Helping Children Heal: What is TraumaPlay?
What Is TraumaPlay?
TraumaPlay, developed by Dr. Paris Goodyear-Brown, a leader in Play Therapy and healing trauma in children and teens, is a program that addresses the needs of hurt children. Integrating neuroscience, attachment, child-centered play therapy and trauma treatment, TraumaPlay allows the space for children to tell their stories in a safe and developmentally appropriate way so that they can release their pain and move towards healing so that they can thrive and enjoy their childhood once again.
Understanding Trauma in Children
Young children do not always have the words or developmental ability to explain what is happening in their internal world. Play is very powerful for children because it gives them an outlet to communicate their experiences.
Trauma in children occurs due to an experience that they have witnessed or underwent that caused their nervous system to enter the “fight, flight, freeze” state without them being able to integrate the experience in a healthy way.
What Can Cause Trauma in Children?
Examples of trauma in children include medical treatments, witnessing domestic violence, being in a motor vehicle accident, abuse or neglect, high conflict divorce, a parent being incarcerated, sexual abuse, abandonment, grief and loss, community or environmental disasters, negative social and relational experiences, or even major life disruptions.
It is important for parents to know, not all difficult or frightening experiences cause trauma in children, rather it is the way that the child experiences an event or situation, their developmental stage, and the support and safety around them, that can all influence how the child navigates challenging situations.
Recognizing The Signs Of Trauma
Caregivers can be offered clues to how a child is navigating a situation by looking at their behaviours and noticing if things have shifted, or by watching their play.
Traumatized play can look like play with the themes of aggression, repetitive story telling of an event, and the play may have themes of danger or abandonment. Caregivers may witness changes in behaviour, difficulty separating from them, struggles with focusing or in school, strained relationships, withdrawal from their activities, struggles with sleeping and an increase in anxiety or depressive symptoms.
TraumaPlay is a powerful therapeutic tool that supports children and their caregivers to shift from surviving to thriving again.
The Goal of TraumaPlay
“The overarching goal of the work is to leach the emotional toxicity out of the child’s experience so that it can be integrated into a healthy sense of self (Goodyear-Brown, 2019).”
How Does Trauma Play Work?
TraumaPlay works from a model that supports not only the child, but also the family system. During the initial sessions, the TraumaPlay therapist will work with the family and child to explore how safe a child feels, how they cope, how their nervous system is responding to stress, how they express their emotions, what their thoughts are communicating about their identity and world, and how their play is expressing their current experiences.
A TraumaPlay therapist will work with the family by offering a variety of tools and strategies to help soothe a child’s nervous system and support self-regulation for both themselves and their child. Sessions occur weekly and communication between the therapist and parents stay open and fluid so that families feel supported throughout the process.
What Happens During A TraumaPlay Session?
Sessions between the child and therapist are 50% child driven and 50% driven by the therapist. A child is offered choices in what activities they would like to engage in which could include, but are not limited to, art and expressive therapies, dolls or barbies, nature play, sandplay, dress up or make believe role playing, playdoh and sensory experiences, or building with LEGO or other materials.
Through the play, a therapist can get a good sense of what the child is experiencing and can offer the therapist deep insight into how the child can be best supported.
The second part of sessions involve a therapy intervention that is dependent on what the goal of the child may be. Examples could be the creation of a regulation tool like the mood meter, or a mood thermometer, children may like to work in the sandbox exploring how to create positive meaning of a traumatic event, it could also be practicing self-soothing skills.
Every session is intentional and is focused on how to best support the child in integrating a challenging experience and learning new tools so that they can feel empowered and regulated again.
Supporting Parents and Caregivers
Parent sessions occur every few weeks and happen with the child, and at times alone with the therapist. Sessions offer a space for parents to communicate what they are witnessing at home, what tools are working and what is not working.
The therapist can share the themes that are being explored in the playroom and any tools and strategies that the parents can integrate at home.
Parents and children are also supported in strengthening their attachment and developing stronger bonds through play sessions with the therapist. Examples of activities include the comfort corner activity, child-directed play coaching, story telling and memory book making, practicing regulation tools together, and art activities to support a deeper understanding of each other.
In TraumaPlay, the goal is always for parents to take over the therapeutic role in a child’s life and for therapy to only be a tool that occurs for a short time, and not forever.
When Does TraumaPlay Therapy Come to an End?
Sessions come to a close when the child is no longer playing out their pain and they have successfully integrated the challenging experience.
Children begin to utilize the tools and strategies they have learned in sessions and parents report they feel confident in their ability to support their child. Parents and schools report that the child’s symptoms have decreased and that the child is expressing their feelings, communicating their needs, engaging with their peers, they are now trying new things and are not expressing the same levels of anxiety as before.
Parents have reported following sessions that they feel that they finally have their child back.
Finding Hope Through TraumaPlay
TraumaPlay is an incredible resource for families that have had unfavorable experiences as it offers hope that healing is possible.
If you feel that TraumaPlay would be supportive for your child and family, or if you would like to learn more about it, please reach out to Canopy Cove and book a consultation session with Miranda, our TraumaPlay therapist.
