Gestalt Play Therapy 51 EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION As children feel more support within themselves, they are able to move toward emotional expression. To help unlock buried emotions and 10 learn healthy ways to express emotions in daily life is not a simple matter. A variety of creative, expressive, and projective techniques assist in this work. Anger is undoubtedly the most difficult emotion for children to deal with. Often children appear angry, but the authentic anger is not expressed. Other children mightily suppress any anger energy. Attention is given to this important expression, which causes so many problems. All the various aspects of anger, from mild annoyance to rage, are introduced through drawings, creative dramatics, clay, puppets, stories, music, and other projective techniques to assist children in normalizing their angry feelings. Focusing and working through these feelings to achieve a peaceful, calm state of being is part of the healing process. Learning how to deal with every day angers is an important part ofthe therapeutic process LEARNING TECHNIQUES FOR NURTURING THE SELF Children ingest many negative messages about themselves, particularly in early childhood. ‘These messages, called introjects, are fragmenting; that is, they cause children to split off. A part of children ‘will feel stupid, for example, while another part might be angry about this feeling, The sell-nurturing process assists children to deal with these negative messages in order to achieve integration, They are helped, through a variety of creative exercises, to contact and strengthen that nurturing aspect within the self to help them become more accepting, caring, and actively nurturing to themselves. ‘VIEW OF CHILDREN AND THEIR CAPACITY TO CHANGE Gestalt therapy is considered to be a process therapy: Attention is paid to the “what” and “how” of behavior rather than the “why.” When the therapist can help the client become more aware of what he or she is doing that causes dissatisfaction, the client then has the choice to make changes. Awareness encompasses many aspects of life. One can