Next Level Play Therapy: A Podcast for Play Therapy Excellence

Send us Fan Mail Mental health professionals are human beings who bring all of themselves into the counseling process to walk alongside their clients in the healing process. Humans are prone to biases and imperfection, including those in the mental health field. Play therapy is no different. Maybe that’s one of the reasons we tend to be a little neurotic about self-reflection and pondering why we...

Send us Fan Mail What are the four basic play therapy skills every play therapist needs to master to competently provide play therapy that gets real results for your clients? The Association for Play Therapy has identified several play therapy core competencies necessary for becoming a Registered Play Therapist ™ These core competencies identify what skills should be learned as a play therapist. T...

Send us Fan Mail What’s the Backbone of Great Play & Expressive Arts Therapy? Any really great therapist will tell you that one the foundational elements of providing excellent psychotherapy to clients is … … Clinical Case Conceptualization.  Are you having flashbacks to graduate school and rolling your eyes at me as you read this?   Hang in there a minute.  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE , LOVE clinical...

Send us Fan Mail What are the clinical tools in your play therapy and expressive arts toolbox and how do you use those tools effectively with your young clients? Engaging strong clinical decision-making skills when using an integrated approach in play therapy and expressive arts treatment is just as important as if you are applying one specific play therapy theoretical model.   Why?   Theory drive...

Send us Fan Mail Does sand tray therapy in play therapy work?   What’s the difference between sandplay therapy and sand tray therapy?   Aren’t they the same thing? Words matter when thinking about what you do in play therapy and communicating to others what you’re doing. After all, can you clearly communicate to others if you don’t really understand the difference and feel confident that what you’...

Send us Fan Mail Children feel grief deeply and their grieving process looks different depending on a variety of factors, including their age and developmental level. How can play therapists help children navigate their grief in a way that is unique to their developmental needs in treatment? Play therapy has become the “go-to” approach to help children heal. This includes using play therapy to hel...

Send us Fan Mail What’s the best way to make the biggest and most long-lasting impact using play therapy? After all, that’s the goal of play therapy - to make a lasting difference in the lives of children. The question we need to consider is - who is the therapeutic agent of change for the child? Play therapist or parents? You can make the case that both are therapeutic agents of change in their o...

Send us Fan Mail Usually when I suggest play therapists use family play therapy sessions, their facial expression says it all. Anxious, surprised, overwhelmed, and sometimes amused or curious. It makes sense when you think about it because most play therapy training is focused on individual counseling sessions and very little training is focused on how to integrate parents and family members into...

Send us Fan Mail If you’re a play therapist or work with children and adolescents in the mental health field, then you know children do not exist in their own little vacuum. When you think about what’s going on with your clients from a systems and attachment lens, then you know parents and family have a big influence on children and their ability to thrive in life. We know from decades of attachme...

Send us Fan Mail While I believe that learning a play therapy model so you can effectively apply the model with a variety of children through all the stages of the play therapy change process is critical, 👇 Facilitating deep healing in play therapy is not possible without a strong therapeutic relationship with clients. We know from neuroscience research that children engage their play circuitry w...

Send us Fan Mail Emotion regulation problems, such as anger outbursts, are a big reason parents seek counseling for their children. Parents aren’t sure what to do so they seek help from you. Anger outbursts/tantrums can be frightening for parents as well as the child. What’s a play therapist to do? How can play therapy help children rein in those big, overwhelming feelings? That’s what my guest an...

Send us Fan Mail If you’re a child and adolescent therapist, it’s probably because you want to make a difference in the lives of children. That’s what drives most of you to pursue your master’s degree in counseling and spend endless hours trying to learn how to help your clients heal. Pretty much all of the child and adolescent therapists I’ve spoken with over the last 15 years when I’m providing...

Send us Fan Mail What the heck does bibliotherapy mean? It’s a really fancy term for using stories to help clients heal. Most play therapists incorporate some version of bibliotherapy in the play therapy process. To be honest, I’ve used bibliotherapy with adolescents and adults to help them heal. I use it ALL the time in family play therapy sessions. Are there ways to use bibliotherapy to get the...

Send us Fan Mail I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE using sand tray therapy with my clients of all ages.   I’m obsessed with it because I’ve witnessed the power of the sand tray therapy process to access deep healing for clients.  I also know that getting started can be overwhelming because it can be expensive.   So what’s a play therapist to do? Join me for this free weekly Podcast, I’m sharing practica...

Send us Fan Mail Wondering how to find great sand to use for sand tray therapy with NO DUST? One of the most challenging things about using sand tray therapy with children is sand that’s dusty.   Dusty?  Can sand be dusty?   YES!  It’s the worst when the sand is dusty because there's a cloud of dust lingering over the sand tray when kids sift and play in the sand. It's hard to be fully p...

Send us Fan Mail What kind of sand tray miniatures do you need? Are there miniatures that are better than others so your clients get what they need in your play therapy sessions? These are frequent questions I’m asked by play therapists who want to learn how to use sand tray therapy in play therapy.  They’re really good questions when you think about it because play therapists are very intentional...

Send us Fan Mail Have you heard of sand tray therapy? How do you provide sand tray therapy? What do you need to provide sand tray therapy with clients? If you’re a play therapist then you’ve probably heard of sand tray therapy. In play therapy,  there are specific types of toys and supplies needed in the playroom to provide play therapy. The same is true when using sand tray therapy with clients. ...

Send us Fan Mail 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. Join me for this free podcast, I’ll share highlights from the study and how play therapists can use the information to h...

Send us Fan Mail How do you make sense of what’s going on in play therapy sessions and figure out if your clients are making progress? This is a question that comes up A LOT in my play therapy trainings and play therapy consultation groups. It’s a great question. Underlying this question is the understanding that play therapy sessions are not traditional talk therapy sessions because children use...

Send us Fan Mail How good are you at identifying the role of culture in the problems your clients are experiencing? Have you considered the resiliency factors of your clients’ culture and how that can influence better play therapy outcomes? Play therapists work with children and their families from diverse cultural backgrounds. Using cultural competence with case conceptualization is essential to...

Send us Fan Mail I discovered neuroscience and attachment theory as a play therapist about 15 years ago and was immediately a fan because I recognized how attachment theory and neuroscience relate to play therapy. Understanding behaviors, and especially trauma, from this lens was a game-changer for me. It made so much sense, especially for someone with foundational training in family systems theor...

Send us Fan Mail 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 👇...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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. S...

Send us Fan Mail 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 becom...