This workshop is intended to provide advanced play therapists with an intensive examination of the therapeutic and healing journey of a three year old sexually abused girl through the interpretive model and eyes of a Jungian Analytical Play Therapist.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the intricate relationship between conscious and unconscious material by way of the egoself axis
• Identify and define "complex", and how it is formulated in a child, and how a child's symptoms are empirical manifestations of the complex
• Utilize a Session Review form in which the critical components for an analytical understanding is presented, and follow the journey of a two year old child as she "circumambulates" her way to healing by engaging unconscious material

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

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

Play therapy clinicians who work with Anxiety Disorders constantly face the question of how to approach the anxiety. Do we help the family boss it back? Show it compassion? Sit with it? Educate it? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. Come see how.

Learning Objectives:

• List three metaphors for helping children externalize their anxiety
• Name the 6 co-regulation strategies encoded in the acronym SOOTHE
• Explain 5 play therapy techniques for practicing the relaxation response
• Enumerate 4 play therapy interventions that help clients identify cognitive-distortions and practicing replacing them with restructured cognitions or boss back talk
• Define the phrase "externalizing the anxiety" as it applies to play therapy
• List five strategies for helping clients articulate their worries

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Special Topics

*Supervisor Training

The Registered Play Therapist-Supervisors (RPT-S) plays an important role not only in the supervisory role, but also as a gatekeeper to the play therapy profession. This workshop will present and discuss the roles, responsibilities, duties, and practices of the RPT-S.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe an overview of the Registered Play Therapist-Supervisor's (RPT-S) role as a gatekeeper to the profession
• Identify the responsibilities, and duties as a Registered Play Therapist-Supervisor (RPTS) based on ethical guidelines and best practice standards
• Identify the Registered Play Therapist Supervisor's (RPT-S) practice implications including expectations, recommendations, and protocols in relationship to their supervisees

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Special Topics

This workshop will teach essential perspectives and skills for conducting family therapy sessions effectively with and without children in play therapy. It will teach how to overcome challenging issues, design effective theoretically-guided interventions and to determine when to conduct individual vs. family sessions.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe essential concepts and perspectives needed to effectively use play therapy with families and how to apply these in actual practice situations.
• Explain how to use at least three theoretically-guided family therapy interventions and describe the goals and desired systemic impact of each.
• Identify challenging clinical issues and ethical concerns in conducting sessions with children and families and describe how to manage these effectively in play therapy

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Special Topics

Bullying is overt/covert, and repetitive. As such, bullying should be conceptualized as complex, developmental trauma and be addressed with Neurobiologically-Informed Play Therapy that includes: Building on the safety and security of caregivers and community, Being developmentally sensitive, Addressing affective-behavioral dysregulation.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe what is meant by "neurobiologically--informed play therapy"
• Describe the characteristics of complex and/or developmental trauma and be able to identify the neurobiological changes associated with complex trauma (viz., bullying)
• List the major the components of evidence based, relationally--focused, play therapy treatments and incorporate aspects of these treatments into their play therapy practice
• Assess the level and type of complex trauma caused by varying durations of bullying
• Determine the play therapy course of action (frequency & length), based on assessment results, to address the complex trauma
• Develop play therapy treatment plans that address the issues arising from bullying.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

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