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Key points
- The ability to be playful may be impacted by traumatic stress.
- Play-based approaches have a unique role in restoring a sense of vitality and joy.
- Building capacity through play can support increased empowerment, resilience, and mastery.
As a psychologist who specializes in work with traumatic stress, I am always listening to individuals for the presence of disabling reactions that disrupt their daily lives. But as an expressive arts therapist, I am also looking for how these reactions and past adverse events have impacted their lives in a different way. I am observing the capacity of the individual to engage in actions that lead to the experience of joy, enlivenment, curiosity, and most importantly, playfulness. In my experience, one’s ability to play is almost always impacted in some way by traumatic events. The absence of that ability serves as a road sign about where both client and therapist need to venture in order to repair and restore the self (Malchiodi & Ray, 2020).
The wonderful thing about play is we can be in a state of total attunement with ourselves and others in the moment. It is one of the most natural states available to us as humans. The simplest acts of playfulness set in motion sensory, emotional, and cognitive capacities for flexibility and connection to others. When we are playing, whether through enjoyable movements, making sounds, games, or self-expression, an inner harmony manifests. Within that harmony, we begin to see the world with curiosity and unrestricted vision.
But for individuals whose lives are impacted by adverse events or complex or chronic trauma, this human right to play does not necessarily feel natural or possible. They simply may not have had the opportunity to play due to neglect, lack of caregivers, or social and environmental barriers. Many decades ago, I learned from both children and their caregivers who survived physical abuse, sexual assault, and interpersonal violence that these experiences robbed them of what forms the capacity for playfulness. As a result, this spontaneity—what I call the “unscripted moment”—requires sensitive intervention to help rediscover and rekindle the playful spirit within.
Circle of Capacity Revisited
In a previous post, I described what I refer to in practice as the “circle of capacity” model for addressing traumatic stress. In that post, I explain an alternative to the “window of tolerance” framework used by many trauma specialists. When one is working from a perspective of reducing distress in body and mind, it is logical to assist individuals in expanding their windows of tolerance for circumstances that cause hyper or hypo-activation. But in order to truly repair and recover, we need moments that involve something beyond enduring and coping.
When we include expressive and somatosensory approaches in sessions, I think it becomes obvious that repair and recovery are not necessarily found through increasing the ability to tolerate reactions. They come through supporting tangible, sensory, and somatic experiences of efficacy, resourcing, and resilience. What is needed are experiences, not only to help us cope with traumatic stress, but also to begin replacing the uncomfortable sensations of hyperactivation and allow us to feel and sense the world in pleasurable and joyful ways. This is a transformation felt in the body as empowerment, mastery, and enlivenment when encountering distress and disruptive events. These are just a few of the qualities in play—a natural source of restoration for body, mind, and spirit.
There are numerous reasons that make adding playful moments to therapy desirable and even necessary when it comes to addressing traumatic stress. Here are two concepts that are particularly important when it comes to expanding capacity through expressive and play-based experiences:
Coming to our senses: Neurobiology has taught us that we need to “come to our senses” in developing effective components for psychotherapy for both mind and body (Malchiodi, 2020). Trauma reactions are not just a series of distressing thoughts and feelings. They are experienced on a sensory level within both mind and body, a concept now increasingly echoed within a variety of theories and approaches. So introducing play within trauma treatment makes “sense” because it involves visual, tactile, olfactory, auditory, vestibular, and proprioceptive experiences not found in talk alone. It is exteroceptive (the sensing of external stimuli); in the expressive arts, it is multisensorial depending on the medium. For example, encounters with music or percussion not only involve sound, but also include vibrational, rhythmic, and movement-focused experiences. Drama play may include vocalization, visual impact, and other sensory qualities. In art-making, various smells of media and tactile sensations, such as fluidity, stickiness, dampness, hardness, softness, or resistance expand awareness of the senses.
Restoring our aliveness: The success of any therapeutic work is intricately connected to how we restore a sense of aliveness in individuals, especially those experiencing traumatic stress. By aliveness, I mean not just existing and surviving, but living life with vitality, joy, and connectedness. Play-based approaches have a unique role in restoring a sense of vitality and joy because aliveness is not something we can be “talked into.” It has to be experienced in both mind and body. This experience of vitality and joy is also strengthened where there is a relationship between “players.” It is a unique type of energy that circulates through singing, dancing, performing, laughing, and playing together. Our ability as therapists to help resensitize mind and body in playful ways may be as, or even more powerful, than anything we can say to our clients with words alone. These moments become internalized sensations of animation, vigor, and passion because playing affirms that we are alive. (For a more comprehensive list of how playful strategies support restoration, please see Malchiodi, 2022)
“Shift Happens” through Play
To play is not always easy for those in distress due to acute or multiple trauma. It requires a sense of feeling safe, and that is something not easily possible, especially in the earliest stages of therapeutic work. But, over time, introducing playfulness, whether through expressive arts, toys or props, silly games, or humor, there inevitably is a “shift” that happens. It is a synergy that takes on a life of its own, with one expressive movement, gesture, image, or sound leading naturally to others. It often reveals itself in a moment that makes all the hard work of psychotherapy worthwhile.
The shift has manifested when a person walks into the therapy session with a different rhythm or vibe, an upbeat step, a palpable change in prosody, or even ready with a joke to tell—all signs of reparative change. We can encourage that shift by introducing playful experiences, helping our clients once again learn to be within the joyful experience of the “unscripted moment.”
References
Malchiodi, C. A. (2020). Trauma and expressive arts therapy: Brain, body, and imagination in the healing process. New York: Guilford Press.
Malchiodi, C. A. (2022). Handbook of expressive arts therapy. New York: Guilford Press.
Malchiodi, C. A., & Ray, D. C. (2020). Trauma, Play Therapy, and Research. Retrieved at https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/arts-and-health/202004/trauma-play-therapy-and-research.
