A short video by Ming (Agents of Speech) arguing that child-led (naturalistic) play therapy requires professional training and should not be used by parents as the sole approach. Ming recommends parents not attempt prolonged child-led sessions alone, instead combining it with structured techniques and supervision or instruction from a trained therapist.
The most important thing is you need to know what you're doing. If you don't know what you're doing and trying to do naturalistic approaches like following child's lead, it's going to lead to a whole load of frustration because you don't know what to do. So therefore, I don't recommend you, the parent, doing follow child's lead for a prolonged period of time. And the only way that you do it, you can have it inside of your arsenal of therapy, but you cannot be the only thing. You must have some structured stuff that you can lean on. The structure is for you, not for the kid. Right? Because during the naturalistic thing, the therapist head is thinking about, what's the next response? I've done this so many times, it becomes second nature to me. I can roll the ball this way. I can do that. I can create a situation that makes the child want to communicate with me. I can make it fun. But a lot of parents don't have that luxury, that don't have that training, don't have those hours under the belt. So therefore, I do not recommend you doing this alone. You need someone to teach you.
