DR. DAVID F. C. CHAN
I am an Accredited Play Therapist and Psychotherapist, and am registered with the National Council of Integrative Psychotherapists (NCIP, UK) and Play Therapy UK (PTUK). I am also a member of the American Psychological Association (APA). I offer Play Therapy and Therapeutic Play to children and adolescents, and Psychotherapy to adults in Singapore. I have worked with individuals or groups of children who have mild to severe emotional, behaviour or mental health difficulties. I also provide student counseling and psychotherapy services.
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RECENTLY PUBLISHED ARTICLES
GROUP PLAY THERAPY FOR CHILDREN WITH DEVELOPMENTAL AND LEARNING DISABILITIES
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Children and adolescents with developmental disabilities (e.g. ADHD, Down Syndrome, ASD) and learning disabilities (e.g. dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia, dysgraphia) have to bear similar emotional difficulties like others without disabilities. On top of their emotional distress, they have their own specific disabilities to deal with. At home, they are often developmentally overtaken by their siblings and this can cause much anger, pain and self-loathing. The many visits to specialists for their problems to be fixed and the medical treatments make them feel inferior and unaccepted. Therapeutic interventions that meet the emotional, intellectual and physical needs of those with these disabilities are essential and they are available. Group play therapy is often offered to small groups of children in schools in order to address a specific problem or developmental issues. It responds to the intrapersonal and interpersonal needs of children and addresses the interpersonal issues that affect or impede academic progress. The effectiveness of play therapy (including group play therapy) in schools has been established and reported. This case study documents my experience in providing group play therapy to a small group of primary four students in a neighborhood primary school in Singapore. The gains among these children with developmental and learning disabilities after six sessions of group play therapy are reported in this paper.
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POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY AND SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING
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This article on positive psychology investigates the author’s positive traits and experience. Parts of the article are written in the first person, where the author’s personal experiences and traits are detailed. The author has also taken a number of tests to find out his personality traits and these were verified and authenticated by the author in his comments on these traits. The article focuses on the thesis of Lyubomirsky, Sheldon Schkade on past, present and future happiness, and experiences. These concepts are well-illustrated and explained in Seligman’s self-help guide. The author’s positive subjective experience of the past, present and future are also included to illustrate the various concepts related to positive emotions (contentment with the past, happiness in the present, and hope for the future) highlighted in this article.
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DRAWING AND COLOURING MANDALAS TO HELP REDUCE ANXIETY
Mandalas have been used for psychological healing and integration in numerous applications and studies. Purely geometric mandalas have also been used in most recent studies on the healing effects of drawing and/or colouring mandalas. This paper first presents the findings of research done on using art making to help calm and soothe those with anxiety and then offers a neuroscience explanation of how that works. A review of investigations on the calming effects of drawing and colouring mandalas is then made. The paper also reports the various studies on the physiological effects of drawing mandalas. Two recent investigations using physiological measures are examined.
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