The Play Therapy Circle

🎧 Flashback Episode: Self-Care for Play Therapists (A Revisit) We're pulling this one back into your feed because some conversations deserve a second listen, especially when life gets busy and self-care quietly slips down the priority list again. If that's you right now, welcome back to this one. In this episode, Kylie Ellison gets refreshingly honest about what self-care actually looks l...

When Parents Push Back: Working with Resistance in Play Therapy You can have every handout, every strategy, every piece of psychoeducation ready to go, but if the parent sitting across from you is defended, exhausted, and quietly drowning in shame, none of it is going to land. So what do we actually do? Ever sat across from a resistant parent and thought, "If I could just get through to them,...

Episode 46: Reflecting Feelings (Back to Basics) + Listener Q&A on Post-COVID Babies In this episode, Kylie returns to her Back to Basics series to unpack one of the most fundamental and often most challenging skills in child-centred play therapy: reflecting feelings. Coming live from the playroom (beanbag and all), she takes listeners through why this skill can feel so vulnerable for beginnin...

This week's episode is one we didn't plan to record, but one that felt necessary. On the day our community learned of the passing of Dr. Garry Landreth, Kylie sat down to record this special tribute episode in honour of one of the most influential figures in child-centred play therapy history. Dr. Landreth's contributions to the field are immeasurable. As a Regents Professor at the Uni...

Have you ever finished a session and wondered, did any of that even matter? You've shown up, you've held the space, you've given everything you have and then that child walks back out into a world you can't control. A chaotic home. An unstable system. A family in crisis. And you're left sitting with the quiet, heavy question of whether what happens inside the playroom can possi...

Back to Basics: Tracking Plus Your Questions | EP43 This episode marks something new. Listener questions, answered on the show. And the question that came in was so good, it deserved real time and real depth. But first: a back-to-basics teaching segment on tracking — one of the very first skills we learn in Child-Centred Play Therapy, and one of the most quietly powerful. What it sounds like, why...

Revisited: The Pandemic Ripple Effect This week, we're reaching back into The Play Therapy Circle archives to revisit a conversation that continues to resonate and perhaps now, more than ever, feels urgently relevant. The Pandemic Ripple Effect. If you are working with children aged 4–6 years old right now, whether as a play therapist, counsellor, early childhood educator, teacher, parent or c...

Kylie dives deep into the science behind the COVID generation - what the research is now telling us about children born between 2019 and 2022, why so many kids are struggling right now, and why that is absolutely not a reflection of your parenting. From maternal prenatal stress tripling during the pandemic, to MRI findings showing differences in brain development, to the speech delays, separation...

Kylie checks in live from Mildura - exhausted, dinner-less, and fresh off one of her most chaotic travel days yet (yes, there was an emergency Kmart suitcase run). But between the laughs, she unpacks the big takeaways from a massive week of Child-Centred Play Therapy training across Victoria, connecting with close to 70 practitioners in Bendigo, Ballarat, Wyndham Vale, and beyond. The conversation...

Is mess in the playroom always therapeutic? In this milestone 40th episode, Kylie challenges some of the assumptions that can creep into Child-Centred Play Therapy practice - specifically around permissiveness and what it really means when a child tips into chaos and destruction during a session. Kylie unpacks why limit-setting isn't a restriction on a child's freedom - it's one of the...

Ever had that nagging feeling that you're not quite good enough - even when the evidence says otherwise? This week, Kylie gets honest about something that came up in real time: imposter syndrome in the helping professions. And if you've ever quietly wondered whether you truly belong in this work, this one is for you. Imposter syndrome isn't new - the term emerged in the 1970s, original...

Big Feelings, Small Bodies: What Emotional Dysregulation Is Really Telling Us | Ep. 38 When a child explodes, shuts down, bolts from the room, or cries at everything, what is their nervous system actually communicating? In this episode, Kylie Ellison breaks down the neuroscience of emotional dysregulation in children, unpacking the four key presentations play therapists and caregivers see most: th...

In this episode, Kylie breaks down polyvagal theory and its three key nervous system states - safe and social, fight or flight, and freeze/shutdown and explores what each one actually looks like when a child walks through the playroom door. Because understanding which state a child is in changes everything about how you respond to them. From neuroception (that unconscious, automatic threat-scannin...

