Do they find it hard to express their feelings constructively?
Do you wish to empower effective communication?
Are there issues that you or your child need support resolving?
You have come to the right place!
About Play Therapy and Counselling
Play Therapy is a form of counselling/psychotherapy designed particularly for children and adolescents. In Play therapy, play is used as a means of communication. It encourages children to effectively express and communicate difficult to understand feelings. Recent research by PTUK suggests that 71% of the children referred to play therapy will show a positive change. Play and creativity operate on impulses from outside our awareness - the unconscious. No medication is used. In play therapy, children will learn to confidently express their feelings and emotions in a constructive as opposed to a destructive manner.
The first recorded use of therapeutic play by Sigmund Freud goes back to 1909 and is later informed by a number of psychological theories. Two major approaches are 'Non-directive play therapy' and 'Directive play therapy'. A skilled practitioner like myself will adopt a mix of both approaches in order to create a safe pathway to the child's inner world aiming to establish healing.
The benefits of play Therapy
The therapeutic environment
Therapeutic playrooms are child-friendly and filled with toys, love and adventures. They offer children a great variety of materials (e.g. clay, sand, water, play-dough, art and craft props etc.) and give them the opportunity to participate in many different activities (e.g. role-play, story-telling, singing and dancing, experimenting with colours and marks etc.) all based upon their individual and unique personalities, likes and dislikes.
The venue in 40 Lambert Avenue, Richmond, TW9 4QR, offers spacious rooms for play therapy as well as garden facilities that can be used for therapeutic activities with the children at all times.
Within a safe and supportive therapeutic playroom, children begin their journey towards a better understanding of their own feelings and simultaneously gain confidence in expressing difficult emotions in their own special ways.
