EFFECTIVENESS OF COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL PLAY THERAPY (CBPT) IN REDUCING ANXIETY SYMPTOMS AMONG CHILDREN: A QUALITATIVE RESEACH STUDY

Abstract

Childhood anxiety disorders are a very rampant problem that can cause the deterioration of emotional, social, and academic performance in case of unmanaged cases. Cognitive Behavioral Play Therapy (CBPT) is a variation of CBT to play-based interventions which would be developmentally appropriate to children 5-10 years old. The search of 11 journal articles published in 2015-25 was conducted with the assistance of Google Scholar, PubMed, and ResearchGate to identify the articles that were included in the systematic review based on the PRISMA 2020 guidelines. The outcomes have always shown that CBPT was effective in the suppression of the different kinds of anxiety; like generalized anxiety, social anxiety, separation anxiety, medical/surgical anxiety, and internalizing anxiety. These secondary benefits included improvement in emotional regulation, capacity to cope, control in attention and adaptive functioning. CBPT practiced in a school, clinical, and hospital setting, as well as in special population that had a restricted verbal ability. The combination of cognitive, behavioral and play based approach that CBPT applies proved to provide more extensive and sustained outcomes compared to the one component intervention such as relaxation, distraction, or emotion-based play. Many studies utilized smaller experimental samples, which is common in intervention –based psychological research, mixed protocols and a short follow up. Overall, CBPT appears to be a multifaceted, developmentally sensitive, and prospective intervention of childhood anxiety, needing closer research to be perfected and enhance the final results and the overall generalizability.