Play Therapy Book Tests

Earn non-contact continuing education credit by completing book tests based on play therapy publications.

ATTENTION: The fee below only includes CE test; book must be purchased separately. 

Continuing Education

NBCC. The Association for Play Therapy (APT) has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 5636. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. APT is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.

APT. The Association for Play Therapy (APT) offers continuing education specific to play therapy. APT Approved Provider 95-100 maintains responsibility for the program.

Healing Child and Family Trauma Through Expressive and Play Therapies: Art, Nature, Storytelling, Body, Mindfulness

Credits: None available.

There are many ways to help children and families heal from trauma. Leaning on our ancestral wisdom of healing through play, art, nature, storytelling, body, touch, imagination, and mindfulness practice, Janet A. Courtney helps the clinician bring a variety of practices into the therapy room.

This book identifies seven stages of therapy that provide a framework for working with client’s emotional, cognitive, somatic, and sensory experiences to heal from trauma. Through composite case illustrations, practitioners will learn how to safely mitigate a range of trauma content, including complicated grief, natural disaster, children in foster care, aggression, toxic divorce, traumatized infants diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome, and young mothers recovering from opioid addiction.

Practice exercises interspersed throughout guide practitioners to personally engage in the creative expressive and play therapy techniques presented in each chapter, augmenting professional self- awareness and skill- building competencies.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• History
• Seminal / Historically Significant Theories
• Skills and Methods
• Special Topics

• Discuss history, theory, and neurobiology behind expressive and creative arts and play therapy
• Identify assessment and intervention techniques when working with children
• Identify 6 different interventions to help clients with inner awareness, self-reflection, and insight
• Discuss FirstPlay Therapy Kinesthetic Storytelling and FirstPlay Infant Story-Massage

• Janet A. Courtney, PhD, LCSW, RPT-S

Hidden Treasure: A Map to the Child's Inner Self

Credits: None available.

Hidden Treasure is a follow up to Oaklander's first book, Windows To Our Children. Most of the books available in working with this population are written from a traditional 'play therapy' point of view. The Gestalt Therapy-based approach provides a more effective method for psychotherapeutic work with children of all ages. The focus is on the relationship between the therapist and client, rather than observation and interpretation. It is a vigorous, dynamic approach.Violet Oaklander uses a wide variety of creative, expressive and projective techniques in her work, and each chapter reflects and exemplifies the use of this work in the service of therapy. The approach is applicable to a wide variety of ages, as well as individual, family and group settings. The book will interest child and adolescent psychotherapists, psychologists, social workers, counselors, interns, school personnel as well as graduate-level students. Parents may also find it helpful, as well as adults who are interested in the child within.

• History
• Seminal / Historically Significant Theories
• Skills and Methods
• Special Topics

• Discuss how the natural development stages of children may lead to the need for therapeutic intervention.
• Describe the therapeutic process with children and adolescents from a Gestalt Therapy perspective.
• Explain how expressive and projective techniques help children express deeper feelings.
• Identify how the expression of these feelings can led to a stronger sense of self.
• Identify some specific issues relating to work with children such as anger, loss and grief, and attention deficit disorder.

• Violet Oaklander, PhD, LMFT, RPT-S

If You Turned Into a Monster: Transformation through Play: A Body-Centred Approach to Play Therapy

Credits: None available.

Draw me a picture of what you would look like if you turned into a monster" Dennis McCarthy's work with distressed or traumatized children begins with an exercise that is simple but very effective: he invites the child to communicate with him in their own way, through the non-verbal language of play. Using case studies from his clinical experience and with numerous children's monster drawings, McCarthy lets the meaningful self-expression of the child take centre stage. He demonstrates that being allowed to play, move and draw impulsively and creatively in the supportive presence of the therapist is in fact the beginning of the therapeutic process. These activities are shown to be more therapeutic for the child in practical terms than the interpretation of the clues it provides about the child's state of mind. This very accessible book will be inspiring reading for play therapists and other professionals working therapeutically with young children and their families.

• Seminal / Historically Significant Theories
• Skills and Methods
• Special Topics

• Describe the meaning of symbol as it relates to the play therapy process.
• Identify and describe the four roles of therapist in dynamic play therapy.
• Describe what is meant by the term filter referencing the quotation by Dr. Alexander Lowen.
• Explain what children's monster drawings express about the individual child and all children.
• Describe three examples of ways of playing with the concept of Monster by citing methods in the book or inventing your own.

