Evaluation of the Axline study

This study showed that play therapy allowed insight into the nature of a child’s problems and a way for the child to resolve the problems by taking control of them symbolically.  It also supports some of Freud’s ideas e.g. about defence mechanisms.  This study shows the value of play therapy as a technique to help disturbed children.  Children cannot express their inner feelings in language and therefore cannot communicate directly with therapists.  Play therapy does not depend solely on language and so overcomes this issue.  It is a recognised technique used to help emotionally disturbed or distressed youngsters.

Play therapy has been used successfully; Melanie Klein and Anna Freud (Sigmund’s daughter) developed and used the technique extensively.  The Association for Play Therapists was established in 1982 and has over 5000 members over 26 countries.  This suggests support for the techniques used by Axline and adds credibility to her research findings on Dibs.

The data gathered is subjective as it rests on the interpretation of the therapist which will be shaped by their life experience and views about the meaning of the child’s behaviour.  Furthermore we have to be careful generalising the findings as the child may be unique and not have similar problems to other children.  Similarly the study cannot be replicated as it is the result of an interaction between people that can happen only once.  This means that the results may well be unreliable.

Data was gathered from a variety of sources e.g. interviews with parents and teachers.  This means that the results can be triangulated between sources and this increases the validity of any conclusions drawn from the data.