Welcome to Play Therapy Works!

 

Play therapy and play based counselling in Blenheim, New Zealand!  

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I offer play therapy and play based CBT and TF-CBT to children aged 10 and under.  I also offer general counselling to parents and caregivers, and infant mental health counselling.  I am a registered counsellor and ACC sensitive claims provider.

Play therapy and play based counselling​

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Play is a very gentle way of working with children.  Children's brains are still developing and work very differently to adult brains, therefore the approach to counselling and trauma needs to be different.  Where adults benefit from top down processing - using words to explain and process their emotions and difficulties, children need a bottom up approach.  Children are more inclined to express and process their emotions and difficulties by acting them out, playing them through with toys or using art or some other form of expression.  Play therapy is a gentle way for a child to work through stuff with or without the need for advanced verbal and processing development.  When necessary or appropriate, I will use CBT or TF-CBT - which are both more top down approaches - but I will still use play as the medium.  These methods work well and using play as the medium makes it gentle and kind to the child in counselling.

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Play therapy works well with children aged 3 - 10 years of age.  For under 3's, I work with both the child and a caregiver together.  I have a fully equipped play therapy room and I also have therapy dogs that I can bring in to assist.  I have a huge lego collection which I use for children who are into lego.  I usually don't work with intermediate aged children or adolescents but if they are into lego and would like to do their counselling while playing with lego, then I can still work with them.  

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I am able to get some funding through Gumboot Friday as well as through EAP (if your employer has registered with Benestar).  I also do some work for Supporting Families, Blenheim.  I am a registered ACC sensitive claims provider and I am also registered with Victim Support.  My private rate is $90 per hour but this is negotiable.

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I also offer parent coaching sessions where we discuss and brainstorm parenting techniques.