In work with abandoned, neglected, and troubled children in play therapy, one can encounter the vast and deeply expressive archetypal domain of the orphan. In play, the natural and emergent soulful images that children express and reveal capture in-depth their pain, as well as their enduring hope for connection and care. Here, it is possible to move toward the timeless and the sacred, radically. As James Hillman observes, moving play and play therapy, \u201coutside our culture into other times and places, and into another myth beyond humanism.\u201d<\/p>\n
While preparing for this evening program, I have been reflecting on the distinction between the archetype(s) of the child and the orphan, as they may express themselves through dreams, fantasies, and relational patterns of adults, and an actual child\u2019s experience of being embedded in the archetypal \u201cfield\u201d of the orphan. How will the psyche spontaneously emerge in play, story, and creative or destructive action, to reveal or illuminate that child\u2019s psychic (inner and unconscious) experience in the present caregiving process of psychotherapy?<\/p>\n
The psyche is a self-regulating system, purposeful and healing in its intent and expression (images, metaphors, symbols, behavior), no different in humans of any age, only different perhaps in its individual, personal expression, with varying conscious facilitation or ego interference. It is possible to imagine that from a developmental vantage point, a less sophisticated ego structure is naturally conducive to more pure or \u201craw\u201d psychic expression. It follows, of course, that part of the work with children has a consciousness-supporting aspect by helping a child link his or her play, images, story, and affect — bit by bit — to an emerging conscious awareness of the world and reality. Thus, one can incrementally help the child to expand conscious control of and facility with their emotional and interpersonal experiences, as well as learn to grapple more and more successfully with the tasks of life.<\/p>\n
The images, stories, and creative constructions in a play therapy context that is reliably safe, private, and contained often clearly reveal both the child\u2019s current and past pain, as well as point toward present movements toward repair, health, and hopefulness. Children\u2019s images and play are very much like the dreams of older people, packed with affect and unconscious information. They are novel, emergent, living expressions of psyche and must be handled with respect and great care. Not only that, often as with dreams, there seems to be a guiding, purposeful orientation, a message or mandate, a way to proceed.<\/p>\n
In the context of a safe therapeutic relationship, these living expressions of the child\u2019s psyche shape and inform the work as it progresses. In this program, one central example will be employed to demonstrate the therapeutic amplification and use of images as they occur in the context of the therapeutic process.<\/p>\n
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In work with abandoned, neglected, and troubled children in play therapy, one can encounter the vast and deeply expressive archetypal domain of the orphan. In play, the natural and emergent soulful images that children express and reveal capture in-depth their pain, as well as their enduring hope for connection and care. Here, it is possible […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":113745,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","tags":[],"mec_category":[184,542],"mec_speaker":[3033],"class_list":["post-113744","mec-events","type-mec-events","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","mec_category-lecture","mec_category-webinar"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n