Session Description

In Adlerian play therapy, therapists use the concepts of Alfred Adler’s Individual Psychology to conceptualize children and their parents and teachers, while using toys, art, and metacommunication to connect with them. The process of co-creating a relationship with the child allows therapists to communicate (mostly through metaphor, but sometimes through direct verbal interaction) in a way that facilitates exploration of the child’s patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving, helps the child gain insight into those patterns, and invites the child to make changes in any patterns that are self-defeating or destructive. Engaging the child’s parents and teachers, exploring their own lifestyles and their interaction with the child, helping them to understand the child’s patterns, and teaching skills for improving the relationship is an integral part of the consultation component of Adlerian play therapy. The focus in this 3- hour workshop is on strategies used in Adlerian play therapy to help clients learn and practice (a) more adaptive ways of thinking about self, others, and the world and (b) skills for managing anger and anxiety, making friends, solving problems, and regulating their emotions.