In Memoriam
Charles E. Schaefer

Charles E. Schaefer, the eminent psychologist whose work helped lay thefoundation for the field of play therapy, died on September 19, 2020. He was acharter member of the editorial advisory board of the American Journal of Play.
Through his advocacy, leadership, and more than one hundred research articles
and dozens of authored, coauthored, edited, and coedited books, he shaped thegrowth and professionalization of the field of play therapy.
Born November 15, 1933, Schaefer earned a bachelor’s degree from Fairfield University in 1955 and a doctorate degree in clinical psychology fromFordham University in 1967. He later worked with children as the director ofpsychological services at The Children’s Village in Dobbs Ferry, New York. In
1982, he cofounded with Kevin O’Connor the Association for Play Therapy andserved on its board of directors until 1996. In 1986 he joined the psychology
department at Farleigh Dickinson University and later served as the director of
its Center for Psychological Services until he retired in 2007.
Schaefer’s first book, the 1976 edited collection The Therapeutic Use ofChild’s Play, grew out of his experiences supervising clinical interns who wereoften familiar with only psychologist and play therapy pioneer Virginia Axline’s
nondirective, or child-centered approach to using play in therapy. Schaefer marshalled decades of research from scholars and clinicians, including Axline, ErikErikson, Anna Freud, Brian Sutton-Smith, and Louise Guerney, into a single
volume that illustrated the wide assortment of therapeutic play approaches clinicians could use to meet a child’s needs. This early effort to define, redefine, andexpand the field characterized the rest of his career.
Perhaps Schaefer’s most significant scholarly contribution came in his 1993
book The Therapeutic Powers of Play. In it, he introduced a list of the major
therapeutic powers of play to describe the active ingredients in play that help112

In Memoriam

produce change in clients and to encourage further research about them. The
list later grew to more than twenty, and included “change agents” such as selfexpression, resiliency, stress management, and empathy. Schaefer and coeditors
Heidi Gerard Kaduson and Donna Cangelosi detailed the application of thesepowers in their 1997 book The Playing Cure: Individualized Play Therapy forSpecific Childhood Disorders. In the more than two decades since, what thecoeditors described as prescriptive play therapy—an eclectic, evidence-informed
approach that focused on the individual needs of the client—evolved into theleading form of play therapy.
A celebrated play therapy scholar and advocate, his research and organizational leadership helped professionalize the field through training, credentialling,and establishing forums for new scholarship. For his contributions, he received
Farleigh Dickinson University’s distinguished faculty award for research andscholarship in 1994 as well as the title of professor emeritus. In 1996 the Association for Play Therapy honored him with its distinguished service award andthe title of director emeritus. Ten years later, the organization presented him
with its lifetime achievement award.
—Jeremy K. Saucier

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