Dee Ray, a researcher in Texas, learns how children feel not by listening to their words but by watching them play. She directs the Center for Play Therapy at the University of North Texas and often works in schools, where she divides a classroom into several 10 feet by10 feet sections and fills them with toys— various puppets, sandbags that a child with negative emotions can hit.
Play therapists（治疗师）encourage children， typically between ages 2 and 12，to express their thoughts and feelings through playing rather than by talking about what's happening in their lives.
Ray practices child-oriented play therapy, in which the therapist follows the child's lead while witnessing and recording. In other approaches, the therapist eventually takes a more directive role, engaging the child in activities intended to teach something and correct behavior.
The belief behind is that play itself is therapeutic（疗愈的）. The toys, musical instruments or art supplies aren't used to keep children busy or distracted while they talk through problems. Instead, play gives them an opportunity to deal with negative emotions, said Paris Goodyear Brown, a play therapist and co-founder of a treatment center in Franklin. "Play provides a sense of competency（胜任力）for children. "
Play therapy can reach children who have experienced something "unspeakable" in a way that talk therapy can't, said Goodyear Brown. "There's so much wisdom inside little people, but they just don't have all the ways of showing and telling that adults do. "
