholic
mother playing about being a super strong witch who protects all the animals in the forest.
3) child is seeking to protect him or herself from dangers
Dangers themes:
This is play where a potential danger is identified and needs to be responded to. Some of the dangers children play about
include a dangerous person, a dangerous fantastic figure such as monster or witch, a dangerous place such as a dangerous
house (falls on people, explodes, catches on fire, monsters in house), a dangerous animal, or a character alone,
abandoned, lost, or himself.
Possible meanings to child:
1) child may be indicating a sense that the world is unsafe
2) child may be indicating ways he/she has experienced danger in the past, for example, Jimmy (age 6) played that the
house burned down after his own house burned in a fire
3) child may be indicating a general plea for help
Rescue play:
This is play where an endangered character is rescued. The rescuer may be a doctor, “superduck, a policeman, someone
who adopts abandoned child, etc.
Possible meanings to child:
1) child may be showing wish for rescue;
2) child may be showing how the therapist feels to the child- i.e. as someone who rescues or has rescued him or her from
some danger or fear
3) child may set up rescue scenes and then not allow a rescue to indicate hopelessness and the dealing no one can help
them.
Escapes:
Whenever a character escapes from a bad situation without help from a rescue figure. The child has the endangered
character rescue or to save himself.
Possible meanings to child:
1) child may feel safety is entirely up to him/her as only self-rescue is possible
2) child may be showing the therapist how he/she wants to be rescued.
3) child may feel unable to trust anyone to rescue them and thus does it on own
4) child may be indicating a new sense of empowerment when the main character I sable to protect him or herself in danger
EXPLORATION AND MASTERY, AND SEXUALIZED PLAY THEMES
Exploration:
Exploration is seen in the child checking out toys in the room, asking questions about what is available in how things work.
Possible meanings to child:
1) this play is most commonly seen in the beginning of the assessment or therapy when the child is first encountering the
therapy setting;
2) sometimes the child will move to exploration when the play content is becoming too intense or uncomfortable in order to
regroup and reestablish other play
3) may indicate the exploration of practicing sub phase; indicates healthy negotiation or reworking of this phase.
Mastery play:
In mastery play the child builds something, is able to do a physical task like hit the ball with a bat or is able to master some
skill or is able to master some skill or ability. Typical toys for this include bristle blocks, Legos, puzzles, and building with
blocks as if trying to see how well can balance or how high can build them.
Possible meanings to child:
1) child may engage in this play as he/she begins to fell more in control of feelings and actions;
2) child may attempt activities and fail in order to show the therapist their “bad” self;
3) child may need to be able to do more adult things to feel safe, especially if the child has been parentified.
4) child may show mastery at the beginning of therapy to make fear and anxiety or to prove to the therapist that the child is
somehow not “bad” and needing help.
5) child may be using mastery activities to show self and/or therapist that he/she fells ready to terminate
Fail:
In mastery play, some children constantly cannot master things, giving up easily or being easily discourages from trying at
all. It may include expressed frustration or verbalizations of “I can’t do it”.
Possible meanings to child:
1) child may have low self-esteem with minimal expectancies that he/she can affect things from self-effort
2) child may have development limitations and therefore a history of failure in mastering things and actions
3) child may fail to elicit care giving and help from the therapist
Sexual activities:
On the part of dolls and or animals includes such things as oral or genital sexual contact between dolls.
Possible meanings:
1) child has been exposed to sexual activity he or she doesn’t understand, such as sexually explicit videos;
2) the child may have been sexually abused;
3) child may have learned that sexual activities garner the immediate attention of adults and may be seeking the therapist’s
attention;
4) child may be curious about sexuality
Sexual Behaviors directed at therapist:
Including attempted sexual contact with therapist, exhibitionism, and attempts to look at look at therapist private parts (look
up skirt or down shirt)
Possible meanings to child: same as above plus
1) child may be testing whether the therapist will keep the child safe from sexual activities
2) child may wish to be close to therapist and because of prior abuse, may have learned sexualized play is the way to gain
adult’s approval or closeness
Sexual talk:
Child using cussing words or body part words 11

Possible meanings to child:

1) child may be testing the therapist’s limits and rules
2) child may know the word to upset parents and wants the therapist to explain why
3) may suggest sexual over-simulation (including possible abuse)
Sexual curiosity
Looking at body parts, undressing dolls
Possible meanings to child:
while this may indicate themes as above, also commonly seen in normal children, especially preschoolers.