We talk about what it feels like to win and lose and about doing so gracefully, all of which are important social skills.
Using games also helps patients master social skills. The tactile experience of a non-computerized game affords these children a new experience they generally like. Sometimes the games I use are new to children who play most of their games on computers, smart phones and tablets, or video game terminals. Playing games is an activity with which most children and adolescents are familiar, and it helps them relax in the therapy session and “open up” with less inhibition. I find that I can also do therapeutic work with games I select for specific purposes. I use games in therapy to have fun and establish a good relationship with patients. Avedon and Sutton-Smith (1971) call this “an exercise in voluntary control systems, in which there is a contest between powers, defined by rules, in order to produce a disequilibrial outcome (someone ends up a winner).” This competition usually results in more involvement of participants and more enjoyment for them (Holmes, 1964 Rapoport, 1966 Steele & Tedeschi, 1967). Although games can also be fun, they usually involve some sort of a contest between/among the players. Play has an unrestricted, unstructured quality, whereas games are formal and have more restrictive rules for how the game is played. Play is usually spontaneous, has no particular purpose, and is motivated by a desire to have fun (Csikszentmihalzi, 1976 Erickson, 1950 Garvey, 1977).
Play and games have different meanings in play therapy literature (Schaefer and Reid, 1986).
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