CHILD THERAPY / PLAY THERAPY
Play Therapy helps children grow and change.
Play Therapy is the heart of child therapy practice.
PLAY THERAPY: FOR WHOM?
For many children! Using play therapy, I help young children who are struggling with:
- Most emotional and/or behavioral problems
- Anxiety
- Emotionally-based communication difficulties
- Selective mutism
- Aggressive behavior
- Post-traumatic symptoms
- Grief and loss
- Childhood depression
- Social/peer difficulties
- Low self-esteem
- Sexual abuse
- Difficulty controlling bodily functions (soiling or wetting)
PLAY THERAPY: WHY AND HOW?
Parents ask: Are you just playing with my child?
And the answer is: No! So much more!
Play therapy is real therapy translated into the world of play, where children feel most safe and comfortable.
It works because . . .
- Play is the natural language of the child.
- Play is where a child lives.
- Play mirrors what children are thinking and feeling.
- Play allows me to enter the inner world of each child so that the child can feel safe, understood and supported.
That is why play therapy can be used with so many different kinds of childhood difficulties.
Through play I can meet the child where he or she is and help each child grow from the inside out.
PLAY THERAPY: HOW CHILDREN RESPOND
Most children love coming to “Shoshana’s special playroom!”
No matter what difficulty children are experiencing when they arrive, the “special playroom” provides a setting where
- A nonverbal child can begin to unfold.
- An angry, aggressive child can begin to communicate in words
- Each child can start to feel more confident.
In the play therapy setting,
no child can fail—
and success builds confidence.
As confidence grows, symptoms fade.