Holding Hope in the Playroom | Play Therapy Circle In one of her most personal episodes yet, host Kylie Ellison pauses to name what so many play therapists are quietly carrying, the weight of showing up for children and families during a time of profound collective anxiety and global uncertainty. This episode is for you , the therapist in the trenches. Kylie explores how the state of the world fil...

🎙️ FLASHBACK EPISODE — Episode 7: Understanding the Child's World Through Play Play is children's universal language — and once you understand it, you'll never look at it the same way again. In this flashback episode, we explore how children use play to communicate what they can't express in words, and what that means for us as CCPT practitioners, parents, educators, and caregivers...

Why does play therapy work? And what actually happens in a child’s brain during a play therapy session? In this episode of the Play Therapy Circle Podcast , Kylie Ellison explores the neuroscience behind child-centred play therapy (CCPT) and explains why play is the natural language of children. Children’s brains are still developing, which means they often cannot process emotions through words th...

In this episode of the Play Therapy Circle Podcast , Kylie explores how child-centred play therapy doesn’t just transform the children we work with, it also transforms us as therapists. Drawing on her experiences in the playroom, Kylie reflects on the profound lessons children teach us about authenticity, emotional courage, and the power of simply being present. She shares how the therapeutic rela...

In this heartfelt episode, Kylie explores one of the core truths of child-centred play therapy: all behaviour is communication . When children can’t put their experiences into words, they show us through play, through dysregulation, through control, chaos, withdrawal, and even aggression. But what if those behaviours aren’t problems to fix - but stories to hear? Kylie unpacks how behaviour reflect...

This week on The Play Therapy Circle , Kylie Ellison tackles a common (and often frustrating) misunderstanding: “Isn’t it just play?”. Kylie opens a timely conversation for play therapists, parents, carers, and professionals about how children communicate through play, especially when trauma, attachment conflicts, fear, or loyalty binds make verbal disclosure unlikely. Kylie explains why trauma is...

In this episode, Kylie reflects on what she’s witnessing in clinical practice right now, a significant rise in anxiety presentations among young children, particularly in the 4–6-year-old age group. Building on previous conversations about the post-COVID landscape, Kylie explores what she describes as an “anxiety epidemic” in early childhood and unpacks how this is showing up in play therapy rooms...

In this episode of The Play Therapy Circle , Kylie reflects on a milestone week - celebrating 10 years of child-centred play therapy practice - and shares exciting news about the first Play Therapy Circle Child-Centred Play Therapy Conference coming to Brisbane. Kylie then dives into a question many parents (and beginning play therapists) wrestle with: Why doesn’t my child talk in therapy? Drawing...

This episode is a reflective, personal milestone celebration: Kylie marks 10 years of private practice in child-centered play therapy (with a shout-out to her team, Eva and Shaz) and shares her professional journey from studying psychology, working in child protection and NGOs, to contracting work, before discovering play therapy training in 2015 and “falling in love” with the approach. She speaks...

What is Child-Centered Play Therapy and how can it help your child? In this episode, Kylie Ellison breaks down CCPT in a clear, parent-friendly way, addressing common questions like “Is it just play?”, “Will my child learn skills?”, and “How will I know it’s working?” Kylie explains how children communicate through play, why relationship comes first, and how a safe, consistent play space helps chi...

In this episode, Kylie Ellison reflects on the real challenges of staying true to Child-Centred Play Therapy when doubt, silence, and pressure creep in. Drawing on her own practice and recent teaching, she explores why CCPT is more than a technique, it’s a way of being. Kylie normalises imposter syndrome, unpacks the urge to revert to talk-based approaches, and reminds us that the therapeutic rela...

Welcome back to 2026! This episode offers a calm, grounded transition back into the playroom for 2026. We explore the “fresh start” myth, the pressure to return energised, confident, and immediately ‘on’, and why many of us actually come back needing time to recalibrate. This is a reminder that doubt after a break is often state-based, not a reflection of your skills. We’ll focus on what’s enough...