Virginia Mae Axline

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Virginia Mae Axline (* 1911; † 1988) was a psychologist and psychotherapist, the founder of nondirective play therapy .

Life

Axline studied at Ohio State University and Columbia University, and later taught at New York University of Medicine and School of Education .

In the 1940s she worked as a research and faculty member at the University of Chicago , where she worked with Carl R. Rogers , the founder of the person-centered approach and the resulting person-centered psychotherapy . Like Elaine Dorfman , she carried over the new person-centered approach to working with children. She later served on the faculty of Columbia University Teachers College for seven years .

In 1947 her book “Play Therapy. The Inner Dynamics of Childhood ” , which was published in German in 1980 under the title “ Children's play therapy in non-directive procedures ” and is pioneering in its 10th edition to this day. In this basic work she formulated eight basic principles as a basis for the encounter with the child. She named free play as a further decisive condition , with which the child can express and communicate at his own pace. Axline made the experience that this therapeutic offer, in which it is not attempted to change the child, but basically to accept and accept it as it is at the moment, led to profound personality changes.

As a teaching and practical psychotherapist in New York , she published the book “Dibs. In Search Of Self ” , which was published in 1975 in German as “ Dibs. An autistic child frees himself from his mental prison ” appeared. On the basis of sound recordings and verbatim protocols, it describes the play therapy carried out by the author of a five-year-old boy.

Client -centered play therapy was developed from non-directive play therapy in German-speaking countries , followed by person-centered play therapy , which is the key today and is represented by professional associations in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

While Virginia Axline accompanied the game more verbally and this non-directive orientation continues to have a certain value in the USA, the interventions of the therapist in German-speaking countries also take place at the game level, i.e. i.e., the therapist responds, gives resonance through the way she plays along. In this way, the child has new interaction and relationship experiences that change their self-awareness. In the context of the person-centered relationship offer, process-activating media such as sand games, fairy tales and stories and body-related work that stimulate the child's self-exploration process can also be included. In addition, interactive treatment concepts were developed that describe how the child's or adolescent's relationship and self-schemata change in the new relationship experience with the therapist.

Analogous to the American Association for Play Therapy - APT, founded in 1982, which has presented a Play Therapy Lifetime Achievement Award since 2005, the Virginia Axline Prize and the Virginia Axline Young Talent Award awarded. The Virginia Axline Prize recognizes the life's work of the honored person with regard to the application, scientific foundation and dissemination of person-centered child and adolescent psychotherapy, the young talent award is intended to honor outstanding commitment in the professional promotion of person-centered child and youth therapy, that of young people at the beginning of their life Career of academics and / or practitioners.

Works

  • Children's play therapy in a non-directive method , 2002 (orig. 1947), 10th edition, Munich, Ernst Reinhardt, ISBN 978-3497016235
  • Dibs. An autistic child frees himself from his mental prison , 2004 (orig. 1964), Droemer / Knaur, ISBN 978-3426008133

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rogers, CR (1939): The clinical treatment of the problem child , Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company
  2. ↑ Rogers, CR (1959, German 1991): A theory of psychotherapy, personality and interpersonal relationships , Cologne: GwG Verlag
  3. ↑ Rogers, CR (1942, German 1972): The client-centered conversation psychotherapy , Munich: Kindler
  4. ↑ Dorfman, E. (1942, German 1972): Spieltherapie , in: Rogers, CR: The client-centered conversation psychotherapy , pp. 219-254, Munich: Kindler
  5. ↑ Schmidtchen, S. (1978): Client-centered play therapy , Weinheim: Beltz
  6. ↑ Boeck-Singelmann, C./Ehlers, B./Hensel, Th./Kemper, F./Monden-Engelhardt, Ch. (Ed.) (2002): Person-centered psychotherapy with children and adolescents , Volumes 1, 2, 3 Göttingen: Hogrefe
  7. ↑ Goetze, H. (2001): Handbook of person-centered play therapy , Göttingen: Hogrefe
  8. ↑ Hockel, CM (2011): Person-centered child psychotherapy , Munich: Ernst Reinhardt
  9. ↑ Trade associations:
  10. ↑ Landreth, G. (2012): Play therapy. The Art of the Relationship , 3rd revised edition. New York: Routledge
  11. ↑ Weinberger, S. (2015): helping children playfully - introduction to person-centered game psychotherapy , 6th edition. Weinheim: Beltz Juventa
  12. ↑ Behr, M. (2012): Interactional psychotherapy with children and adolescents , Göttingen: Hogrefe
  13. ^ Association for Play Therapy
personal data
SURNAME Axline, Virginia Mae
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American psychologist, psychotherapist and author
DATE OF BIRTH 1911
DATE OF DEATH 1988