Play Therapy

“Enter into children's play and you will find the place where their minds, hearts, and souls meet.”

— Virginia Axline

Wooden shelving unit filled with organized bins and baskets of children's toys, including toy vehicles, sports balls, action figures, and play food -- all use to facilitate Play Therapy and helping children heal.

Children are not miniature adults. They exist in unique stages of life with distinct needs & developmental goals, and in these stages, they experience the world in a unique way.

This also means their natural language of expression differs from the adults around them. While they’re developing their verbal skills to express themselves with words—until around 11 or so—their most effective form of expression & processing is play.

Child-Centered Play Therapy is a responsive, developmentally-appropriate, and effective approach for helping children work through many social, emotional, & behavioral difficulties. The emphasis is not in getting a child to talk through their experiences and feelings, but rather in cultivating a safe, accepting space for them to freely lead and play.

That is where the healing happens: in the course of an unconditionally-accepting & warm relationship, where a child’s natural potential for growth can be unleashed.

Person gesturing over a therapeutic sand tray containing miniature hospital, houses, people, animals, and other figurines -- an example of what using Sand Tray might look like in therapy.