Child Centered Play Therapy (ages 4 - 18): an evidence-based therapy model

Parenting isn't easy, and when your child is struggling it can feel even harder. You're doing your best but dealing with your child's behaviors, or confusing attitudes, can 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 and families for 14 years utilizing an evidence-based, attachment related approach. I create a safe, nurturing environment where children can express themselves, be heard, seen, felt and understood through the relationship with the therapist. This is done through the verbal and non-verbal expressions that come out through behavior, play and the relationship. This allows them to recover from the hard stuff in their lives without having to feel pressured to process like adults do. 

Children Can Recover From Hard Stuff

The most difficult aspects of life for kids include school problems, navigating friendships and social situations, going through development changes and transitions, death, divorce and traumatic incidences. 

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 both non-verbally and verbally. This leads to resiliency and the ability to feel better, more confident and capable in their everyday 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 show 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 express themselves behaviorally and in the relationship with a therapist or parent.  Play becomes their language and the toys are their words through which they communicate feelings, process life events and recover.