Play Therapy Quotes

“One need only to observe the physical response of a child to realize that, when happy, he is happy all over.”
― Virginia M. Axline, Play Therapy: The Groundbreaking Book That Has Become a Vital Tool in the Growth and Development of Children

“In the therapy hour—once the child has established confidence in the therapist and has accepted the therapist even as she has accepted him—he shares his inner world with her and, by the sharing, extends the horizons of both their worlds.”
― Virginia M. Axline, Play Therapy: The Groundbreaking Book That Has Become a Vital Tool in the Growth and Development of Children

“The process of non-directive therapy is so interwoven that it is difficult to tell where one principle begins and another ends. They are overlapping and interdependent. For example, the therapist cannot be accepting without being permissive. She cannot be permissive without being accepting. She cannot leave the responsibility to make choices up to the child that she does not respect. The degree to which the therapist is able to put these principles into practice seems to affect the depth to which the therapy can go.”
― Virginia M. Axline, Play Therapy: The Groundbreaking Book That Has Become a Vital Tool in the Growth and Development of Children

“There is no severer discipline than to maintain the completely accepting attitude and to refrain at all times from injecting any directive suggestions or insinuations into the play of the child.”
― Virginia M. Axline, Play Therapy: The Groundbreaking Book That Has Become a Vital Tool in the Growth and Development of Children

“What is therapy if not an examination and re-examination of the self in an effort to reorient one’s values and by honest introspection achieve insight into ways of satisfying the drive for complete self-actualization and to achieve the strength and courage to be himself?”
― Virginia M. Axline, Play Therapy: The Groundbreaking Book That Has Become a Vital Tool in the Growth and Development of Children

“When the individual develops sufficient self-confidence to bring his self-concept out of the shadow land and into the sun and consciously and purposefully to direct his behavior by evaluation, selectivity, and application to achieve his ultimate goal in life—complete self-realization—then he seems to be well adjusted.”
― Virginia M. Axline, Play Therapy: The Groundbreaking Book That Has Become a Vital Tool in the Growth and Development of Children

“When an individual reaches a barrier which makes it more difficult for him to achieve the complete realization of the self, there is set up an area of resistance and friction and tension. The drive toward self-realization continues, and the individual’s behavior demonstrates that he is satisfying this inner drive by outwardly fighting to establish his self-concept in the world of reality, or that he is satisfying it vicariously by confining it to his inner world where he can build it up with less struggle. The more it is turned inward, the more dangerous it becomes; and the further he departs from the world of reality, the more difficult it is to help him.”
― Virginia M. Axline, Play Therapy: The Groundbreaking Book That Has Become a Vital Tool in the Growth and Development of Children

“He manifests in every way an eagerness, a curiosity, a great love of life that thrills and delights him in its simplest pleasures. Normally, a child loves growing up and strives for it constantly—sometimes outreaching himself in his eagerness. He is both humble and proud, courageous and afraid, dominant and submissive, curious and satisfied, eager and indifferent. He loves and hates and fights and makes peace, is delightfully happy and despairingly sad.”
― Virginia M. Axline, Play Therapy: The Groundbreaking Book That Has Become a Vital Tool in the Growth and Development of Children

“A child is usually quick to forgive and to forget those experiences which have been negative. Unless conditions are extremely bad, he is accepting of life as he finds it, and accepting of the people with whom he lives.”
― Virginia M. Axline, Play Therapy: The Groundbreaking Book That Has Become a Vital Tool in the Growth and Development of Children