Big Behaviors in Small Containers: Trauma Informed Play Therapy Interventions for Dysregulation

When it comes to working with children, sometimes the biggest behaviors come in the smallest containers. Sometimes these behaviors are externalizing (screaming, crying, hitting) and sometimes these are internalizing (anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation). So often, the focus of treatment in these instances becomes about extinguishing the behavior without understanding what is driving it in the first place. Whether the end result involves a child shutting down or shouting out, it is critical that helping professionals be able to answer this key question: What is the need underlying the behavior?

This recording will offer more than a dozen practical, fun, and immediately useful play therapy interventions that engage the family in setting treatment goals, augmenting adaptive coping, enhancing the healthy attachment between parent and child while helping them shift paradigms around problematic child behaviors. Powerful exploration of the stress response system using play therapy helps clients increase anger management skills, expand emotional literacy, practice pro-social skills with family and friends, address their difficult thoughts, and increase coherence in their trauma narratives.