Avsnitt
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Do children who’ve experienced trauma prior to developing language have the capacity to remember what happened to them?
Does the traumatic experience go away on its own?
I’ve often heard people, including child serving professionals, dismiss the possibility of the negative impact of neglect and early trauma on infants and young children.
Especially the trauma caused by invasive medical procedures on infants and children even though the procedures are necessary.
I find it perplexing that professionals in the mental health community and social services community would dismiss the impact of early traumatic experiences on children.
That’s usually when I go back to what research tells us about trauma.
Research tells us, especially the groundbreaking work of Bessel Van der Kolk, that traumatic experiences are stored somatically in the body.
How can mental health professionals help these young children to overcome the negative impact of preverbal trauma?
Yep, you guessed it - Play Therapy!
Spiel, Lombardi, and DeRubeis-Byrne (2019) provide a case study using psychoanalytic play therapy to facilitate healing for a three-year old client.
It’s a fascinating case study with excerpts from sessions and a discussion of the clinical insights gained using psychoanalytic play therapy.
Interested in learning how play therapy can facilitate healing for young children who experienced pre-verbal trauma?
Join me for this free weekly podcast, I’ll provide an overview of the case study and discuss how play therapists can help traumatized young children to heal.
If you’re interested in reading the study, here’s the citation:
Spiel, S., Lombardi, K., and DeRebeis-Byrne, L. (2019). Treating traumatized children: Somatic memories and play therapy. Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy, 18(1), 1-12. doi.10.1080/15289168.2019.1566974
Join my free Facebook Community Play and Expressive Arts Therapy Playground.
Check out my free resources for mental health professionals working with children, adolescents, and families who want to integrate play therapy and expressive arts into their clinical work.
I work with individuals and agencies to develop successful strategies and meet the treatment needs of your child and adolescent clients and their families using play therapy & expressive arts.
Contact me to schedule a free 30-minute video call if you're ready to level up your skills -
Using play therapy effectively requires child and adolescent therapists to know how to use a theoretical play therapy model to access the therapeutic powers of play.
When choosing play therapy to facilitate healing, it’s important to consider what your clients need and how you will use play therapy to accomplish that goal.
Want some ideas?
Join me for this free weekly podcast, I’ll share tips for activities to use focused on facilitating attachment and connection.
Join my free Facebook Community Play and Expressive Arts Therapy Playground.
Check out my free resources for mental health professionals working with children, adolescents, and families who want to integrate play therapy and expressive arts into their clinical work.
I work with individuals and agencies to develop successful strategies and meet the treatment needs of your child and adolescent clients and their families using play therapy & expressive arts.
Contact me to schedule a free 30-minute video call if you're ready to level up your skills -
Saknas det avsnitt?
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Play therapists often talk about the therapeutic powers of play.
But what exactly does that mean and why are they so important in play therapy?
How do you explain play therapy to others?
Actually, knowing the answer to these questions are core competencies for play therapists because 👇
The therapeutic powers of play are what set play therapy apart from all the other expressive arts therapies.
Understanding how to help your young clients access the therapeutic powers of play is the difference between using games and activities in therapy sessions versus using play therapy.
Join me for this free weekly podcast, I’ll discuss the therapeutic powers of play and why they are the foundation of play therapy.
You’ll get tips for explaining play therapy to parents and other professionals so you sound legit. 🤩
Join my free Facebook Community Play and Expressive Arts Therapy Playground.
Check out my free resources for mental health professionals working with children, adolescents, and families who want to integrate play therapy and expressive arts into their clinical work.
I work with individuals and agencies to develop successful strategies and meet the treatment needs of your child and adolescent clients and their families using play therapy & expressive arts.
Contact me to schedule a free 30-minute video call if you're ready to level up your skills -
Writing play therapy documentation is hands down the least favorite task for play therapists, myself included.
It’s overwhelming, confusing, and exhausting. It can feel never ending and burn you out.
It’s often avoided altogether, which is never good.
Avoiding it just creates more stress because you feel like you’re always behind or worse you get in trouble because it’s not done.
What if I told you that there are strategies that can help reduce the confusion and overwhelm?I know, I can hear you thinking - No Way! What’s the catch?
Join me for this free weekly Podcast, I’ll discuss three 🔑things to keep in mind that will help you streamline your documentation process in a way that makes the “documentation gods” happy, which in turn makes your life easier.
Join my free Facebook Community Play and Expressive Arts Therapy Playground.
