• Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.138-146
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• 1992

The study presented the experience of playtherapy of a 6-yr old girl with elective mutism and attempted to understand her psychopathology and formulated her psychodynamic which was expressed though the therapeutic process of playtherapy in the viewpoint of developmental model. Therapist's attitude was nondirective and supportive. Main theme of her play, fantasy and art was separation anxiety and abandonment fear as the result of continued psychic traumas such as separation from her grandmother and physical abuse by her father and mother etc. So she couldn't achieve developmental tasks such as autonomy and separation individuation and became generally inhibited and selectively mute. The process of play therapy was summarized and coceptualized as her successful progress through sequential developmental phases within the therapeutic relation ship. By reexperiencing this developmental process, she could accomplish her autonomy and separation individuation and developed to oedipal stage and successfully resolve oedipal conflict.