The playing as a facilitator for the report of private events related to the hospitalization

Abstract

The Child Behavioral-Analytic Therapy (CBAT) is a psychotherapeutic model based on Behavior Analysis, and it has the target audience of children. The CBAT uses the recreational resources during the psychotherapeutic process. The use of this resource is given, among other reasons, because children still do not have a fully developed verbal repertoire that allows them to benefit from a purely verbal therapy. The present research proposes to identify the report of private events related to the hospitalization of two hospitalized children emitted in the interactions with playful resources and in the purely verbal interactions. Two boys participated in the research, both eight years old, and hospitalized in the pediatric ward of a university hospital. A different play resource was used at each meeting, created specifically for the interaction, being used now in the initial half of the interaction, now in the final half. The meetings took place in the bed where each participant was hospitalized and had their audios recorded. From the data collected, it was noticed that the participants were able to report some private events in the interaction with the playful resource that they could not emit in the purely verbal interaction. It was also concluded that the use of recreational resources during the interactions established and strengthened more easily the trust relationship between researcher and participants.