Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
22nd European Conference on Developmental Psychology, Vilniaus, Litvanya, 25 - 29 Ağustos 2025, (Yayınlanmadı)
Non-directive play therapy is based on the idea that children have the capability and natural tendency to develop mature, necessary behavior in order to solve their problems, including inner conflicts. Such an orientation necessitates an accepting, respectful, and permissive therapeutic relationship with appropriate limits between the psychotherapist and the child. Also, the discourse of the parents toward the child has a strong impact to mediate both child’s position within the play, and therapeutic relationship. Although parents may consciously want the best for their children, their discourse about the therapeutic relationship or their children's problems may indicate an unconscious tendency to perpetuate their children's problems. The aim of this study is to demonstrate this proposition through a first session analysis of 7-year-old girl and her mother. As this single session demonstrates, the mother's discourse conveys messages that the child continuously needs psychological help, ultimately leading the child to refuse to play and resulting in dropout after this very first session. Lacan states that the child’s symptom functions in relation to what is symptomatic within the family. The position of the mother, therefore, can be considered as a resistance to the therapeutic process. By analyzing the session in depth -including the therapist’s own resistance- this study aims to highlight the possible resistance components within the discourse of the parents, that should also be addressed in the child’s psychotherapy process. Finally, recommendations will be provided, especially for novel play therapists, on balancing the child’s needs with parental resistance.