Play Therapy Doll house Technique for Play Therapist to Use with Clients: A Testimony from Play Therapy Student

by Play Therapy Student

When I found out about having to build our play therapy doll house my first reaction was how in the world am I going to build my childhood house. I became anxious, and worried because my childhood house had a lot of bad memories for me.

I actually put the thought out of my head for about a month and did not think about it. It is funny because I actually do this a lot with the things that happened in that house. I know there were good things that happened there, but I can not remember them because of all the bad things.
My younger brother and I were physically and mentally abused in that house, and I was sexually abused there by our ex step father. We both have received counseling for what has happened, but I found it very hard to build this house and talk about it in class. When I actually started thinking about what it needed to look like it was easy to remember each room and even where all the furniture sat. We lived in a one bedroom duplex and my brothers and I all had to sleep in the kitchen.
When I got ready to build my house I asked my real dad if he had any extra wood lying around, because he is a carpenter. He had some and helped me build my house. He even remembered the house and he never lived there. He was in the army and would pick my brother and I up every time he was on leave and we would spend one month a year in the summer with him.
Being with him was always safe and I still have issues with feeling safe where ever I am. To me my dad was the one that “saved” my brother and I from that awful situation. When I was eleven my dad’s father died and my dad came back from Germany for the funeral and when he went back he took my brother and I with him. At the same time my mom was in the process of divorcing my ex step father. I never told my parents what my ex step father did until I was in Germany with my dad. My ex step father told me that if I told anyone he would hurt my brother and my brother and I were close and I did not want him to hurt him anymore then he already was so I never told.
As I was building this house I started remembering different things that happened there and had to stop a few times and distance my self. It was nice to have my dad to talk with and I did process a few things with him and he actually found out stuff he did not know about what happened to my brother and I there. He even told me that now he understood more about why my brother and I acted the way we did when he got us from there. My brother was always angry and I was withdrawn and wet the bed. I remember my dad taking us to counseling when he first got us, but I do not actually remember any of what happened with the counselor.
When I did my counseling session at school with my partner I introduced her to all the members of my family and told her about a few things that happened to me as a child. She had me talk to my mom because I have never really talked to her about any of the abuse. My mom worked second shift and I had hardly remembered her being there. I remember I had to take care of my brothers, cook and clean.
When my mom found out about the sexual abuse she said “If it really happened, then I am sorry.” After that we did not have a good relationship for a while. She is now my best friend and we sped a lot of time together. We still do not talk about anything that happened back then. One thing that did help our relationship was somehow she had gotten an e-mail from my ex step father and when she responded she told him “how dare you contact me after what you have done to my daughter.” She sent me a copy of that e-mail and it was wonderful for me to know that she actually did believe me and we have gotten so much closer since then. I do not know if she even knew that, that changed anything between us.
I have decided to not use my play therapy house in my future counseling. I am going to use it as therapy for myself. I am going to tear it down and burn it. I did try to burn down the real house when I was around ten, but my neighbor put it out and it only burned the cabinet door, so now I am actually going to succeed. I feel that this will be a very good thing for me.


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