Play therapy upgrade!
I'm learning how to be a better bridge of communication between the playroom and you, the parent! And Synergetic Play Therapy is helping me.
It feels like a season of new things! IT IS a season of new things! More to come on a new project in the next couple of weeks, but today I want to share a bit about a play therapy upgrade for me!
Ever since I went to the two day introduction to Synergetic Play Therapy in Cape Town in March 2024 (I wrote about it here), I have been hooked on using Synergetic Play Therapy (SPT) principles in the play room.
I completed a 6 month Introductory course at the end of 2024 and now, I am diving into a certification course which will take the best part of a year. By the end of June 2026 I will be a Certified Synergetic Play Therapy practitioner - and the third in South Africa to do this certification!
There are a lot of things I am getting and will get out of this play therapy upgrade, and upgrading my work with parents is one of my favourite.
I love how this way of practising play therapy is teaching me how to better translate what is happening in the play room to parents. Play therapy can feel like a very vague concept to many. Some even wonder why they would pay for their child to play, and if "just playing" actually achieves anything at all.
Being an intuitive person, and seeing first hand how play therapy works in children's lives, I have sometimes struggled to articulate how and why it is working, or why it may seem like it is not working. Turns out saying "It just works, OK." is not super-helpful for most parents!
SPT helps me to use the neuroscience underpinning the play therapy process to help parents to set play therapy goals with me, and to track those goals. It helps me to find the language I need to talk parents through the process better, so that it is more understandable and accessible. I'm learning how to be a better bridge of communication between the playroom and you, the parent!
From Thursday (yesterday) to Sunday, I embark on an online learning retreat to kick the Certification training year off. I'll be doing a bit of playing like in the photo above, but online! With participants from ALL over the world. In my group alone we have a Nigerian, Mexican, Croatian, as well as Brits and Americans. I love it!
Bye for now, while I hide away and learn some more. See you on the other side and have a lovely weekend!