Check out my free resources for mental health professionals working with children, adolescents, and families who want to integrate play therapy and expressive arts into their clinical work.
I work with individuals and agencies to develop successful strategies and meet the treatment needs of your child and adolescent clients and their families using play therapy & expressive arts.
Contact me to schedule a free 30-minute video call if you're ready to level up your skills -
If you’re a play therapist and you have struggled to write progress notes that make sense without draining your brain, then you are definitely not alone.
Maybe you feel confused and overwhelmed about writing play therapy notes because you have no idea what to write that makes sense and doesn’t sound like you just played for an hour with your client. 😂
These are the struggles of many play therapists.Writing play therapy progress notes can be exhausting, confusing, and frustrating.
If that’s you, then I have good news for you!
Join me for this free weekly podcast I’ll discuss tips for writing play therapy progress notes so they look professional and accurately document your play therapy sessions.
Join my free Facebook Community Play and Expressive Arts Therapy Playground.
Check out my free resources for mental health professionals working with children, adolescents, and families who want to integrate play therapy and expressive arts into their clinical work.
I work with individuals and agencies to develop successful strategies and meet the treatment needs of your child and adolescent clients and their families using play therapy & expressive arts.
Contact me to schedule a free 30-minute video call if you're ready to level up your skills -
If you’re a mental health professional in the United States, you might have heard about the CURES Act.
It’s created quite a buzz in the mental health community.
Maybe you’ve heard of Open Notes.
Essentially the discussion about progress notes in the medical community, including the mental health community, revolves around clients’ access to their medical records.Open Notes are a form of co-creating progress notes with clients.
When dealing with challenging topics and issues, I find it helpful to check out what the research says.
So, that’s what I did.
Join me for this free weekly podcast, I’m going to discuss this challenging topic regarding client access to progress notes, including parental access.I’ll review a recent study that explored the benefits and weaknesses for using Open Notes.
I’ll also discuss issues near and dear to play therapists 👇
how to maintain the privacy of your young clients, including progress notes about their sessions.
If you’re interested in reading the study for yourself, here’s the citation:
Blease, C., Kharko, A., Hagglund, M., O”Neill, S., Wachenheim, D., Salmi, L., Harcourt, K., Locher, C., DesRoches, C. M., and Torous, J. (2021). The benefit and harms of open notes in mental health: A Delphi survey of international experts. PLoS ONE, 16(10), 1-14. Doi.1037/journal.pone.0258056
Join my free Facebook Community Play and Expressive Arts Therapy Playground.
Check out my free resources for mental health professionals working with children, adolescents, and families who want to integrate play therapy and expressive arts into their clinical work.
I work with individuals and agencies to develop successful strategies and meet the treatment needs of your child and adolescent clients and their families using play therapy & expressive arts.
Contact me to schedule a free 30-minute video call if you're ready to level up your skills -
Play therapists place a lot of emphasis on recognizing themes in play therapy sessions.
Why?
Because understanding play behaviors and recognizing what clients are communicating in their play is critical to help them in the healing process.Here’s where case conceptualization is often overlooked when making sense of what’s going on in play therapy for your clients.
Understanding play therapy themes is heavily influenced by your play therapy model.
What does that have to do with play therapy case conceptualization?
I’m glad you asked!
Join me for this weekly podcast, I’ll discuss why case conceptualization is important to ensure you use the information gathered from play therapy themes so you can help your clients achieve the healing they are seeking and make a difference in their lives.
Join my free Facebook Community Play and Expressive Arts Therapy Playground.
Check out my free resources for mental health professionals working with children, adolescents, and families who want to integrate play therapy and expressive arts into their clinical work.
I work with individuals and agencies to develop successful strategies and meet the treatment needs of your child and adolescent clients and their families using play therapy & expressive arts.
Contact me to schedule a free 30-minute video call if you're ready to level up your skills -
Have you ever struggled to figure out what exactly your clients are communicating during their play therapy sessions?
Whether you’re a new play therapist or a seasoned play therapist, identifying themes can be challenging.
Learning to recognize themes in your clients’ play therapy sessions is a great way to understand what they are communicating through their play.
That’s why I’m soooooooooooo excited to have my guest, Dr. Jodi Mullen, share her tips identifying themes in play therapy sessions. 🎉
I love her idea of conceptualizing themes in play therapy sessions as the main points in a story.
So cool, right?!!
Join us for this free weekly podcast. We’ll be sharing some valuable information to help you recognize themes in play therapy sessions.
