Next Level Play Therapy: A Podcast for Play Therapy Excellence

Have you ever wondered which approach works best with children who are traumatized?

Or maybe you’ve wondered what techniques are used in trauma therapy?

Working with children and adolescents who have experienced trauma requires child and adolescent mental health professionals to understand a variety of factors impacting treatment decision making, especially if you’re wondering 👇

How can play therapy help children with trauma?

To answer this question, you need to consider a variety of factors that influence your ability to identify the extent of the problems your clients are experiencing.  

Here are just a few things you can consider for your case conceptualization process:

💥 impact of the traumatic experience on your young client

💥age of the child and age when the traumatic experience occurred

💥ability for the child’s environment to support their healing

All of these factors will be influenced by how you conceptualize the problem based on your theoretical model and how your theoretical model facilitates access to the therapeutic powers of play.

Play therapy is grounded in a theoretical model and your theoretical model dictates how to apply that model within the context of a therapeutic relationship to facilitate healing for your traumatized clients.

But - it’s not just about learning a play therapy theory model and applying it.

It’s also important to ensure you walk through the case conceptualization process so you’re clear how your play therapy treatment approach can help your young clients heal and how to integrate parents in the healing process.

In this week’s  episode, I’ll discuss three questions you need to answer when you’re figuring out how to strategically help your traumatized clients using 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

If you’re a play therapist you’ve probably heard of sand tray therapy.

Maybe you’re using  sand tray therapy now with your child and adolescent clients or maybe you’ve been really curious about it.

There’s a lot of confusion about using sand tray in play therapy and that impacts the quality of the experience for your clients.

What is sand tray therapy and how do you use it in play therapy?

To really understand what sand tray therapy is, you need to know some foundational elements of sand tray.

That’s what I want to talk about in this week’s episode.

Join me for this free weekly pocast, I’m going to discuss some of the foundational principles of using sand tray in play therapy to provide a firm understanding of sand tray therapy. 

If you’re interested in learning more about sand tray therapy, then you don’t want to miss this episode!

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 felt super frustrated trying to get engagement from parents for their child’s play therapy treatment?

Feeling like you are “chasing” parents to get them to schedule an appointment with you to discuss how to help their child make progress in play therapy.

Feeling tired and a little burned out responding to phone calls, emails, or texts between play therapy sessions.

Sometimes it can be challenging to get parents to actively participate in their child’s treatment.

If this sounds familiar to you, then you are not alone.

Over the last 15 years providing play therapy supervision and consultation, there are a few things that I’ve observed play therapists doing that actually play a role in difficulty getting parents to engage in the change process.

Want some tips and strategies to get more engagement from parents in their children’s play therapy treatment?

Join me for this free weekly podcast, I’ll share four things that you can do to increase engagement of parents in the change process for their children.

These four simple things can really improve your ability to connect with parents to help them work with you more effectively to facilitate healing for their children.

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 in the child and adolescent mental health field then you’ve likely heard of play therapy, but why is it so effective?

How is it possible that play therapy has become the go-to treatment approach for children to address their mental health challenges?

What is it that sets play therapy apart from other treatment modalities?

How has play therapy evolved to what it has become today?

Well, to explore this further I thought I’d go to one of the big influencers for play therapy here in the United States to get their insights about the growth of play therapy and why it’s so powerful.

The Association for Play Therapy APT) has been a significant part of the growth of play therapy here in the United States, and even internationally.

Since APT was formed in 1982, its role in shaping and influencing the quality of play therapy has been enormous.

I’m excited to have as my guest this week Kim Vander Dussen, Psy. D., RPT-S, and current APT Chair!!! 🎉

Join me for this free weekly podcast, we’ll explore trends in play therapy and how the play therapy field has grown to what it is today.

We’ll also explore the role of APT for this phenomenal growth of play therapy to help children and their families heal.

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

In the play therapy profession, the focus is typically on the children and providing play therapy sessions only with the child to facilitate healing.

Makes sense when you think about it because parents bring their child to you for help overcoming their mental health challenges.

But is it really the most effective way to conceptualize the problem and healing the problem?

How much focus do you allow to identify family relationship patterns sustaining the problem?

How are you gathering information to fully understand the problem?

How are you using that information to strategize the best approach to play therapy with anxious children?

Whenever I ponder clinical issues in my work with clients and prepare for trainings, I always like to go to the research to see what the research says when it comes to children’s mental health and treatment.

So that’s what I did.  

I perused the research literature on children’s mental health and parental involvement in treatment.

Yep! I went down another research literature rabbit hole and came out with gold!

I found an interesting article examining the role of parents in the development of anxiety in their children and the effectiveness of parental involvement in treatment.

There was some really interesting data about the role of parents in the development of their children’s anxiety as well as what type of treatment involving parents was effective (and not effective).

Intrigued?  Want to know more?

Join me on my podcast episode this week! I’ll review the data identified about what types of family patterns/parental behaviors were examined to give you insights into what to explore with parents and children when working with anxious children.

I’ll also review the data outlining what types of treatment approaches involving parents were effective and what wasn’t effective so you can use a play therapy approach that gets results.

Citation for article:  Wei, C., and Kendall, P. C. (2014). Parental involvement: Contribution to childhood anxiety and its treatment. Clinical Child and Family Psychological Review, 17, 319-339. doi.10.1007/s10567-014-0170-6

And - if you find the information useful - spread the love and share the podcast with your colleagues!

Leave a comment because I’d love to get your feedback.

