It is critical that counselors think of their helping role and what they could do to address the mental health needs of individuals with autism spectrum disorder.
Tag: play therapy
Play is highly facilitative when included in a child’s counseling, but it is important to understand the difference between including play in sessions with young clients and true play therapy.
Viewing clients, and their presenting issues, through the lens of their family systems often leads to insights and understandings that might remain obscured otherwise.
A child discloses that her grandfather has been sexually abusing her, and the mother’s response is shock that his abuse didn’t stop with her when she was a child. This scene is not uncommon for Molly VanDuser, the president and clinical director of Peace of Mind, an outpatient counseling and trauma treatment
Ashley Wroton, a licensed professional counselor (LPC), says parents of her young clients have told her that pediatricians sometimes make comments suggesting that they try “real” therapy with their child rather than play therapy. “Play therapy is real therapy,” says Wroton, a registered play therapist who works with clients ages
Superheroes have a profound influence on American culture. Recently, Marvel Comics’ Black Panther came to life on the movie screen. It appears the movie had a twofold impact. First, it brought heroic life to a seemingly little-known character. Second, unlike most other big-screen superhero movies, Black Panther placed value on
It’s often said that play therapy reaches young clients through their own natural “language” of play. When combined with tenets of the Adlerian method, play therapy becomes a tool for the therapist to build an egalitarian relationship with the client while focusing on the individual and his or her dynamics
As a play therapist, I’m used to explaining the ins and outs of play therapy. Because play is a universal concept, most people understand that it is also a child’s “language” and can be used to address many issues in therapy. However, when it comes to preteens, play therapy takes
When young children, ages 2 to 9, are experiencing emotional and behavioral problems, the usefulness of talk therapy is limited because they often cannot communicate effectively using words. Play therapy continues to gain momentum as a viable approach to work therapeutically with young children because it is based on the
Mention the word trauma to Americans in the 21st century, and their thoughts are likely to turn to images of terrorism, war, natural disasters and a seemingly continual stream of school shootings. The horrific scenes at Newtown and Columbine still dominate public consciousness, particularly when our society discusses child trauma.