Girl Wars: Using Play Therapy to Address Relational Aggression With Middle School Girls

Bullying among adolescent girls, or relational aggression, involves acts of exclusion from peers or groups, using threats or inappropriate gestures to intimidate, or defaming others through verbal attacks, spreading rumors or even posting slanderous comments on social media outlets. This paper demonstrates that bullying can elicit long-term effects on girls who are victimized and can prove to be more harmful than some physical abuse. Negative effects of relational aggression among adolescent girls are discussed and play therapy techniques that can be implemented in school and clinical mental health settings in order to assist these aggressors are examined.