• Dennis McCarthy

Infant Play Therapy: Foundations, Models, Programs, and Practice

Credits: None available.

Infant Play Therapy is a groundbreaking resource for practitioners interested in the varied play therapy theories, models, and programs available for the unique developmental needs of infants and children under the age of three.

The impressive list of expert contributors in the fields of play therapy and infant mental health cover a wide range of early intervention play-based models and topics. Chapters explore areas including: neurobiology, developmental trauma, parent-infant attachment relationships, neurosensory play, affective touch, grief and loss, perinatal depression, adoption, autism, domestic violence, sociocultural factors, and more. Chapter case studies highlight leading approaches and offer techniques to provide a comprehensive understanding of both play therapy and the ways we understand and recognize the therapeutic role of play with infants.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Seminal and Historically Significant Theories
  
• Skills and Methods
  
• Special Topics
  

• Identify scientific foundations (neurobiology, neurodevelopment) for using play therapy with infants.
• Review assessments with Young Children.
• Summarize key concepts from new and adapted theoretical approaches and models to infant play therapy.
• Reflect on Programmatic Interventions for Infants and Toddlers.
• Examine Evidence-Based Infant Mental Health Models that Utilize Play Therapy Practices.
• Apply knowledge of Infant Mental Health Models with specific populations.

• Janet A. Courtney, PhD, LCSW, RPT-S

Integrating Extremes: Aggression and Death in the Playroom

Credits: None available.

Play therapy can do more than we thought. Much more. Integrating Extremes: Aggression and Death in the Playroom offers a new perspective on working with kids. Lisa Dion, LPC, RPT-S, provides therapists and other professionals that work with kids a science-based process for working with children at the deepest, most profound levels of healing while staying safe and sane. This book explores a new understanding of aggression and death play that's based on brain function and neuro-science. It provides therapists with a framework to authentically work with the intensity of aggression and death play, without causing their own nervous systems to start to shut down. Integrating Extremes shows therapists how to facilitate aggression and death play in a way that truly allows healing to occur, for both the therapist and the child, at the deepest level possible.

• Special Topics
  

• Identify three ways that the play therapist may engage in self-regulation while working with aggressive and death behaviors in the playroom.
• Practice two ways to incorporate authenticity in the playroom to facilitate trust, safety, and healing for clients.
• Distinguish between and effectively navigate hyper-aroused play behaviors and hypo-aroused play behaviors.

• Lisa Dion, MA, LPC, RPT-S, Synergetic Play Therapy Institute

Integrative Play Therapy

Credits: None available.

An integrative approach to play therapy blending various therapeutic treatment models and techniques. 

Reflecting the transition in the field of play therapy from a "one size fits all" approach to a more eclectic framework that integrates more than one perspective, Integrative Play Therapy explores methods for blending the best theories and treatment techniques to resolve the most common psychological disorders of childhood.

• Seminal / Historically Significant Theories
• Skills and Methods
• Special Topics

• Describe the theoretical foundations and benefits of integrative play therapy practices.
• Describe how the therapeutic powers of play are flexible and adaptive.
• Discuss how they can integrate play therapy into their practice.
• Explain how to blend play therapy, art, and sandtray therapy as well as theraplay with evidence-based practices.
• Recognize the importance of the Integrative Movement in the field of psychotherapy.
• Describe the historical background of integrative psychotherapy.
• Employ the current applications of integrative play therapy to a wide range of childhood disorders.

• Sue C. Bratton, PhD, LPC-S, RPT-S
• Athena A. Drewes, PsyD, RPT-S
• Charles E. Schaefer, PhD, RPT-S

Partners in Play: An Adlerian Approach to Play Therapy, 3rd Edition

Credits: None available.

