Play-Family Therapy Trainings
History & Techniques & Concepts Course in Play-Family Therapy
Day 1: Includes video segments and 9 page outline of major kinds of play therapy.
Days 2-4: Recommended for all interested in working with the child and the family. This course emphasizes the deeper play and language & metaphors.
This training is offered every other year in the summer.
18-Hour Course in Play-Family Therapy and Supervision
A four-day training offered every other year that includes didactic and experiential learning. Participants observe four complete videotaped sessions of a child in the play therapy room with Dottie Higgins Klein. The videos demonstrate what the beginning, middle and end of play therapy looks like and much more! Including how to integrate parents in mindful parenting.
Advanced Child Development Course with a Component in Play-Family Therapy & Supervision
This two-year course meets bi-weekly for three hours, from Sept. to June. This is for therapists who want to be very grounded working with children and families.
In addition to the major theme of Play-Family Therapy, there is a strong post graduate training in child development, particularly the work of Margaret Mahler and also attachment theory. Four times year we observe the same group of mothers, babies and toddlers birth – three. The theory we are studying comes alive.
The training includes a strong emphasis on linking the problems of early development to the issues children arrive with at later ages. Therapists learn how to explain these links to the parent and to base their treatment including this knowledge. Attention is given to working mindfully with the parents at regularly scheduled parent feedback meetings.
Sandtray Training
Four levels of Sandtray Training & includes Supervision and metaphor training.
Classes meet one time a month from September to June. (30 hours)
Level I: Sandtray Training for Therapists Working with Children ages 3-12
Level II: Sandtray Training for Therapists Working with Adults and Adolescents
Level III: Sandtray Theory &: Creative Sandtray Applications
Level IV: Sandtray Theory & Focusing (body/mind work of Eugene Gendlin)
Note: Level I and Level II can be taken in either order.
Training Track
Therapists who take trainings for four or more years may be invited to take the Training Track class. There are presently 21 therapists who are working on their credential for certification in Play-Family Therapy, which includes supervision and a certificate in Contextual Therapy Training.
Seven of these therapists have been training here for eight to ten years and they are being certified as teachers/professors Play-Family Therapy at the graduate and post-graduate level. They will expand training in Play-Family Therapy to Delaware, New Jersey & New Hampshire.
Dottie Higgins Klein, LMFT, RPT-S has been combining the two fields of Play Therapy and Family Therapy in a unique way over the past twenty-five years. She is author of the upcoming book, Weaving It All Together: Play-Family Therapy and Mindful Parenting.
Attention is given to the child’s individual problems or issues in a family context. At least one parent participates in a “Talk Time” prior to each play therapy session – ideally taking turns. The parent’s attendance in the play room depends upon several issues and the parent may or may not be engaged in or witnessing the child’s play.
Parent education and feedback meetings are built into the on-going therapy process. Parents come to these meetings alone so we can discuss all children including the one for whom they may have the most concern. Sessions include ‘mindful parenting’ which encourages the parents to gain insight into the strengths of their own parenting styles as well as what may not be effectively meeting their unique child’s need.
This type of therapy includes many ways of working with children such as child centered, structural, cognitive therapy, behavior therapy, filial therapy and ‘floortime’ (Greenspan). It includes working with a wide range of issues.
