Play Therapy

Our Philosophy

Emotional Growth Family Psychology clinic has a qualified team of psychologists that specialise in children and family work. We offer a systemic understanding of your circumstances, helping you from a strength based approach, with play-based interventions, parent skill-training, attachment-relationship interventions, sand-play, filial therapy and family counselling.

What is Play Therapy?

Play is a child’s best mode of communication. Through play children express what they can’t say with words. They communicate symbolically their feelings and experiences. The therapist enters the child’s world with an empathic and genuine attitude, and it’s through this safe, nurturing and accepting therapeutic relationship where change and growth occurs.

Children find solutions, answers and mental organisation through play, they gain a sense of ownership, control, and direction giving place to build their self-confidence, resilience and assertiveness resulting in positive behavioural changes. They use imagination and creativity and learn through play, problem solving skills and perspective taking.

What to Expect in Play Therapy?

The therapist clearly sets the tone and overall structure of the play session, to help children understand that the theraputic play sessions are different from other types of play. This helps children realise that they have many choices during their session, where the child can feel free to explore their ideas & feelings through play.

What is the Role of the Play Room?

The playroom becomes a safe and supportive environment where children can feel freedom to express themselves emotionally. Given the opportunity to work through diverse emotional experiences through the symbolic use of play. The playroom becomes a relaxed and enjoyable space where the child can learn and solve internally diverse emotional conflicts.

What Can Play Therapy Help Children With?

Play-therapy helps children with social-emotional, developmental and behavioural difficulties. It’s an increasingly recognised and therapeutic intervention suited for children up to 10 years of age, helping children with the following struggles:

Social Difficulties and bullying

Separation-anxiety
Anger and oppositional behaviour
Trauma and grief
Divorce or separation
Family conflict- Sibling rivalry
Depression and anxiety
ADHD/ADD
Autism
Selective mutism
Confidence and self-esteem
Parent and child relationship struggles
Attachment difficulties
Chronic Illness-hospitalisations

What is the Therapeutic Power of Play?

Children distance themselves from difficult experiences, feelings and memories however, when children are offered a space and provided an array of specially chosen therapy-toys, they can freely express, how events have impacted them and how they are dealing with the impact enabling them to process and release emotions communicating their internal world without words.

Children start to move through the diverse stages of play while organising and processing their internal world, the more they express their difficult emotions through play, the less intense they become and disrupted behaviours are reduced.

Play therapy is proven to be effective for children with diverse social, emotional and behavioural difficulties.

What is “Child Centred” Play Therapy?

CCPT is a non-directive therapeutic modality that is offered by a trained mental health clinician or registered Play-therapist. The goal of CCPT is to provide children the opportunity to think for themselves, encourage them to make their own decisions and to problem-solve.

The therapeutic relationship promotes children’s self-awareness and increases their imagination, helping them have a better understanding of themselves, therefore reducing problematic behaviour and being better able to self-manage, while developing confidence and robust self-esteem.