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Tag Archives: Philosophy

Play Therapy

14 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by rachelhofer in Play Therapy

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Blaise Pascal, Carl Jung, Children, Cognitive Development, Cognitive Theory, Freud, Intuition, Jean Piaget, Love, Philosophy, Plato, Play Therapy, Socrates, Toys

There will be another Play Therapy Class at Loga Springs Acedemy rescheduled (as advertised in the North Florida School Days magazine).

           What is Play Therapy?

The Association for Play Therapy defines play therapy as “the systematic use of a theoretical model to establish an interpersonal process wherein trained play therapists use the therapeutic powers of play to help clients prevent or resolve psychosocial difficulties and achieve optimal growth and development.”

Play is an Inalienable Right of Childhood
žThe United Nations has proclaimed play a universal and inalienable right of childhood (p. 10, Landreth). Everywhere in the world, children play. I can remember finding sticks in the backyard and using the leaves and dirt to build a city. Some of the neighborhood kids created a marble track in the woods. We played house and doctor. We organized a 3 neighborhood wide game of capture the flag and summoned the children in the neighborhoods near and far when we discovered we could create a massive cloud of bubbles by dipping our sticks and pulling them out frantically over the air conditioning fan outside our house. Kids saw this massive bubble cloud sign and came wanting to know what was happening over at our house.

Can you imagine what our lives would be like, what kind of miserable and unintelligible people we would have become if we had not been allowed to play and use our imagination? Such ideas have been explored in novels like “Hard Times” by Charles Dickens, where utilitarianism, only math, fact, and what is useful was part of the philosophy of education. Circus and play were motifs used to display the opposite of fact, fancy, and to highlight this suppressive utilitarian mechanization of the children’s lives. Fancy has an important place in life and in a philosophy of education and the United Nations has deemed play so important as to forbid it being suppressed in the human soul. It is a human right and it is children’s ‘work’ to play.

What does a philosophy and psychology of PLAY have to do with it?

žI find that this is right in line with my beliefs about the importance and place of intuitions of the heart in the understanding of science, philosophy, ontology (the nature of being), metaphysics (the nature of reality), and epistemology (the nature of knowing). We must not only educate the mind but also the heart must have a place in education and does despite any efforts or attestations to the contrary. Pascal was a mathematician and philosopher, a famous and genius one at that, recognized by the likes of Friedrich Neitzsche. From his heart and mind came genius ideas such as on the one hand the discovery of theories like “Pascal’s Triangle” and on the other the invention of the ‘bus’ (from Latin ‘omnius’ meaning ‘everywhere’) as a charity to help those less fortunate to travel and benefit from the community. Some of the greatest inventions have come not from reasoned study, but out of intuition such as Isaac Newton when he watched an apple fall and suddenly connected its motion as being caused by the same gravitational force that controlled the moon’s attraction to the earth. Another example would be Frederich Kekule’s discovery of the structure of Benzine which he dreampt as a snake being coiled in a circle biting it’s tail. This discovery opened the way to many theories of organic chemistry.

Pascal noted in his philosophy and apologetic for Christianity that the intuitions of the heart are essential even in math when it comes to basic concepts in geometry and science such as space and time, which are intuitive rather than reasonable. They are also what lead him to a knowledge of his own depravity and inability to understand both the monstrous evil in man and the glory and dignity.

Socrates held in high value the Delphic maxim, “Know thyself.” He said the unexamined life is not worth living (The Apology, 38A). “And what do you suppose a man must know to know himself, his own name merely? Or must he consider what sort of creature he is …(Xenophon, Mem. iv, 2, 24).”

žIf not to understand ourselves better and to process our own experience as human beings, what is counseling for? Pascal was a mathematician and worked on ‘probability theory’. He applied this also to his understanding of man, and worked out a more ‘reasonable’ reason to his skepticism about life. He found we can never really be certain of anything. We can not escape ‘probability,’ ‘doubt’, and ‘trust’ even in science, let alone in relationships. He laid out his famous ‘Pascal’s Wager’ in regards to the Christian faith and understanding of man. In his view the only way we can ever be certain of anything is through faith and love. We can base our faith on sound empirical and reasoned arguments, but there is always room for skepticism and doubt. I would argue that play is a way for us to strengthen those trust muscles, to get in touch with our intuitions and to love.

