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Child-Centered Play Therapy

Pioneered and developed primarily throughout the latter half of the 20th century, Child-Centered Play Therapy assumes that children are capable of solving their own problems, given the appropriate security, environment and time.  Play is the primary manner that children communicate and interact with their world and play allows the therapist to essentially "speak the language of children" to help facilitate meaningful change. Using a non-directive approach, the therapist allows the child to choose the pace and intensity of each session, while reflecting on feelings and choices. Because the child directs the content and pace, this modality is developmentally centered on the child's specific needs. This modality is highly effective to help children understand and manage emotions, solve problems and conflicts, build insight and cognitive development, improve communication and advocacy, increase social skills and social effectiveness, overcome effects of trauma, manage problematic behaviors and develop secure attachments. For more detailed information on Child-Centered Play Therapy, please refer to the FAQ section under the Our Practice navigation heading. You can also refer to the Association for Play Therapy's webpage.  In addition to providing Child-Centered Play Therapy, we provide Filial Therapy as part of the therapeutic process. Parents/caregivers are invited into the playroom to begin to learn the techniques used in play therapy to help the child maintain therapeutic progress. Theraplay techniques are also used to develop and strengthen primary attachments. 

Adolescent Therapy

Aren't teens awesome?  Although you may be shaking your head right now, teens are pretty amazing from a developmental perspective. Adolescence is clinically defined as the stage of human development beginning at the onset of puberty and continuing until physical growth stops. However, for those of us who have been an adolescent, have an adolescent in our lives or work with adolescents, we know that this term encompasses far more!  Adolescence is often a turbulent time of rapid physical, mental, social and emotional growth.  With that comes all kinds of insanity, including rapidly shifting emotions, anger, impulsivity, identity and sexual development, boundary pushing, limit testing and defiance. The business of adolescence is complicated enough, but for some, it also becomes a time of social upheavals, family conflict, drugs and alcohol, bullying, anxiety, isolation, depression, self harm and suicide. Because working with this age group is tricky, a variety of expressive modalities can be used to facilitate engagement, relationship and therapeutic progress. Adolescents often engage and progress well using Sandtray therapy. Moreover, we frequently employ art, sculpture, games and music to help uncover and address specific issues. Depending on the circumstances, parent engagement often becomes important in the clinical work with adolescents. In these scenarios, we will draw from numerous Individual and Family Therapy models to work on relational problems, including Family Systems, Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy, Narrative and Structural Family Therapy.