In Tune with Play and Therapy - An Interview with Phyllis Booth

Oct 15, 2026

An interview with Phyllis Booth explores how childhood play shaped her lifelong work in play therapy and attachment-based family treatment. Booth describes warm, playful interactions with parents and siblings, including music, imaginative games, and daily routines that provided both joy and safety. She connects these memories to later professional development: training in clinical psychology, study with major child development thinkers, and building the theraplay approach for therapists and families.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryHealthcare

FormatPDF

Pages17

Reading Time43 min

AccessFree to download

American Journal of Play: Tell us about some of your most meaningful childhood play experiences.

AJP: Yours was a playful family?

AJP: Are there other ways that your family experiences pointed the way forward for you?

AJP: Has play informed your adult sensibilities?

AJP: How did you start working with children?

In Tune with Play and Therapy An Interview with Phyllis Booth Phyllis Booth is a licensed marriage and family therapist, a licensed clinical professional counselor, a registered play therapist and supervisor, and Clinical Director Emeritus of the 􀁿eraplay Institute in Evanston, Illinois. Her professional career includes training in clinical psychology at what is now University of Chicago Medicine, teaching at the University of Chicago nursery school and serving as a consultant to Head Start in Chicago, working as a clinical associate at London’s Tavistock Institute, studying with British psychiatrist John Bowlby and pediatrician and psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott, and spending a year at London’s Anna Freud Center, which specializes in child psychoanalysis. Along with developmental psychologist Ann Jernberg, Booth helped establish the theoretical underpinnings of the 􀁿eraplay approach to child and family therapy. Later she developed the training program for 􀁿eraplay and designed the certi!cation practicum for therapists who employed the method. She has trained therapists in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Finland, and South Korea and is the author of 􀁿eraplay: Helping Parents and Children Build Better Relationships through Attachment-Based Play, now in its third edition. In this interview, Booth recalls her childhood play experiences, talks about her mentors and intellectual progenitors, discusses advances in the theory and practice of play therapy, andrecalls resistance to and rewards in the !eld of play therapy during her career. Keywords: attachment theory; attunement: child therapy; family therapy; Group 􀁿eraplay; John Bowlby; 􀁿eraplay American Journal of Play: Tell us about some of your most meaningful childhood play experiences. Phyllis Booth: My father loved to play games. He would lie on his back and put me on his knees and roar out “One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready”—[pause]—“and four to go!” He would drop his knees and I would fall onto his arms for a big hug.“More, more,” I would shout. Back on his knees I crawled, and we would do it over and over again. My mother 1 American Journal of Play, volume 8, number 1 [Contact Phyllis Booth at phyllisbbooth@yahoo.com](Contact Phyllis Booth at phyllisbbooth@yahoo.com) made even the daily task of making the beds fun. I would run ahead of her and crawl under the rumpled blankets. She would come in and playfully pat the bed saying,“􀁿ere’s a lump in the bed. What can it be?” 􀁿en she would !nd my hair and say,“It must be a mop!” Pulling back the blanket, she would peek at me and say,“Oh, no, it’s a little girl! It’s my Phyllis!” 􀁿en we would carefully straighten the bed and !nish our task. My mother would o\#en come to wake me up in the morning singing,“Good morning, Merry Sunshine, What makes you wake so soon? You shine away the little stars and smile away the moon.” AJP: Yours was a playful family? Booth: We spent a lot of time playing music together in our family. My sister, two years older than I, played the piano. I played the violin. Even when we were quite young, we played duets at every opportunity. My brother, !ve years younger than I, played the trombone, and my other sister, thirteen years younger, also played the violin. Later my mother sang with a ladies trio, and my sister accompanied her. My father liked to entertain us singing jokey songs such as “A Preacher Went Out a Hunting ” As I think about these memories, I realize that the rhythmic chants, the singing, the loving touch, the pure joy of being together !lled my life with love and laughter—avery good start for me to make play the center of my life. AJP: Are there other ways that your family experiences pointed the way forward for you? Booth: While both my parents could be playful and funny, they also provided a clear sense of order and safety. We lived a very well-ordered life: Monday was wash day. Tuesday, ironing. Wednesday, mending. And church on

FAQs

What meaningful childhood play experiences does Phyllis Booth describe?

Booth recounts playful family games led by her father, playful interactions with her mother during daily routines, and shared music-making with her siblings. These experiences combined rhythm, affection, and joy.

How did Booth’s family environment influence her therapeutic approach?

Booth explains that her parents were both playful and consistent, creating a sense of order and safety. She links this parenting pattern to her later choice of play as a therapeutic model for children.

How did Booth begin her career working with children?

Booth describes a long and rewarding career that began with early inspiration from a school orchestra director. She later worked in a Wartime Day Nursery and had a moment realizing she was being paid to do something she truly liked.

Oct 15, 2026

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