Play & Creative Arts Therapy

Play Therapists work with children and young adolescents, suffering from a range of psychological difficulties and complex life experiences. Psychological difficulties include depression, anxiety, aggression and ADHD. Difficult life experiences include abuse, grief, family breakdown, domestic violence and trauma. A professionally trained Play Therapist helps a child to increase insight, decrease internal conflict and increase resiliency, coping and emotional literacy. Play Therapists work closely with the child's parents/carers and their network throughout the Play Therapy intervention and occasionally undertake parent-child relationship interventions. Ie Attachment Focussed Therapy/PACE.

Play Therapy promotes resilience by helping children to explore their feelings, to express themselves and to make sense of their life experiences. Play is children’s natural medium for learning, communicating and exploring their worlds. Emotional recovery from distressing life experiences can thus be facilitated by a Play Therapist allowing a child to express themselves via play in a safe, secure and trusting environment.

Conventional talking therapies may be inappropriate for children and young people who struggle to put their feelings into words. Play Therapy allows them the opportunity to explore and understand these feelings and can enable them to shift their perspective so they are less likely to internalise blame. The resulting empowerment and increased self-esteem can be the springboard to help the child to cope more effectively with their difficulties. 

The Play Therapist identifies individual children who would benefit from this more intensive one-to-one emotional and therapeutic support by assessment, and by discussion with parents, carers and the inter-professional team. These children will have a level of cognitive functioning which will enable them to form a therapeutic alliance with the therapist and be able to work symbolically and through metaphor, if they so choose, to gain increased mastery over traumatic and distressing experiences. 

This intervention is child-centred in approach and is informed by a humanist psychological perspective. Parents and carers are considered crucial to the success of this work and are therefore periodically involved in discussions with the therapist where possible. The child is granted confidentiality, with the exception of the child protection protocols which apply at The Rainbow Practice, so although the play therapist contributes to reviews and shares general observations with the inter-professional team, details of the play are not divulged to protect the confidential nature of the work. 

Our central proposition therefore is that play communicates the child's unconscious experiences, thoughts, emotions and desires. Play is a child's primary medium for communication and a format for transmitting emotions, thoughts, values and perceptions. Play is a process that is primarily creative. Our intention is to place an emphasis upon the relationship between the Therapist and the child, which is based upon trust, acceptance and genuineness. There is an emphasis on the child as being trustworthy. We are reluctant to use any prescriptive or diagnostic perspective.

The Rainbow Practice provides a therapeutic service, which is based on theories of child development, including attachment theory and on person-centred therapy based on Carl Rogers. Creative therapeutic intervention is offered as a means of helping the child or young person come to terms with issues that are troubling them. Play therapy facilitates the development of self-control, self-responsibility and appropriate self-esteem. We use a range of approaches in creative therapy, yet there are some essential qualities, which distinguish our work from other kinds of help. Play therapy works because it is the child's natural way of expressing, communicating and coping with feelings. The Play Therapist provides a play setting within safe boundaries offering the child a 'containing' relationship in which the child's anxieties can be borne and thought about. Attentiveness and reflective listening are the clinician's most effective tools. We always use a systemic approach to creative therapy by considering the child within the context of their 'external world' which includes their residential care setting, school, their family and local authority.

The therapy occurs in a playroom, specially designed for children and furnished with toys and equipment appropriate to the task. Thought is given to the resources available to the child or adolescent, in order that they are appropriate to their developmental level and needs. Play materials match the child's culture and race. The equipment offers opportunities for creative and symbolic play. Materials such as sand, water and clay are provided as they cannot be damaged and therefore can provide a safe outlet for confused and angry feelings. As these materials can be restored, this can help a child learn that anger can be controlled and managed. Other materials include art & crafts, puppets, dolls house, and dress up. Electronic games do not feature in the therapy room as the child is encouraged to use their imagination and to be creative. The room includes the same toys/materials each week and is set up in the same way for every session, enabling consistency and predictability.

