Play therapy
If you’ve noticed that your child is often feeling sad, anxious, angry, or confused, or is behaving in ways that you’re concerned about, therapy can help! Play therapy helps children express their feelings or worries, and supports them to create real change. For different ages and presenting concerns, your therapist may recommend Child-Centered Play Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Play Therapy, or Theraplay.
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Children are not mini-adults! They gain understanding through experience (play) rather than talking. Play helps kids express and process things they don’t have words for.
Play therapy focuses on relationship! While kids explore their concerns through play, the therapeutic relationship helps regulate their emotions.
The brain is plastic, which means it is constantly changing in response to experience. If we want to feel, think, and behave differently, we have to create new neural pathways in the brain.
Playing out something emotionally distressing + presence of regulating Therapist = new experience & new neural pathways.
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In Child-Centered Play Therapy (CCPT), your child can process their feelings, work through struggles, and develop emotional resilience—all through the natural language of play.
In CCPT, your child will have access to carefully selected toys that allow them to express emotions, solve problems, and build self-confidence. The play therapy session becomes a dedicated time where they can focus on feeling fully seen and supported—change won’t happen without this essential component. As a child chooses what to play and hears therapeutic responses, CCPT helps the child reduce problem behaviors and tap into their natural ability to heal and grow.
As part of the process, the therapist meets with parents separately from the child at least one session per month to check in, share insights, and support you in understanding your child's progress.
If your child is struggling with emotional regulation, anxiety, or behavioral challenges, CCPT can help.
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Cognitive Behavioral Play Therapy (CBPT) helps children process emotions, develop coping skills, and change unhelpful thought patterns—all through play. Since children naturally express themselves and learn through play CBPT uses interactive, engaging activities to help them understand their feelings, notice their helpful and unhelpful thoughts, build problem-solving skills, and develop healthier ways to cope with challenges.
The therapist often takes a more directive role in CBPT, and may select toys or activities.
We will utilize separate parent sessions to check in and support progress. Parents are often invited into sessions to participate in activities and help transfer skills to the home environment.
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Children struggling with emotional regulation and behavioral difficulties can benefit from working with a skilled Theraplay therapist to give their brains and bodies an extra dose of the interactions that build emotional regulation.
Theraplay is an Evidence-Based Practice that uses guided activities to enhance connection, trust, and emotional co-regulation between children and caregivers. Progress is monitored closely and interventions are selected specifically to create improvement in challenging behaviors or distressing symptoms.
Through concurrent parent sessions, parents gain tools to help their child manage big emotions and feel more connected, leading to positive long-term outcomes in their child’s mental health and behavior.
Lauren specializes in using Theraplay with children who have had NICU stays, medical trauma, feeding difficulties as an infant, parent postpartum mental health conditions, difficulty regulating due to ADHD/autism/sensory difficulties, and family change and trauma.
Note: Lauren provides Theraplay services and Hannah does not.