Abstract
Play and childhood are inevitably intertwined, with numerous indications of the therapeutic effects of play on child development and, consequently, on the progress of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (PP). To access children’s play during the course of PP, the Children’s Play Therapy Instrument (CPTI) was developed. The aim of this study was to adapt the CPTI to Portuguese and to conduct a pilot study to identify validity evidence for the instrument through the analysis of play profiles of psychotherapies involving three children: one girl and two boys, aged eight, seven, and eight, respectively. They were diagnosed with adjustment disorder, disruptive mood dysregulation disorder, and autism spectrum disorder level 1. The Portuguese version of the CPTI showed good equivalence to the original, inter-rater reliability was high, and preliminary evidence of validity was found. The instrument was able to differentiate each child’s play profiles, describing play activities consistent with the psychopathologies analyzed. The instrument’s possibilities and limitations were discussed.
Keywords:
play; psychotherapy; test validity
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