According to the psychologists Freud and Jung, play is a way of acccessing the unconscious, where the intuitions reside. Freud called psychoanalysis in essence a cure through love.

žIn recent years a growing number of noted mental health professionals have observed that play is as important to human happiness and well being as love and work (Schaefer, 1993). Some of the greatest thinkers of all time, including Aristotle and Plato, have reflected on why play is so fundamental in our lives. How can we discover ourselves better than through play?“

According to Piaget (1962) play bridges the gap between concrete experience and abstract thought and it is the symbolic function of play that is so important (p.11).” – Garry L. Landreth in

The swiss psychologist Piaget shaped much of cognitive theory, including its relationship to socialization. In the 1920s Piaget observed children reasoning and understanding differently, depending on their age. He proposed that all children progress through a series of cognitive stages of development, just as they progress through a series of physical stages of development. According to his theory, until around adolescense the brain still needs concrete objects to make rational judgements. His theory, along with Pascal’s theory about how we know and understand reality, are some of the reasons I use play as part of my therapy with adults and especially children.

I am not a play therapist but I do use play therapy techniques and toys in my therapy with children and adults and have attended play therapy trainings.

http://www.a4pt.org

Landreth, Garry L. Play Therapy: The Art of Relationship. Second Edition.

Schaefer, C. E. (1993). The therapeutic power of play. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, Inc.

* For those interested- Pascal’s model of how we know and understand the world, the orders of being: physical, mind, love; and the corresponding orders of knowing:senses, reason, faith.

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Change Your Brain Change Your Life by Daniel G. Amen, M.D.

07 Monday Nov 2011

Posted by rachelhofer in Brain Imaging and Counseling

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Brain Imaging, Change Your Brain Change Your Life, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Daniel G. Amen, Metaphysics, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Psychiatry, Spirituality

This book is a New York Times Bestseller.

Change Your Brain, Change Your Life: The Breakthrough Program for Conquering Anxiety, Depression, Obsessiveness, Anger, and Impulsiveness

As a Registered Mental Health Counselor Intern one of the things I do is to use talk therapies to help people dealing with emotional and mental problems such as depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, substance abuse problems, and even just the most common diagnoses, ‘stress’! Mental Health Counselors treat these problems with many therapies that involve changes in thinking and behavior that can not necessarily be ‘seen’. What is fascinating in regards to this book is that Dr. Amen, a clinical neuroscientist and psychiatrist, gives an explanation of these problems as ‘brain disorders’ that can actually be scientifically detected with imaging tools. His work gives a window into the metaphysical reality that is the age old mind-brain problem philosophers and scientists have wondered over for centuries. Dr. Amen writes, “I always believed there was a strong connection between spiritual health and mental health (Amen, 4).”

I work from a spiritual, rational, and physical perspective that is holistic and based in a philosophy that includes all three metaphysical (aspects of being) and epistemological (aspects of knowing) planes. We can not discount the importance of the spiritual and intuitions of the heart where we talk about and experience such things as trust, faith, hope, and love. I draw my philosophical understanding from my studies of intellectual history. I particularly draw from one of my favorite philosophers, Blaise Pascal, who gave me a good argument for a spiritual, rational, and physical perspective for my practice that includes a strong theological and scientific base.

Long before we could detect the smallest particles of matter in the atom the Greek philosopher Leucippus hypothesized of its existence around 450 B.C. Not long after, his follower, Democritus coined the term ‘atom’ from the Greek ἄτομος (atomos, “indivisible”) from (a-, “not”) and τέμνω (temnō, “I cut”), which means uncuttable, or indivisible, something that cannot be divided further. Some of the greatest discoveries have originated from the intuitions of man’s heart, only later to be empirically ‘detected’ and rationally understood (if not perfectly), if not seen and touched. Mental health has been a soft science with classified categories of clusters of symptoms in the Diagnostical and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders yet without necessarily an empirical way to detect and diagnose. Many of the symptoms described in diagnoses are based on behavior and reports.