The child is offered this safe and consistent environment together with a safe and consistent relationship with the Therapist. All feelings therefore are accepted and explored symbolically and/or explicitly, depending on how the child or young person is able to use their therapy sessions. Not all behaviour is acceptable and therefore the Therapist will set firm and consistent limits.

SandStory Therapy

SandStory Therapy was created and developed by Lara Kasza.

The aim of SandStory Therapy® is to provide a safe space in which a child or young person can be offered genuineness, openness, support and acceptance of their story as part of their journey towards greater growth. 

What is SandStory Therapy®

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SandStory Therapy® is a gentle and safe way of working therapeutically with sand and symbols within a contained sandtray that offers clients the opportunity to tell their 'story in the sand'.

SandStory Therapy® encourages a respectful and sensitive dialogue between the unconscious and the conscious so that the wisdom from within is heard, seen and experienced. In turn, this is taken into daily life and natural, very organic shifts occur.

SandStory Therapy® has it's roots in the narrative tradition of Story-telling and Sandtray Therapy. This latter was developed by Margaret Lowenfeld in the early part of her work in the 1920's. Having trained in Sandplay Therapy and studied Sandtray Therapy as well as Story-telling, SandStory Therapy© has been developed in a way that complements other therapeutic approaches.Sharon Tilling has completed Level 1 Training and is a Certified and registered SandStory Therapist.

Story Therapy® has at it's heart the therapist's ability to remain grounded in their own presence and be fully present each moment to their client.  It allows them to attune to their client's needs and pace which enables empowerment and growth for the client.

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Who can benefit from SandStory Therapy®?

SandStory Therapy© fits well with children from the age of 8 years onwards, teenagers/young adults and adults right through to senior adults. It can be used in multiple ways and for a spectrum of referral issues:

Individual therapy/counselling

Group work

Family work

Couples work

Parent work

Support groups such as bereavement or addiction groups

Management/leadership teams

Professionals such as Teachers, TAs, Educational Psychologists, SENCO's, CAMHS workers, Social Workers, Mental Health nurses etc

Clinical Supervision

Attachment Focused Therapy

Attachment Focused Therapy can be used with adults and children. When a child has problems with attachment issues, attachment focused family therapy can be given to the whole family to rebuild trust, for example. When this therapeutic approach is used with adults, the therapist can help an individual form a secure relationship that aims to fix attachment issues.

Attachment Focused Therapy is a brief, process-oriented form of psychological counselling. The client-therapist relationship is based on developing or rebuilding trust and centers on expressing emotions. An attachment-based approach to therapy looks at the connection between an infant’s early attachment experiences with primary caregivers, usually with parents, and the infant’s ability to develop normally and ultimately form healthy emotional and physical relationships as an adult. Attachment Focused Therapy aims to build or rebuild a trusting, supportive relationship that will help prevent or treat anxiety or depression.

An attachment-focused approach can be used in individual, family, couple, and group therapy, with both children and adults, to helps clients mend or recover from fractured family relationships. Those who may benefit from attachment-focused therapy include adoptees, children in foster care, children of depressed mothers, and victims of trauma, such as children of divorce or children who have been sexually abused or otherwise mistreated, particularly at the hands of a caregiver. Attachment-focused family therapy  has been shown to be helpful in treating adolescents who are depressed and/or thinking about suicide.

Therapeutic Life Story Work

Therapeutic Life Story Work can help children to make sense of their past, gain a balanced understanding of their present and, as an on-going process, plan for a healthy & stable future. 

The production of a life story book means that information can be conveyed to the child/young person at appropriate times throughout their lives, exploring changing perspectives as different issues arise or resurface. It can also encourage the child/young person and future carers to continue adding information.

This includes researching the child’s/young person’s history, involving significant people to have an input in the life story book, thereby giving the child/young person a more balanced picture of their lives.

Children and young people who have been separated from their biological families, whether this is temporarily or permanently, may not remember significant things and events about their own life and are likely to be denied access to childhood memories. Therapeutic Life Story Work is an effective tool for children and young people to make sense of a disrupted upbringing in multiple homes and foster families, preserve memories and offer explanation. 