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

As a play therapist or child/adolescent therapist, 👇

Have you ever thought there is no way to balance a strong therapeutic relationship with clients and parents with the more clinically technical aspects of case conceptualization and treatment planning?

Therapeutic rapport is relational, right?.  It’s personal and dynamic.

Case conceptualization and treatment planning can feel sterile and dry if not done well.

The problem I’ve witnessed over the years is that not using the first session to conduct a thorough psychosocial assessment impairs your ability to understand the roots of the problem 👇

And that leads to difficulty figuring out how to help your clients.

Completing the case conceptualization process helps you figure out treatment planning process to answer these questions 👇

 “What works best for my client?” and “How do I figure that out?”

Here’s the real question you need to ask yourself -

Can learning to access the benefits of these technical components and find a balance using therapeutic rapport create a stronger healing experience for your clients?

That’s the key question.

I can hear the skeptics and your skepticism coming through the internet.  😂

Rather than simply dismissing the possibility altogether, it’s helpful to hold open to the possibility that can actually work.

That’s what three mental health experts examined in a recent article published in the Journal of Psychotherapy Integration.

Interested? Intrigued?  Still skeptical?

Join me for this free weekly podcast, I’ll discuss the authors’ belief that it’s possible to take more of an individualized approach to treatment.

I’ll share how these authors propose the ability to use case formulation and treatment planning to focus on meeting the treatment needs of each unique client.

I’ll discuss how these principles can be applied to play therapy and your work with clients using play therapy.

Citation for article discussed in this episode:

Gazzillo, F., Dimaggio, G., and Curtis, J. T. (2021). Case formulation and treatment planning: How to take care of relationships and symptoms together. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, 31(2), 115-128. doi.10.1037/int0000185

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 then you’ve probably had children from high conflict divorced families on your caseload at some point, or maybe even now.

These families can present very challenging issues to navigate in play therapy.

If you’ve worked with children in high conflict family systems then you’ve probably felt helpless, frustrated, and overwhelmed trying to help your young clients.

What are the best practices for working with children in these challenging family systems?

How can you navigate all the systems involved in the child’s family - attorneys, court professionals, parents who aren’t able to co-parent effectively together, and possibly child protective services professionals?

These are highly complex family systems and knowing what resources to access can be overwhelming. 

That’s why I LOVE using the resources and support available by the Association for Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC)!

They have AMAZING resources, like Guidelines for Court-Involved Therapists!

AFCC also provide a wealth of other resources.

Want to know more?

That’s why I invited Ann Ordway, JD, PhD, to be my guest this week.  

She’s the Program Director for AFCC and a great ally to support the work of play therapists working with children in high conflict divorced families.

Join me for this free weekly podcast, we’ll discuss some of the different types of collateral professionals working alongside these high conflict divorced families and how play therapists can utilize these valuable professionals to help their clients.

AFCC has some amazing resources for mental health professionals so you won’t want to miss this episode if you work with children from high conflict families 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

One of the things I regularly hear from play therapists is their frustration knowing what is the most effective way to work with parents in play therapy.

This is especially true when working with children in families that are very challenging.

Children exist within the context of their families and supporting parents to be the therapeutic agents of change for their children is an important task for play therapists.

How do you engage parents in play therapy and support a secure attachment with their children?

How do you assess parenting capacity to create a secure attachment with their children?

Have you heard of the AAI?

The Adult Attachment Interview.

What does the AAI have to do with play therapy?

Learning how to use the AAI provides a wealth of information for play therapists to better understand parents My guest, Karen Doyle Buckwalter, LCSW, RPT-S, will discuss the benefits of using the AAI when working with parents and how it can help you better support parents to create secure attachments with their children.

If you want to learn how to help parents become therapeutic agents of change for their children, then you don’t want to miss this episode.

and helping them to create secure attachments with their children.

Interested in learning more?

Join me for this free podcast!

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

From an attachment theory standpoint, structure is an important part of parenting.

It helps children understand relationship boundaries, protects them from possible harm, provides a sense of safety and order, and allows them to understand how actions impact them and others.

How we provide structure is very important - Not too rigid and not too loose. Just right structure is the 🔑to success.

This is also true when providing play therapy to children and their families.

One of the biggest reasons I find that play therapists get lost and frustrated, especially when working with parents is 👇

they have not fully identified their expectations for how their play therapy services are provided and 👇

they didn’t clearly communicate that to parents from the very beginning of play therapy treatment.

This has the potential to create frustration for clients and parents, reduce the effectiveness of your play therapy services, and cause parents to pull their child from play therapy.

What can you do?

How can you set up your play therapy services for success from the very beginning?

Join me for this free weekly podcast, I’ll share with you strategies that I’ve learned over the past three decades working with children and families.

I’ll answer questions that I get asked ALL the time by play therapists about getting better engagement from parents and their children.

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, especially new to play therapy, I’m going to share a secret with you.

You may not believe me when I tell you this.

If you feel like a fraud using play therapy …

If you feel overwhelmed and struggling with thoughts that you suck using play therapy and that your clients are probably suffering because of your incompetence …

This is likely a lie your brain is telling you. 🤯

It’s called Imposter Syndrome.

Every play therapist I’ve ever worked with to learn play therapy feels this way.

Yep!  You’re not the only one who feels like an imposter.  

I promise!

And, the likelihood that you actually suck using play therapy is pretty slim.

I know - I can hear you thinking that I’m wrong because you’re pretty sure you’re a terrible play therapist.

If this is you, then 👇

Join me for this free weekly podcast, I’ll share tips for gaining confidence using play therapy so you can make a difference in the lives of 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