Investigation of Play Therapy Studies Conducted in Turkey

Abstract

It is very important for children to be psychologically healthy both for them and for the future of that country. Play therapy is a type of therapy that is effective in the protection of children's psychological health, helps to treat psychological disorders and is used more and more every day. This therapy makes it easier for children to express themselves correctly, to tell their mental problems, and helps the treatment process. In our country, it has been observed that more play therapy studies have been carried out in recent years. In this study, it was purposed to see all the accessible theses and articles about play therapy in our country and to shed light on the future studies. In this research, the literature was scanned with the words "game therapy, game techniques, game therapy" from the databases of Google Academic, ULAKBİM and National Thesis Center with the criterion sampling method and document analysis technique among purposeful sampling strategies and a total of 40 studies were reached in 26 theses and 14 articles. According to the findings, it has been observed that play therapy studies in our country started as of 1987, gained popularity as of 2015, and studies were conducted with 7 different types of play therapy, the most Child-centered. In line with the data obtained from this research, it has been determined that the number of studies in our country on play therapy, which is one of the most important therapy methods in cases related to children, is insufficient. The literature should be developed by making more research with different play therapy approaches and different experimental groups.

Keywords

• play therapy
• play
• children
• therapy