Welcome to Ludemos
This site offers updates on the
work of Ludemos and Ludemos Associates.
You will also find information on the Integral Play
Framework, an introduction to Psycholudics (the study of the mind and
psyche at play) and references to important papers in this area, related
topics and a link to the authors Gordon Sturrock, Perry Else and others,
to talk about the application of Therapeutic Playwork.
Practitioners should start with children where they are, and
we recognise that they will choose when and where to be playful, and so
experience and perhaps learn.
We can help with creating the right environment, our role is
dynamic; playworkers are a vital part of that environment and our
carefully judged interventions are key to working with the child. These
interventions can be graded from subtle (non-intervention) to gross
(stopping a negative effect from continuing or occurring).
Relationships are important, especially in the creation of a
trusting relationship between the worker and the child. A relationship
where the child (depending on their age or operational level) feels safe
to create a new, playful world with others or let down/explore around
the psychological barriers that prevent her from being playful, possibly
after a long period of neglect.
Once that trust in the world is created, play will happen
spontaneously and developmentally, taking the child on into new, varied
worlds that some believe go past self-actualisation to
self-transcendence and beyond.
Within this, therapeutic playworkers need at least to:
- Be skilled in sensitive assessments of the
children’s play cues
- Have a knowledge base encompassing childhood
and child development
- Have ‘cultural competence’ – of their own and
others’ cultures
- Have integrity and authenticity (and so a
degree of self knowledge)
- Have a sense of humour!
Playworkers and other adults working with children will find
many useful concepts here that help describe the complex phenomena of
play. These concepts add up to an application that can be used when
working with children to better to facilitate the play experience.
Key to this form of practice is the understanding that
children will play as it is in their nature so to do. Adults can enhance
play opportunities by sensitively interacting with children and by
establishing stimulating play environments, so deepening their capacity
to offer insight and meaningful responses.
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