Understanding Resistance in Play Therapy: Causes and Manifestations

Resistance in play therapy is a significant challenge for many play therapists working with children. This stems from many reasons making a child unable to express emotions, including small matters to large unresolved trauma. Resistance can manifest in forms of isolation, withdrawal, or dismissive statements like “I don’t want to talk about it” or “I’m not interested in playing,” making the entire therapeutic process quite challenging. 

Addressing such resistance with play therapy is a common and essential approach while working with difficult children. Fostering a supportive and secure environment and providing kids with effective tools to develop healthy coping mechanisms will result in great therapeutic outcomes. This strategy not only helps them heal from trauma but assists in developing resilience and healthier emotional responses.

A beloved therapist and presenter, Liana Lowenstein, offers a holistic approach and various tools to overcome this problem. Her techniques help therapists create meaningful connections and guide children toward emotional development. Let’s understand the core of resistance in play therapy and learn practical solutions for resistance in play therapy with the help of beloved therapist of Core Wellness, Liana Lowenstein.   

Explore The Wonders of Play Therapy With Liana Lowenstein

Liana Lowenstein is a beloved child therapist with decades of experience in working with children and their families. She’s a certified Play Therapist-Supervisor and TF-CBT Therapist based in Toronto, Canada. She has also won the Monica Herbert Award for her outstanding contribution to play therapy in Canada. Her practical, hands-on approach is very notable among mental health professionals who use her 15 books as a trusted resource for play therapy worldwide. She has also served as a registered social worker and has provided training throughout North America and abroad, including China, South Africa, Israel, England, New Zealand, Australia, and Slovenia, through her dynamic speaking skills. 

Her extensive experience has led her to develop many engaging on-demand courses that are helpful for therapists to overcome resistance in play therapy. She has based her courses on evidence-based methods and techniques to work with hesitant children and help them engage in play therapy using different materials, like puppets, games, storytelling, etc. These courses are designed for therapists to offer creative interventions for play therapy while being mindful of their hesitant behavior and staying empathetic towards them in a non-judgmental environment. Some of her most prominent Courses are described below:

• Creative Use of Puppets in Play Therapy

Liana teaches therapists how they can introduce the creative use of puppets in play therapy to diagnose and offer therapeutic effects in children. This strategy can also help overcome the emotional barrier that causes children to be reluctant to participate in play therapy. 

• Creative Interventions for Children with ADHD

In her course, Liana describes how directive play therapy for ADHD can help kids with hyperactivity, impulsivity, and attention deficit problems. She offers tips for both parents and teachers as well for the long-term effects of play therapy with fruitful outcomes. 

• Creative Play Therapy Interventions for Hard-to-Engage Children

This course is specially designed to effectively help children who are most resistant to therapy due to a host of reasons. She uses different techniques to offer creative interventions for hard to engage children to resolve their underlying issues. 

• Creative Play Therapy Interventions for Grieving Children

In this course, she reveals her secret of using art therapy as a creative intervention for grieving children to overcome reluctance from these kids due to trauma. Such kids may feel abandoned, neglected, or have gone through loss, which can result in isolation. Using art as an emotional outlet serves as a great tool to bring these children back to life. 

• Play Therapy Skills for Emotional Regulation

Here, Liana teaches how to use bubbles, slime, lego, and more to develop emotional regulation and social skills in children while overcoming their reluctance to participate in therapeutic activities. Using games, storytelling, and other fun activities helps children open up and encourage them to practice strategies learned during sessions. 

• Tips and Techniques for Playful Online Therapy 

Liana also shares her expertise in teletherapy, providing innovative strategies to help children virtually with online counseling. Her online therapy techniques integrate virtual play rooms to provide children with a playful outlet of emotions even when conventional methods are not viable.  

What is Resistance in Play Therapy?

A child’s refusal to engage in therapeutic activities is termed resistance in play therapy. This refusal makes the therapeutic process almost a wasted potential, and forcing kids or pressuring them to participate only results in solidifying their underlying issue. This resistance can take many forms, from mild to severe, and includes avoidance, disobedience, emotional withdrawal, cognitive distraction, or even selective mutism. 

Such extreme resistance in children can make them completely isolated or stop socializing with peers. There are various reasons for a child to develop reluctance; it can be psychological, emotional, or due to a serious trauma. To effectively overcome this barrier, play therapists must first understand this underlying cause and adjust their approach accordingly. 

Causes of Resistance in Play Therapy and How They Can Be Addressed

As mentioned above, there are several reasons for resistance to play therapy by certain kids. This reluctance is often rooted in some underlying cause, which can reveal a lot about a child’s emotional and mental state. Play therapists are supposed to uproot these causes to understand the reason behind this hindrance to a well-targeted therapeutic intervention. n

Developmental Factors

Every developmental stage brings something new for a child. A kid in the very early stages may participate less in activities due to physical limitations, such as verbal expression. Younger children are also unable to process abstract thinking and struggle to understand, which can manifest as resistance to participating in activities. 

Attachment Issues

Many children have unhealthy attachment styles due to trauma that may hinder them from trusting easily. Their deep-rooted abandonment issues and inability to trust adults result in isolation and disengagement. Such attachment issues can encourage them to develop emotional barriers, which restrict them from connecting with therapists. 

Environmental Factors

A child’s surroundings play a vital role in their development. Living in negative environments with unhealthy family dynamics can result in a reluctance to participate in activities. Generally, such circumstances develop deep-rooted issues that result in serious mental health dysregulation and may significantly affect a child’s development. 

Therapeutic Relationship

Children only open up where they feel most comfortable without fearing judgment or criticism. A child may not feel as connected initially, which may seem like reluctance. A healthy relationship with the child is necessary to help them express their emotions freely.  

Deep Fear of Change

Many children have a deep fear of change that may be due to some underlying trauma. A child may subconsciously be afraid of the emotional pain that may arise while addressing an underlying, deep-seated issue. The unpredictable nature of therapy may hinder them from being vulnerable, which is essential for therapy.   

Final Thoughts

Resistance in play therapy among children is a huge barrier to providing necessary interventions on time for healthy development. To overcome this barrier, Dr. Liana Lowenstein offers excellent on-demand and live courses to help fellow therapists provide better strategies to help kids express their feelings and emotions while learning healthier coping mechanisms to heal any underlying issues. 

You can find many of Liana Lowenstein’s courses at Core Wellness, which are designed for both professional and aspiring therapists to enhance their play therapy skills and strategies. You can take these courses at your convenience by opting for live or recorded classes to learn and enhance your current skill set. Visit Core Wellness today and become every child’s favorite therapist!