What in the Play Therapy is Happening? Exploring Themes in Child-Centered Play Therapy

Part of the Play Therapy for the People series, this is a 3-hour training created to help participants recognize the deeper emotional stories children communicate through play. While aimed at therapists learning to deepen their understanding of Child-Centered Play Therapy, this training is open to parents, Allied professionals, and other people who care about kids. In Child-Centered Play Therapy, children rarely explain their experiences through words; instead, their internal worlds emerge symbolically through repeated play patterns, characters, conflicts, and storylines. These recurring patterns, known as play therapy themes, reflect how children process experiences related to safety, power and control, nurturing, connection, fear, mastery, and healing. In this training, participants will learn how to identify and track play therapy themes across sessions, distinguish themes from moment-to-moment play behaviors, and use themes to better understand a child’s therapeutic process while remaining consistent with the principles of child-centered practice. Through examples, discussion, and clinical application, therapists will strengthen their ability to observe the meaning within play, deepen case conceptualization, and communicate the child’s therapeutic work more clearly to caregivers and other professionals.