Join my free Facebook Community Play and Expressive Arts Therapy Playground.
Check out my free resources for mental health professionals working with children, adolescents, and families who want to integrate play therapy and expressive arts into their clinical work.
I work with individuals and agencies to develop successful strategies and meet the treatment needs of your child and adolescent clients and their families using play therapy & expressive arts.
Contact me to schedule a free 30-minute video call if you're ready to level up your skills -
There is a lot of terrible information being shared in the mental health community about writing progress notes.
Some information is based on fear, some information is based on misunderstanding about progress notes, and some information is based on minimizing the importance of progress notes. (Ouch!) 😲
Over the last 30+ years in the mental health field, I’ve heard and seen most of the terrible information being shared about writing progress notes.
Not all the information is terrible, and some of the information has some valid aspects to it.
Are you struggling to write play therapy progress notes?
Join me for this free podcast, I’ll share four mistakes play therapists make when writing progress notes and suggestions for writing sound, ethical progress notes.
Join my free Facebook Community Play and Expressive Arts Therapy Playground.
Check out my free resources for mental health professionals working with children, adolescents, and families who want to integrate play therapy and expressive arts into their clinical work.
I work with individuals and agencies to develop successful strategies and meet the treatment needs of your child and adolescent clients and their families using play therapy & expressive arts.
Contact me to schedule a free 30-minute video call if you're ready to level up your skills -
What’s the secret to success using play therapy like a pro?
Any new play therapist will tell you that the thing that drives them to learn new things 👇
is their desire to make a difference in the lives of children.
Over the last 15 years supervising new play therapists, I’ve witnessed four things that are 🔑for your success using play therapy so you can accomplish your dream.
Learning to use play therapy takes dedication to take risks and overcome challenges.
Join me for this weekly podcast, I’ll share three important things you need to master in order to use play therapy like an expert so you can make a lasting difference in the lives of children and their families.Join my free Facebook Community Play and Expressive Arts Therapy Playground.
Check out my free resources for mental health professionals working with children, adolescents, and families who want to integrate play therapy and expressive arts into their clinical work.
I work with individuals and agencies to develop successful strategies and meet the treatment needs of your child and adolescent clients and their families using play therapy & expressive arts.
Contact me to schedule a free 30-minute video call if you're ready to level up your skills -
If you’re a child/adolescent mental health professional, then you probably have children and adolescents on your caseload who are reluctant to engage in therapy.
These children can be overwhelming and frustrating, even for seasoned therapists.
What can you do to engage them in sessions so you can help them?
Knowing how to use play therapy strategies effectively can make a huge difference to engage your young clients in the change process.
Join me for this week’s podcast episode with my guest, Liana Lowenstein, MSW.
Liana Lowenstein has worked in the child/adolescent mental health community for over 35 years and has helped thousands of professionals use strategies that work.
She’s an internationally recognized expert and her 14 books are used by mental health professionals all over the world. You won’t want to miss this dynamic podcast episode.
My guest, Liana Lowenstein, and I will be discussing reasons why children can be difficult to engage in treatment and how to help them.Join my free Facebook Community Play and Expressive Arts Therapy Playground.
Check out my free resources for mental health professionals working with children, adolescents, and families who want to integrate play therapy and expressive arts into their clinical work.
I work with individuals and agencies to develop successful strategies and meet the treatment needs of your child and adolescent clients and their families using play therapy & expressive arts.
Contact me to schedule a free 30-minute video call if you're ready to level up your skills -
How do I know what’s happening in my clients’ play therapy sessions?
How do I know what’s important to notice and what’s not important in play therapy sessions?
How do I know what my clients’ behaviors in play therapy sessions mean?
These are often the questions asked by new play therapists.
Anyone new to play therapy will have asked these questions at some point when learning to use play therapy with their young clients.
There’s a deeper level of learning needed underlying these questions to develop competency understanding play behavior and themes in play therapy sessions.
Join me for this weekly podcast, I’ll discuss what you need to know so you can make sense of what’s happening in play therapy sessions and how to use that information to facilitate healing for your clients.
Join my free Facebook Community Play and Expressive Arts Therapy Playground.
Check out my free resources for mental health professionals working with children, adolescents, and families who want to integrate play therapy and expressive arts into their clinical work.
I work with individuals and agencies to develop successful strategies and meet the treatment needs of your child and adolescent clients and their families using play therapy & expressive arts.
Contact me to schedule a free 30-minute video call if you're ready to level up your skills -
One of the biggest struggles for play therapists is understanding and recognizing themes in play therapy.
