Child Mental Haven Logo
Back to Insights & Articles
Default Avatar

CMH

CMH Contributor & Specialist

CMH Editorial Team

4 Publications

Articles by CMH

Mental Health The Woman Who Counted Raindrops
1 min read Aug 05, 2026

The Woman Who Counted Raindrops

"Healing is a peculiar thing. It rarely arrives with applause. More often, it enters quietly, like dawn slipping beneath a locked door." Every morning at exactly 5:43 a.m., before the rest of Nairobi stirred awake, Mara Achieng stood barefoot beside the kitchen sink. She would place her right hand under the tap. Count to twenty-three. Turn the water off. Dry her hands. Walk three steps.

Anxiety CMH Default Image
1 min read Aug 05, 2026

Beating the Odds

For years, Daniel had become an expert at pretending. At work, he smiled during meetings. He cracked jokes with colleagues. He met deadlines, earned promotions, and appeared to have everything under control. No one saw what happened after he locked his apartment door each evening. A 24-year-old Gen Z graduate living in Nairobi, he had mastered the art of looking “fine” in a world that demanded constant performance. On Instagram, he posted curated smiles, café photos in Westlands, and motivational captions about “hustle and grace.” On WhatsApp, he replied with emojis and jokes. At family gatherings in Kitengela, he was the “successful son who is figuring things out.”

Child Psychology CMH Default Image
1 min read Aug 02, 2026

More Than Just Toys: The Irrefutable Science of Play Therapy

The efficacy of psychological interventions for children has long been debated among mental health professionals; however, only recently has this issue received national attention, with the U.S. Public Health Service (2000) emphasizing the critical need for early intervention and empirically validated treatments tailored to children’s maturational needs. Play therapy is a developmentally responsive intervention widely used by child therapists but often criticized for lacking an adequate research base to support its growing practice. A meta-analysis of 93 controlled outcome studies (published 1953–2000) was conducted to assess the overall efficacy of play therapy and to determine factors that might impact its effectiveness. The overall treatment effect for play therapy interventions was 0.80 standard deviations. Further analysis revealed that effects were more positive for humanistic than for non humanistic treatments and that using parents in play therapy produced the largest effects. Play therapy appeared equally effective across age, gender, and presenting issue.