EPT10-Session-8 – Bop Bag – Center for Experiential Play Therapy

Welcome to your EPT10-Session-8 - Bop Bag

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Every playroom should have two bop bags in it so that one represents the child’s mother and the other represents the child’s father.

True

False

When using the bop bag in EPT, the beginning play therapist needs to:

Learn how to blow up the bop bag without becoming dizzy before the session.

Focus on helping the child externalized their internal feelings as the child confronts the bop bag.

Tell the child that bop bags are for aggression only and they must fight it in the play.

Call the Association for Play Therapy for the guidelines on “Bop Bag Play Therapy.”

The best type of bop bag is one with Captain America on it because it symbolizes truth, justice, and the family way of life.

True

False

The child who would bite the bop bag is most likely saying to the EPT therapist:

I’m hungry and I will eat anything to survive.

I was bitten and so I’m going to bite someone back.

Oral aggression is a natural form of expression.

My anger is coming from the regressed state of infancy when oral energy was my power focus.

The main purpose of the bop bag is to show aggression so the child can experience destructive power.

True

False

A child is pushing the bop bag into the corner of the playroom with a gun to its mouth. The most appropriate response to this child, according to EPT would be:

You’re tired of your parents telling you to brush your teeth so much.

That person yells at you. That hurts your feelings, and they never listen to what you have to say.

You eat too much candy and your mother only wants you to eat better.

You have to stop disagreeing with your parents when they tell you something.

The manner in which a child confronts the bop bag indicates, in some ways, the developmental stage of the child about the onset and duration of the issues.

True

False

The bop bag can elicit intense reactions from a child, some to the degree that a child will dissociate as they confront the representative object.

True

False

When a child confronts the bop bag repeatedly in a specific area of the bop bag’s body, it means, in EPT perspective, that:

The bop bag is easier to hit in that area for the child.

That area of the bop bag represents a vulnerable area in the child’s body.

The child likes that specific spot because it means he can show more power.

That the child’s body has more resilience in that area to defend against internal pain.

When a child kicks the bop bag in the back several times and as he walks toward the bop bag to kick it again, he rubs his back in the same spot on his body, it most likely means:

The child is having a somatic memory in his body in that location.

Children randomly touch their bodies as they play intense emotional experiences.

It’s ridiculous to equate the body of the bop bag to the body of the child.

The bop bag is only a toy and toys can’t tell us about the child’s internal feelings.

The common theme of the three boys playing with the bop bag is:

Mothers need to let their sons play more aggressively to discharge energy.

All the fathers were inadequate role models in conveying the work ethic.

Intense emotional energy about their lives was being expressed toward the bop bag.

Families where the father is separated from the mother have sons that are enraged.

A child taps the bop bag lightly with the back of his hand as he explores the playroom. To the EPT therapist this means:

The child fears the emotions that the bop bag could represent.

The bop bag is a trigger for emotional grieving that is repressed.

The child’s self-esteem is so low that contact with other children is avoided.

None of the above.

The child draws the face of a bearded man with a scar on his forehead on the bop bag. He takes the baseball bat and hits the bop bag in the face several times. In EPT this most likely means:

This man taught the boy how to play baseball in the past year.

The boys had been slapped by this man as part of his interactions with him.

The boy did not like the person’s beard.

He was accidently hit by a pitched ball and it hit him in the head.

The best way to stop the expression of aggressive behavior in the playroom is not to have a bop bag in the room.

True

False

Projection of emotional content by a child on to the bop bag is a therapeutic myth.

True

False

The best image on the surface of a bop bag is:

Super hero.

No image.

Disheveled male figure.

Angel of mercy.

The primary use of the bop bag in EPT is to help the child externalize the pent up emotional energy that cannot be expressed in the child’s reality world.

True

False

The play therapist must encourage the child to use the bop bag so that the child’s aggressive tendencies are exposed early in the therapeutic play process.

True

False

When a child focuses on the bop bag as the representational toy of some relationship and demonstrates aggression, it is usually a significant relationship that has degraded the child in a significant manner.

True

False

In the process of confronting the bop bag, the child deflates the bop bag to be flat on the floor. In EPT, this would most likely mean:

I’m tired of playing with the bop bag.

I have killed the power of the fear object.

I want to watch the therapist blow the “damn” bag up again.

My play therapy process is over and I’m whole again.

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