Play therapy expert Terry Kottman and her colleague Kristin Meany-Walen provide a comprehensive update to this spirited and fun text on integrating Adlerian techniques into play therapy. After an introduction to the basics of the approach and the concepts of Individual Psychology, the stages of Adlerian play therapy are outlined through step-by-step instructions, detailed treatment plans, an ongoing case study, and numerous vignettes. Readers will learn straightforward methods for building a relationship with a child and exploring the child s intrapersonal and interpersonal dynamics, as well as ways to help the child gain insight into his or her behavioral patterns and develop new interactional skills. In addition to presenting up-to-date information on trends in play therapy, this latest edition emphasizes the current climate of evidence-based treatment and includes a new chapter on conducting research in play therapy.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Seminal / Historically Significant Theories
  
• Skills and Methods

• Identify four Crucial C’s in Adlerian Play Therapy
• Describe how to provide consultation to parents and teachers from an Adlerian play therapy framework
• Explain how to build an egalitarian relationship with a child
• Discuss how to understand a child’s lifestyle
• Demonstrate how to develop Adlerian lifestyle conceptualizations and treatment plans
• Recite how the role of the therapist shifts to reorienting and reeducating the client

• Terry Kottman, PhD, LMHC, RPT-S
• Kristin K. Meany-Walen, PhD, LMHC, RPT-S

Play Diagnosis and Assessment, Second Edition

Credits: None available.

Over the past several years, numerous changes within the field have encouraged the development of improved techniques that surpass traditional assessment protocols and methods, such as new scales, more focused procedures, and instruments with higher levels of reliability and validity than have been previously established. Now, this classic book has been updated to address and reflect these ongoing changes. Focusing on the needs of the clinician, this new edition presents empirically tested diagnostic tools and describes improvements to existing play therapy assessment instruments, such as new testing instruments for time-limited therapy and early intervention assessment tools for young children.

• History
• Seminal / Historically Significant Theories
• Skills and Methods
• Special Topics

• Articulate both the importance of play to childhood development and the utility of play as a diagnostic tool.
• Describe the differences between different types and stages of play.
• Identify and describe play and parent-child interaction assessment measures that can be used with infants, children, and families.
• Discuss factors to consider in using play and parent-child interaction assessment instruments.
• Describe developmental aspects of family and parent-child/infant interactions.
• Describe how play assessment and qualitative and quantitative peer interactions can be used as a component of the diagnostic process.
• Name and critique (at least) two instruments for assessing peer interaction or social or non-social play.

• Charles E. Schaefer, PhD, RPT-S
• Karen Gitlin-Weiner
• Alice Sandgrund

Play in Clinical Practice: Evidence-Based Approaches

Credits: None available.

Going beyond traditional play therapy, this innovative book presents a range of evidence-based assessment and intervention approaches that incorporate play as a key element. It is grounded in the latest knowledge about the importance of play in child development. Leading experts describe effective strategies for addressing a wide variety of clinical concerns, including behavioral difficulties, anxiety, parent–child relationship issues, trauma, and autism. The empirical support for each approach is summarized and clinical techniques are illustrated. The book also discusses school-based prevention programs that utilize play to support children's learning and social-emotional functioning.

• History
  
• Seminal / Historically Significant Theories
• Skills and Methods
• Special Topics
  

• Analyze research results on the relationship between play and various aspects of child development.
• Describe constructs that play-based assessment instruments measure.
• Explain play-related characteristics of various evidence-based interventions with children.
• List patterns of results in research on various evidence-based interventions with children.
• Discuss and describe "Standardized Testing".
• Explain PCIT.

• Sandra Russ

Play in Family Therapy, Second Edition

Credits: None available.

This classic volume, now completely revised, has helped tens of thousands of therapists integrate play therapy and family therapy techniques in clinical practice. Eliana Gil demonstrates a broad range of verbal and nonverbal strategies for engaging all family members--including those who are ambivalent toward therapy--and tailoring interventions for different types of presenting problems. Numerous case examples illustrate ways to effectively use puppets, storytelling, art making, the family play genogram, drama, and other expressive techniques with children, adolescents, and their parents. Gil offers specific guidance for becoming a more flexible, creative practitioner and shows how recent advances in neuroscience support her approach. Photographs of client artwork are included.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• History
• Seminal / Historically Significant Theories
• Skills and Methods
• Special Topics

• Identify why children are often not included in family therapy.
• Identify how metaphors assist the client in family play therapy.
• Identify and define the three dimensions of creative development.
• Identify at least three family play therapy activities.

• Eliana Gil, PhD, RPT-S, ATS