Reaching Children Through Play Therapy: An Experiential Approach

Learning Objectives

  1. Participants will become familiarized and able to discuss the premises and assumptions of Experiential Play Therapy (EPT) and why these foundations are the basis of therapeutic interventions in EPT.

  2. Participants will be able to Identify and explain the meaning and underlying themes expressed by children in EPT. 

  3. Participants will observe and discuss the direct expressions of metaphors by children in play therapy and identify the meaning of metaphors as part of the play therapy process.

  4. Participants will be able to describe and explain the major dynamics in stage development in EPT and how the play therapy expressions are significant for that stage of the therapeutic process.

  5. Participants will be exposed to and begin to understand how to clarify symbolic meanings of toys, animals, and environments used by children and effective ways to respond during play therapy.

  6. Therapists will recognize the roles assigned by children to promote their ability to confront the violator of the child’s abuse in play therapy.

  7. Participants will be able to identity the characteristics of young children who have been traumatized as infants or through the birthing process in play therapy.

  8. Participants will be made aware of comments made in play therapy during tape demonstrations that will reference the neurological processes that children need for resolution of conflict or trauma.

  9. Participants will discuss and identify ethical considerations, which will be interjected and discussed intermittently throughout the content of the play therapy training.