Play Therapy in the Educational Context: Challenges and Possibilities for School Psychology Practice from a Person-Centered Approach Perspective

Abstract

This article discusses the practice of school psychology in early childhood education (daycare-school) from the perspective of the Person-Centered Approach (PCA), linking institutional practice to the principles of Child-Centered Play Therapy (CCPT). In response to a culture of immediacy and behavioral framing, it proposes transferring the Rogerian framework from the clinical setting to the educational context through three lines of intervention: participant observation during free play, empathic support for educators, and the therapeutic management of limits. Using a theoretical-reflective approach, the study analyzes how the provision of facilitating conditions—empathy, congruence, and unconditional positive regard—helps remove psychosocial barriers and allows the child’s actualizing tendency to operate more fully. The results indicate a qualitative change in the relational climate, strengthening of the child’s self-concept, reduction of institutional anxiety, and a reframing of teachers’ views of disruptive behaviors, which come to be understood as expressions of organismic needs. The article concludes that integrating play therapy into the daycare-school setting can move the institution beyond merely assistentialist or punitive models, consolidating it as a space for mental health promotion and shared existential responsibility in which the child becomes the protagonist of their own school experience.