As professionals, it is expected that we know how to help our clients. Commonly, we get stuck when our client's growth stalls, their engagement declines, or they resist our efforts. If you work with kids and adolescents, you may find it an even greater challenge to get them to open up. This is where learning the skills and concepts of play therapy can help give you that extra edge to support and engage your client. Play therapy embraces the sort of creative spontaneity that draws people into the experience and starts the innovative movement so often needed.
The Power of Play
Leading trauma experts and neurologists have researched the need to engage the body in mental health counseling. Unlike non-activity-based forms of therapy, play therapy engages the body powerfully through imaginative play. Imaginative play awakens implicit memories (information stored in the body beneath conscious awareness) and brings them into the healing arena of play therapy.
Other benefits of Play Therapy
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Play therapy training is learning a new way to engage clients of all ages into an experience which allows the body & unconscious to enter into therapeutic conversation
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Play therapy is an approach able to side-step the client's cognitive objections and engages less resistance. Clients are able to find, and willing to try, far more new behaviors.
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Activities used in play therapy allow the experience to be the 'teacher' while the therapist is a guide and 'co-traveler.' These activities are used to facilitate the client having a conversation within.
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Play therapy is a method which is often very effective at helping stuck clients become unstuck .
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The problem with other educational opportunities is that many of them seem to come with just one or the other: experience or no experience. All-experience classes give you a taste of technique, the instructor's opinion, and anecdotal evidence - but are not grounded in research. On the other hand, no-experience classes are all textbooks or independent research- requiring you to sift through layers of information without giving you the opportunity to experience the power of the actual technique.
Many people learn best from experience. This is the very heart of play therapy, which utilizes the power of activity to be the experience that teaches new understandings and behaviors. Play therapy can't be taught in any way other than how it's done - through activities and experiences.
That said, academic information in textbooks is essential for supporting and guiding our work as play therapists.
Our play therapy trainings bring together the latest academic information with intentional experiential activities to bring the learning to life. This gives you everything you need to know to apply and support your methods and techniques.
Still unsure if learning the skills and concepts of Play Therapy is what you need?
We find that our classes can help those professions who feel like:
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Your clients are not responding, improving or engaging,
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You feel like you do not have any techniques for working with kids and adolescents,
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You have a difficult time working with kids and families,
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You struggle to help kids open up or adolescents engage,
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You don't know how to better involve parents in your treatment plan,
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You feel like you can't get your adult clients out of their stuck thinking,
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You can't seem to help you client try something new,
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Etc.
Stop feeling stuck with your stuck clients!
Register for one of our APT-approved Play therapy trainings to learn the skills and concepts of play therapy.
Equip yourself with a powerful tool for engaging difficult clients, children, and adolescents. Feel confident and competent with your skills and techniques. And witness your clients experience greater peace and healing.