Play therapists use themes in play therapy sessions to help them understand what’s going on with their clients and how they are progressing in play therapy.
But, I’ve always wondered who decided what themes represent or how we recognize them in play therapy sessions.
So, I went on a journey of looking into what research has to say about themes in play therapy.
(My journey is more like getting lost down the “rabbit hole” and finally re-emerging after a few hours. 🤣 My husband just knows to find me when I re-emerge or check to see if I’m still here. 😂)
I found an interesting study published in 2021 exploring if play themes could be identified using a standardized instrument.
Join me for this free weekly podcast, I’ll share highlights from the study and how play therapists can use the information to help them understand themes in play therapy.
Here’s the citation for the article:
Bridget, S., Parson, J., and Renshaw, K. (2021). Can children’s themes be assessed to inform play therapy practice? Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 26(1), 257-267. doi.10.1177/1359104520964510
Join my free Facebook Community Play and Expressive Arts Therapy Playground.
Check out my free resources for mental health professionals working with children, adolescents, and families who want to integrate play therapy and expressive arts into their clinical work.
I work with individuals and agencies to develop successful strategies and meet the treatment needs of your child and adolescent clients and their families using play therapy & expressive arts.
Contact me to schedule a free 30-minute video call if you're ready to level up your skills -
What can neuroscience tell us about creating a strong therapeutic relationship that allows our clients to feel safe during the change process? 🤔
Congruence in play therapy is the ability to align our internal experiences with our external expressions of unconditional positive regard and empathy.
Our resonance circuits, as termed by Daniel Siegel in his book Mindsight, discusses the role of resonance circuitry when connecting in sessions with clients to facilitate change.
Learning to use these key elements to facilitate healing in play therapy is a core competency in play therapy.
This includes working with parents so they can be the therapeutic agents of change for their children.
Join me for this weekly podcast, I’ll discuss what neuroscience can tell us about developing congruence and why it’s important in play therapy.Join my free Facebook Community Play and Expressive Arts Therapy Playground.
Check out my free resources for mental health professionals working with children, adolescents, and families who want to integrate play therapy and expressive arts into their clinical work.
I work with individuals and agencies to develop successful strategies and meet the treatment needs of your child and adolescent clients and their families using play therapy & expressive arts.
Contact me to schedule a free 30-minute video call if you're ready to level up your skills -
Congruence is such a nice sounding therapy word when thinking about how to be the best version of yourself in play therapy sessions.
(I have visions of unicorns and happily ever after music playing in my head 🦄 🎶)
Sounds so easy, right?
But it’s easier said than done.
No one can be 100% congruent with their clients (or their kids, or their partners, or their friends - you get the point) all of the time. It’s impossible.
What are things that interfere with being congruent with your clients in play therapy sessions and keep you from getting the best outcomes for your young clients?
Join me for this free weekly podcast. For this week’s podcast episode, I’ll talk about barriers to being congruent in sessions and how you can learn to be more congruent so you can get amazing outcomes in play therapy with your clients.
Join my free Facebook Community Play and Expressive Arts Therapy Playground.
Check out my free resources for mental health professionals working with children, adolescents, and families who want to integrate play therapy and expressive arts into their clinical work.
I work with individuals and agencies to develop successful strategies and meet the treatment needs of your child and adolescent clients and their families using play therapy & expressive arts.
Contact me to schedule a free 30-minute video call if you're ready to level up your skills -
Have you ever had a client that just didn’t seem to make any progress in play therapy even with all your best efforts?
What can you do to figure out what’s going on with your clients?
Assessment is one of the core competencies in play therapy.
There are some forms of assessment we can do as child/adolescent therapists, and some types of assessment require more formal training.
Sometimes, formal assessment can provide a wealth of information to better understand your young clients so you can help them get better.
The key to using assessment information effectively is knowing 👇
✅ what types of assessments are available
✅ what assessments can tell you about your clients
✅ how to help your clients get the right kind of assessments
Join me for this free weekly livestream with my guest, Dr. Karen Wilson, to talk about how play therapists can better understand the benefit of formal assessments and how you can use the information to help your clients make great progress in play therapy.Join my free Facebook Community Play and Expressive Arts Therapy Playground.
Check out my free resources for mental health professionals working with children, adolescents, and families who want to integrate play therapy and expressive arts into their clinical work.
I work with individuals and agencies to develop successful strategies and meet the treatment needs of your child and adolescent clients and their families using play therapy & expressive arts.
