Enhancing and Deepening the Play Therapy Process: These are the Questions….
Children’s Therapy Centre – 2 Day Training Event

Event website: https://childrenstherapycentre.ie/enhancing-and-deepening-the-play-therapy-process-these-are-the-questions/

Strong empirical evidence exists to support the use of play therapy to facilitate children’s often complex journey toward healing from a range of adverse experiences. The process may be helped or hindered by important factors that may inadvertently be taken for granted or ignored when exploring the individual child’s unique healing journey and supporting the professional development of the therapist. Assumptions are best explored and examined to see what constitutes best practice for the individual child client relative to the individual therapist’s congruent use of self. So, what are the questions we should seek to answer?

Together, we will explore the following as well as questions generated by participants from their own experience and how an understanding of dynamics related to the child, the therapist, and the therapeutic relationship informs the course of play therapy.

For the Child:

How do we best respond to each child’s developmental level of functioning? What about duration and frequency of sessions?  How does the setting impact on the work? What about involvement of parents, carers, and/or other significant adults? When should we consider dyad, family, or group sessions instead of, or in addition to, individual sessions? Is it OK to work with siblings? How do we ensure we focus on the child and not the referral issue? How do we best respond to the child’s needs with reference to their attachment relationships, current circumstances, and prior experiences? How does our attunement to the child’s perception of their distressing experiences (known and unknown or undisclosed) conveyed through play inform our work within the child’s system? How do we facilitate the child’s felt-sense of safety and attachment needs including addressing the child’s safety and attachment needs outside of play therapy?

For the Therapist:

What about the fit between the therapist’s core beliefs regarding the therapeutic change process, their adopted theory/model of practice, and congruent use of self?  How important is consistent therapeutic structuring? How important is it for the therapist to remain authentic in the relationship so as to maintain therapeutic presence and use of self? How does the therapist’s self-awareness and personal development, including understanding of personal attachment style, personal biases, and personal traumas which may be known and unknown impact the therapeutic process?  How does the child’s unique needs, the therapist’s core beliefs about the change process, and therapist’s congruent use of self impact the therapist’s flexibility in approach to working with individual child clients? What about the need for ongoing training and supervision/consultation?

The Relationship and the Process:

Just how important is the therapeutic relationship—is there evidence to support the healing power of relationship? Exploring the process: how do we recognise and respond to:  key moments/turning points; ruptures/loss of contact and repair; significant themes? How does the therapist’s capacity to recognise and work with transference and countertransference play out in helping/hindering the process? How do we manage external factors such as interruptions to the therapy (e.g. in school-based work); sudden endings; traumatic/significant events that occur during the child’s time in therapy?

Disclaimer: While every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the information provided on the IACP website event calendar, the IACP cannot accept any responsibility or liability for information provided by outside organisations.The views expressed in presentations made at this event are those of the event organiser / speaker and not, necessarily, of the IACP. Presentations at this event do not constitute an endorsement of the IACP regarding organiser’s or speaker's views, products or services. 

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