Child Therapy (ages 4 - 16)
Parenting isn't easy, and when your child is struggling it can feel even harder. You're doing your best although supporting your child's emotions can sometimes feel overwhelming. That's where a child-centered play therapist can step in and help your child work through the hard stuff in life and become resilient.
You Don't Have to Navigate This Alone
As a family therapist, I've worked with children for 14 years, integrating play therapy, EMDR and Internal Family Systems parts work. I create a safe, nurturing environment where children can express themselves, process emotions and come to understand and make sense of the hard stuff in their lives. Therapeutic research shows us that kiddos do so much better in life with therapy than without it.
Children Can Recover From Hard Stuff/Trauma
The most difficult aspects of life, divorce, losing a loved one and traumatic incidences, leave children with emotional wounds, that play therapy helps children address and process.
Therapeutic research tells us that the way to heal and recover from trauma is with a safe, sensitive and attuned other (grown-up) who can witness and understand what the child is communicating through their play. This leads to resiliency and the ability to feel better, more confident and capable in their every day lives.
American literature is full of depictions of characters who rise to the occasion, battle unsurmountable obstacles and are faced with struggling to survive. This shows us that children can go through some of the hardest circumstances in life and recover from it.
A Glimpse Into the Healing Power of Play Therapy
Child anxiety, low self esteem or struggling with identity, separation struggles, social struggles, emotional outbursts or emotional shut down, school struggles, aggression, sleep issues, and big emotions showing up in various ways.
Children don't usually have the words to express what's going on inside , even though they take everything in. They naturally turn to play and in child-centered play therapy, play becomes their language and the toys are their words through which they communicate feelings, process life events and begin to heal. Play therapy gives kiddos the opportunity to get what adults get out of talk therapy.