Dr. Amen here explains how science can empirically detect and measure activities in the mind-brain connection. This book has a lot of information regarding mental health problems drawn from Brain SPECT imaging, an empirical tool that Dr. Amen uses to detect ‘brain disorders’, or diagnosed mental health problems that meet DSM criteria. These are Nuclear medicine studies that measure  blood flow and activity levels in the brain (Amen, 5). Dr. Amen also discusses use of PET (positron emission tomography), MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), CAT (computerized axial tomography), and EEG (electroencephalograms). Seeing that many mental health problems can be empirically detected in brain function using these tools can be helpful in dispelling stigma and false guilt when there is a medical problem and brain disorder. Without some evidence of the medical issue, people may think that it is ‘all in thier head’ and they just need to get it together, or that they are just a ‘bad person’.

What the information in this book adds to my practice is a holistic perspective that includes making referrals and recommending information on medication, nutrition, exercise, social interactions, behavior changes, along with the talk therapies and other treatments I offer as a mental health counselor. Dr. Amen states he is one of very few psychiatrists that offer these types of brain scans and consultation on mental health problems. They are also rather expensive. He states the purpose of the book is not for everyone to go out and get their brains scanned but to explain a wide variety of human behaviors in terms of the images that SPECT provides and show they can be treated on a medical model as well as the traditional psychological and social models (Amen, 15).

Dr. Amen by no means argues that talk therapy is not effective for treating these empirically detected ‘brain disorders’. His point is not that physical things can only be treated physically but to show a fascinating explanation of thought and behavior using the brain images. For example, his research shows that depression is associated with limbic system (an area of the brain) over-activity and that bonding can decrease this over-activity (Amen, 41). One example of this is that orgasm is like a mini-seizure in the limbic system and lessens deep limbic activity (Amen, 41). He found that when a patient who was depressed had a scan before and after having passionate sex with his wife his brain scan showed his limbic activity was significantly decreased (Amen, 41). He then goes on to explain how casual sex does not work and is so damaging for many females because they have a larger limbic system than males that bonds more deaply, crashing harder when a bond is broken. He also writes that healthy bonding between mothers and children, between family, friends, and even pets affects the limbic system positively.

Dr. Amen has an entire chapter on enhancing positive thought patterns. Dr. Amen’s prescription to heal these limbic problems includes, “. . . accurate thinking, the proper management of memories, the connection between pleasant smells and moods, and building positive bonds with oneself and others (p. 55).” It is common knowledge that research shows Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (a talk therapy) to be highly effective in dealing with depression, but it is effective in dealing with a wide range of psychological problems (Corey, 288, Beck, 2). Cognitive Behavioral Therapy deals with changing distorted thinking and core beliefs about the self and the world such as that one is unlovable or helpless. Bonding also happens in talk therapy between a client and therapist and can enhance relationships and bonding with others.

Understanding there may be a physical problem with the brain is therapeutic and can help us to find more ways to improve our mental health. This book is a great read and a good reference for any specific illness or mental health problem. I also would highly recommend This is Your Brain On Joy by Dr. Earl Henslin with a forward by Dr. Amen. As well as good information and explanation of the parts of the brain (he uses a cartoon) and how they are related to different patterns of thought and behavior, there are a lot of good tips for helping with specific problems including many different treatments, what foods to eat, vitamins, aromatherapy, and cinematherapy.

Amen, Daniel G., M.D. (1998).Change Your Brain, Change Your Life: The Breakthrough Program for Conquering Anxiety, Depression, Obsessiveness, Anger, and Impulsiveness
New York: Times Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

Beck, Judith S. (1995). Cognitive Therapy: Basics and Beyond. New York: Guilford Press.

Corey, Gerald. (2005). Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy, Seventh Edition. Belmont: Thomson Brooks/Cole.

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