How does child centered play therapy work (with a registered play therapist)

 Children naturally use play as a way to process their feelings, and solve problems. Registered play therapists know how to use that to our advantage and turn child led play into the most effective type of therapy for children. 

Your child has access to a playroom specifically designed with toys and tools for them to do the therapeutic work. Your child gets to decide what they talk about, what toys they want to play with and how they want to play with them.  

Play allows your child to go deeper into their subconscious mind to work through difficult feelings and events.  Your child will instinctively play out what they're feeling in the playroom using symbolism and metaphor.  While your child is playing, the difficult feeling or event is brought to conscious awareness and activated in their body as though the feeling or event is happening in that moment.  Play therapists help your child tolerate their feelings or make sense of events by teaching them coping skills during their play.

How do we do this?

We don't interrupt the play process to teach your child a skill.  We also don't instruct or force your child to use the coping skill we are teaching.  We rely on brain science to do the work for us.  We use something in the brain called mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are special brain cells that activate when we see someone perform an action, or experience an emotion. These neurons help us understand others emotions and learn new skills by observing others. For example, the child's instinct is to take a deep breath after their therapist takes a deep breath.  

Mirror neurons allow your child to pick up on their therapist's actions and try coping skills out for themselves instinctively.  Your child's therapist will role model a variety of coping skills for your child to try out during their play therapy sessions. The biggest ones being breath, movement, and rhythm (based on science suggesting these actually work for the nervous system!).  

In addition, your child's therapist will role model to your child how to experience feelings without getting overwhelmed by them. We are taught how to stay with your child's emotions without using distraction or redirection (unless we're using it as a healthy coping skill which can be appropriate during times of unsafe behavior or unsafe play).

When your child watches their therapist use a coping skill or experience a feeling in a healthy manner, your child is able to create a new pathway in their brain. As your child's therapist and child continue to practice skills during play therapy, the healthy pathway in their brain becomes stronger, more efficient, and easier to access. This makes it so that your child has access to this pathway in their everyday life without the presence of their therapist.

The best part? Your child isn't even aware of this process while they're playing.  It is an entirely subconscious learning process happening in the brain. Most children will tell their parents after therapy that "we just played" and they're right! Your child "just played" while your child's therapist used brain science to create pathways for healing!

Keep following to understand how play therapy works in other ways!