Contact me to schedule a free 30-minute video call if you're ready to level up your skills -
Fundamental to the therapeutic process is a strong therapeutic relationship.
This requires the ability to understand congruence and how to use congruence as part of your therapeutic use of self in sessions.
This is also true in play therapy.
In fact, therapeutic use of self and congruence in play therapy are core competency skills in play therapy.
How do you use congruence in play therapy?
What does congruence in play therapy look like?
Several play therapists examined congruence in play therapy to answer these questions.
They developed a model to use congruence effectively in play therapy.
Link to Article:
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-45574-002Join my free Facebook Community Play and Expressive Arts Therapy Playground.
Check out my free resources for mental health professionals working with children, adolescents, and families who want to integrate play therapy and expressive arts into their clinical work.
I work with individuals and agencies to develop successful strategies and meet the treatment needs of your child and adolescent clients and their families using play therapy & expressive arts.
Contact me to schedule a free 30-minute video call if you're ready to level up your skills -
Adolescents have their own unique needs in the treatment process.
Play therapists often struggle with knowing how to help their adolescent clients access the therapeutic powers of play for healing.
Using expressive arts with adolescents provides an excellent way to help them process and explore painful emotions and experiences.
But, many therapists don’t use expressive arts due to their misconceptions about this powerful modality.
I’m going to discuss three misconceptions about using expressive arts so that you tap into this powerful modality to help your adolescent clients heal.
I’ll also share how I use expressive arts to get great results in treatment, even with reluctant, defensive, and guarded teens.
Join my free Facebook Community Play and Expressive Arts Therapy Playground.
Check out my free resources for mental health professionals working with children, adolescents, and families who want to integrate play therapy and expressive arts into their clinical work.
I work with individuals and agencies to develop successful strategies and meet the treatment needs of your child and adolescent clients and their families using play therapy & expressive arts.
Contact me to schedule a free 30-minute video call if you're ready to level up your skills -
Have you heard of a condition called alexithymia?
Probably not because most mental health professionals are not familiar with this term.
I wasn’t until I came across the term while looking at research about trauma.
What does alexithymia have to do with trauma and working with children and teens in play therapy?
That’s an excellent question!
Alexithymia is a condition that can be found in people with depression, PTSD, schizophrenia, and autism.
Have you ever had a client in sessions who repeatedly could not identify their emotions no matter how much therapeutic rapport and safety you created in sessions?
It’s possible they may have alexithymia - inability to identify their emotions and experiencing their emotions.
A group of researchers uncovered a connection between adults with alexithymia and childhood emotional abuse, emotional neglect, and physical neglect.
As child and adolescent mental health professionals and play therapists imagine the benefit to children who have experienced neglect if they were able to receive early intervention using strategies that addressed possible alexithymia.
That’s a game changer in my mind!
I’ll discuss the finding of this research and how we can incorporate this groundbreaking information into play therapy when working with traumatized children and teens.Join my free Facebook Community Play and Expressive Arts Therapy Playground.
Check out my free resources for mental health professionals working with children, adolescents, and families who want to integrate play therapy and expressive arts into their clinical work.
I work with individuals and agencies to develop successful strategies and meet the treatment needs of your child and adolescent clients and their families using play therapy & expressive arts.
Contact me to schedule a free 30-minute video call if you're ready to level up your skills -
What mistakes in play therapy with traumatized children and teens are critical to avoid?
No one wants to provide terrible play therapy services.
I’ve never heard a play therapist say - “I’m okay with providing mediocre play therapy services to my clients, especially clients with traumatic experiences.”
That would be terrible, right?!
And yet, sometimes we don’t really know how to provide play therapy to traumatized children and teens so they get the most benefit from the experience.
So, how do you provide play therapy to traumatized children and teens in a way that helps them overcome the devastating impact of trauma?
What are the mistakes to avoid when providing play therapy services to traumatized children and teens?
I’ll discuss four mistakes to avoid when providing play therapy to traumatized children and teens so they can experience the healing they deserve (and that you want to provide for them).Join my free Facebook Community Play and Expressive Arts Therapy Playground.
Check out my free resources for mental health professionals working with children, adolescents, and families who want to integrate play therapy and expressive arts into their clinical work.
I work with individuals and agencies to develop successful strategies and meet the treatment needs of your child and adolescent clients and their families using play therapy & expressive arts.
Contact me to schedule a free 30-minute video call if you're ready to level up your skills - Visa fler
