Theories That Focus on Psychological Development
The concept of play as an avenue for expressing feelings and desires, and venting frustrations and disappointments, comes from psychoanalytic theorists such as Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson, and Anna Freud.
According to Sigmund Freud, play and dreams are forms of wish fulfillment, providing altered psychological states in which unacceptable feelings and thoughts, wishes, and desires can be expressed safely (Elkind, 2004). Hence, play is therapeutic, relieving anxiety and resolving emotional conflicts.
Psychologist Erik Erikson viewed play as a vehicle through which children can transmit their inner feelings into actions to dramatically represent the past, the present, and the future (Erikson, 1963). This outward expression of the “inner life” helps reduce children’s fears and anxieties (Bettelheim, 1976). In addition, play offers children multiple opportunities to authenticate life roles and experiences through socially acceptable pathways.
Freud’s youngest daughter, Anna Freud, extended her father’s conception of play, creating a psychological treatment for children called play therapy. She suggested that play was not only a form of wish fulfillment and mastery, but also a means of defense against emotional displeasure and pain (Freud, 1936). Through fantasy play, children are able to deal with, and sometimes resolve or deny, the psychological distress created by traumatic experiences in their lives.
The focus on understanding children’s inner lives through play therapy has extended to today. Leading American play therapist Garry Landreth (2005), commenting on his efforts to understand the full inner child, has said, “I think that if I can help to build a relationship with the child and make contact with the inner child, then the child will begin to internalize a different perception of self. I think that if I respect the child, the child then will come to respect herself. If I begin to respond to the child as being adequate, the child will begin to see herself as being adequate” (np).