Play Therapy
Children can experience adverse life events that impact their physical and emotional wellbeing, resulting in confusing or overwhelming emotions such as anger, sadness, anxiety, or guilt. Being able to verbalise and understand these responses can be difficult for children due to their age and developmental stage.
Children naturally express themselves through play, and by engaging in play activities, they can communicate their thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Play is a child’s natural way of enabling them to start to integrate their experience and their perception of the challenging life event they have experienced.
Child Centred Play therapy is a non-directive evidence-based approach to counselling children, where the therapist creates a safe therapeutic environment to enable the child to express their perceived view of the world and work through challenging emotions and experiences.
“In play therapy, toys are like the child’s words and play is the child’s language.”
— Dr. Garry Landreth
Research supports the effectiveness of Play Therapy with children experiencing a wide variety of social, emotional, and behavioural difficulties including those listed below:
- Issues around self-esteem and anxiety
- Excessive anger, fear, worry, shyness, and sadness
- Adjusting to family changes
- School difficulties
- Social adjustment issues
- Separation anxiety
- Neurodiversity affirming
- Trauma
- Neglect and Abuse
- Grief and Loss
- Medical Trauma and chronic illness
Some of the benefits of Play Therapy can be:
- Emotional expression: Children may find it challenging to express their feelings verbally. Play provides a medium for them to communicate and work through their emotions.
- Problem-solving: Through play, children can act out scenarios and resolve conflicts, helping them develop problem-solving skills and coping mechanisms.
- Building relationships: Play therapy strengthens the therapeutic relationship between the child and the therapist, fostering trust and a sense of security. This in turn provides the child with a template to develop positive relationships with others in their world.
- Trauma resolution: Children who have experienced trauma may re-enact distressing events in their play, allowing the therapist to guide them towards understanding and coping with these experiences.
- Skill development: Play therapy can enhance social skills, communication, and emotional regulation, promoting healthy development and a sense of mastery.
How does nurtured therapy work?
At nurtured therapy we believe parents and caregivers are an integral part of the child’s world. We therefore strongly encourage parents to actively participate in the therapy process. Collaboration will involve all parties being responsive to feedback and being open to learning and developing new parenting skills. Developing a relationship of trust and respect between parents and therapist will increase positive therapeutic outcomes for the child.
The Play Therapy process
- 15 minute initial phone consultation to assess need and suitability
- 60 minute initial parent consult
- Creation of treatment plan tailored to the child’s individual needs
- 45 minute weekly sessions based on assessment
- 60 minute 3-4 weekly follow-up parent consult to review treatment plan and discuss termination timeframe
For further research regarding the benefits of Play Therapy please visit the Evidence Based Child Therapy Website.
Youth Counselling
Nurtured therapy provides one on one individual youth counselling sessions. Counselling sessions are 50 minutes and are offered weekly or fortnightly depending on assessed individual needs and identified therapy goals.
Through use of expressive therapies, positive psychology and talk therapies, nurtured therapy support adolescents and youth to navigate their personal experiences. Adopting person centred and strengths-based approaches we integrate the use of materials such as paint, clay and sand tray to facilitate storytelling and explore feelings and emotions.
Working from humanistic principles nurtured therapy tunes into the child’s inner world, accepting the child for who they are and ensuring they feel validated and understood so they can “Just be you” in the counselling room while exploring feelings in a safe way, increasing self-esteem and empowering change.
Youth Counselling may assist children who experience:
- Difficulty self-regulating or expressing emotions
- Anxiety
- Low self-esteem, negative self-talk, or withdrawn
- Peer grievances such as bullying, difficulty forming or keeping friends
- Difficulty coping with change such as moving house or new school
- Trauma
- Grief or loss
- Parent separation or divorce
- Health conditions
How does nurtured therapy work?
At nurtured therapy we believe parents and caregivers are an integral part of the child’s world. We therefore strongly encourage parents to be active participants in the therapy process. All children under the age of 18 years old require signed parental consent to engage in Youth Counselling. However, it is important that parents understand the limits to confidentiality that are in place when counselling youth. Confidentiality will be discussed further during the initial parent consult.
The Youth Counselling process
- 15 minute initial phone consultation to assess need and suitability
- 60 minute initial parent consult
- 50 minute weekly/fortnightly sessions based on assessment
- Creation of treatment plan tailored to the child’s individual needs
- 60 minute 4-6 weekly follow-up parent consult to review treatment plan and discuss termination timeframe
Parent/Caregiver Sessions
Parenting can be difficult. As a parent, worries about our children can feel endless. Knowing how to navigate and strengthen your role as a parent is an important step in fostering a deeper connection to yourself and your child.
Parental sessions enable you to discuss your worries and concerns in a safe, non-judgmental space where you can talk about general areas of concern or specific parenting challenges. Parental sessions provide support and psychoeducation regarding common areas of parenting concerns, help you better understand child developmental stages and behavior and learn new parenting strategies that could be a better approach for you and your child.