Next Level Play Therapy: A Podcast for Play Therapy Excellence

Send us Fan Mail 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 f...

Send us Fan Mail 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 st...

Send us Fan Mail 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 c...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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 🔑...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever felt like you’re lost and not sure what to do when you’re providing play therapy? Maybe you’ve secretly thought that you aren’t cut out to be a play therapist because you’re terrible at it. At some point in your learning journey to help your clients heal using play therapy, you’ve probably felt lost, overwhelmed, and frustrated. Typically, you’re imposter syndrome ki...

Send us Fan Mail What’s the point of learning to recognize themes in play therapy sessions? Does it really matter? Play therapists often talk about what play themes occurred in their clients’ play therapy sessions. Are play themes even real or are we just making them up to justify that play therapy is actually working? We know that play therapy has become the “go-to” treatment approach for childre...

Send us Fan Mail 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 me...

Send us Fan Mail 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’l...

Send us Fan Mail 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 a...

Send us Fan Mail 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 don...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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 pl...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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. Lear...

Send us Fan Mail 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 dif...

Send us Fan Mail 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 t...

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. But, I’ve always wondered who decided what themes represent or how we recognize them in play therapy sessions. So, I wen...

Send us Fan Mail 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 t...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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. So...

Send us Fan Mail 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 pl...