What is Play Therapy?
Most of the time when adults face a difficulty, they use spoken language to help them make sense of their situation. Although children also need to talk about their concerns, their preferred method of communication is to use the language of play. The play therapy toolkit includes art, clay, music, sand tray, movement, therapeutic storytelling, puppets, drama and role-play and most importantly the therapeutic relationship.
Play Therapy provides a confidential safe place for a child to use the medium of play & creative arts to help them work through things that are bothering them, and to make sense of their life experiences. It aims to enable children to acknowledge their feelings in a constructive way and give them strategies for coping with the difficulties they face now and in the future.
“Enter into children’s play and you will find the place where their minds, hearts and souls meet.”
— Virginia Axline
What can Play Therapy support?
Anxiety, stress or phobias
Parental & family separation
Friendship difficulties, bullying or being bullied
Low self-confidence
Mood swings or extreme emotional responses
Communication
Behavioural delays or difficulties
Struggling to access learning, school refusal or not achieving academic potential
Bereavement, trauma & abuse or neglect
Looked-after and fostered children
Attachment and relationship difficulties
Young carers
Neurodivergent children
Bed wetting and sleep disturbances
Illness, hospitalisation, and disability
Being a witness to violence or substance abuse
Self-harm & Suicidal Ideation
Discover the range of therapeutic services we have available
For children & young people
Play Therapy
Parent Child Attachment Play (PCAP)
Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) Skills
AutPlay
For schools and organisations
Play Therapy Groups/ individual
Provide teacher/parent workshops
Residency to provide tailored individual play therapy