ABSTRACT
The Children's Play Therapy Instrument (CPTI), its development, and reliability studies are described. The CPTI is a new instrument to examine a child's play activity in individual psychotherapy. Three independent raters used the CPTI to rate eight videotaped play therapy vignettes. Results were compared with the authors' consensual scores from a preliminary study. Generally good to excellent levels of interrater reliability were obtained for the independent raters on intraclass correlation coefficients for ordinal categories of the CPTI. Likewise, kappa levels were acceptable to excellent for nominal categories of the scale. The CPTI holds promise to become a reliable measure of play activity in child psychotherapy. Further research is needed to assess discriminant validity of the CPTI for use as a diagnostic tool and as a measure of process and outcome.
Subject(s)
Child Behavior/classification , Observation/methods , Play Therapy/methods , Psychometrics/methods , Affect/classification , Analysis of Variance , Child , Child Development , Cognition/classification , Humans , Observer Variation , Outcome Assessment, Health Care/methods , Psychoanalytic Interpretation , Psychometrics/standards , Reproducibility of Results , Videotape RecordingABSTRACT
The purpose of this paper is to invite dialogue concerning the variety of modalities possible in the spectrum of child treatment. Many issues remain to be discussed, such as the child's need to possess the therapist entirely, and the role of other family members. Countertransference issues for the therapist are complex and involve the risk of dual loyalties. Simultaneous treatment shares these concerns with other modalities in the spectrum of child treatment. In simultaneous treatment, as parent and child come to share an experience of being cared for, the possibility arises for the dissolution of polarities. Representations of the past give way to adaptations to current reality. Both the parent's and the child's feelings of rage are contained within the therapeutic matrix of relationships; boundaries are maintained to permit repair and growth. Both parent and child reach new levels of integration as the therapist reinforces boundaries and does not permit intrusion by either the parent or the child into the others arena of playful construction.