Game Therapy

Berthold Berg, PhD 

July 12-16, 2010

9 am - 12:15 pm

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Combine work and pleasure by joining me for the 12th Cape Cod Summer Workshop! You’ll engage in discussions and hands-on training to develop your skills in game therapy with children and adolescents. Three games (a $150 value) of your choice — sent by Western Psychological Services when you register — are included with tuition ($490). Take the opportunity to use the games before the workshop to enrich the workshop experience.

Using my therapeutic board games, children and adolescents receive rewards when giving good advice to characters described on the  game cards (mini-stories of a character encountering an interpersonal or intrapersonal problem). Playing the game with the child, the therapist can help the child improve their advice, if necessary, and can model good advice when drawing a card. Children learn to apply the advice when they encounter situations similar to that of the game cards. To maximize this transfer of learning to real world experience, the therapist may select those cards for play, based on responses to a questionnaire, that best reflect the experiences of the child.

Game therapy combines the best features of play therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy. Like play therapy, it involves an activity with which children are familiar, is fun, and encourages self-disclosure only when the child feels ready.  Like cognitive-behavioral therapy, the goals of therapy are to identify and correct the dysfunctional thinking that leads to unpleasant emotions and problem behaviors. Like cognitive-behavioral therapy, it also gives the therapist control over the direction and pace of therapy by selecting game cards for play that best fit the needs of the child.

Game therapy may be used as the primary form of intervention, or when used for some sessions or partial sessions, as a supplementary tool for play therapy and talk therapies generally. When used early in treatment, game therapy can help set the agenda for other therapies.

For details, please visit the other pages of this site. Then contact me at berthold.berg@gmail.com if you need additional information.

Berthold Berg, PhD