This is the key to an understanding of why they have experienced separation and an acceptance of who they are in order to be able to move forward. 

Therapeutic Life Story Work is an important way of helping a child to integrate their past into the present, in order to help them to move into the future. All children and young people identify with their birth parents. Those that live with them, have the opportunity to know about their past through discussions with their parents and others. Children who are separated from their past, can literally lose it. This can make it difficult for them to know what has happened, to understand, and to know they are not to blame. 

Many children will only be able to engage in Life Story Work about the present usually with their allocated Social worker or family support worker. They may be too disturbed, too new into care, too young, or unable to talk about their early experiences which are often pre verbal and the reasons why they came into care. 

It can be helpful for these children to begin Therapeutic Life Story Work about the here and now. It is an opportunity to talk about, record and enjoy the present. The end product is more of a chronological record of events leading up to the child’s placement and their present situation. However, completing this initial work will give them a tangible record of a point in their history. It will also provide a positive experience of reflecting on their life in the present and the support of having the undivided attention of an interested adult. 

Therapeutic Life Story Work is usually carried out with children/YP between the ages of 5 – 17.  It is a direct and reflective process in which the child is helped to evaluate and begin to make sense and meaning of their lives.

Therapeutic Life Story Work is a valuable piece of work, which is usually completed over approximately 20 to 30 sessions.

It pieces together all the different sources of information surrounding their life that is available to them, which often includes perceptions and misconceptions that help to clarify and put their past into perspective.  It can often bring up painful memories, which a qualified therapist will support the child with so that the child is not compelled to repeat and carry any unresolved trauma through to adulthood. 

Each life story is unique to the child and it is often a creative and collaborative process, which usually involves the primary carer of the child accompanying them during most of the sessions.  The readiness of the child to do the work should be assessed before the work commences. 

The Therapeutic Life Story Model based on the approach developed by Richard Rose, consists of three stages; Information Gathering (Bank), Internalisation and the Life Story Book.

Information Gathering – This stage involves the careful and an in-depth gathering of historical information pertaining to the child; both pre-and post-birth. Within this stage the Therapist collates both written and physical sources to provide greater insight into the child’s early life experiences. This then helps to identify the gaps in the child’s history and where the information needs to be sourced from to collate a detailed and factual narrative for the child to guide their therapeutic life story sessions.

This narrative then lends knowledge to the child’s trauma and provides insight into the child’s primary attachment and their Internal Working Model, which is how the child perceives themselves, others and the world around them. For many adopted and foster children, the ‘unknown’ of their life history can be extremely fragmented, confusing and often frightening.

Establishing this knowledge is key in preparing and planning for the interventions within the second stage of the Therapeutic Life Story work: Internalisation.

Internalisation – Within this stage the narrative is divided into session plans prior to the work commencing. Stage two isn’t just about reading the narrative to the child, careful planning and preparation is used to provide the child with focused therapeutic inventions to sensitively support the areas highlighted within the Information Bank.

Through this therapeutic process and the relationship with their carer, the child can develop further insight into their responses to trauma (developed in order to protect and keep themselves safe). Often this can present in a variety of behaviours and without knowledge of the child’s history it is difficult to see the communication behind them. By supporting the child’s awareness of this and the influences it has upon their present, there is an opportunity to change, move forward and develop a positive sense of self.

What to Expect

Each situation is different and we tailor our service to you specifically. In general however we will have a brief discussion when you first make contact at which time we can discuss whether we are the most appropriate people to help. We can then book an initial consultation appointment to start to understand the difficulties and devise a plan of how to help. We will provide a brief assessment period (4 sessions) to spend time assessing the child’s needs to formulate a good plan of how to help.

The Rainbow Practice will provide you with written information about the plan we work out together, details of the way we will measure change (so that we all know whether the work has been effective) and at the end of our work a letter to summarise what we have done.

During the session the child is free to talk, remain silent, play alone or involve the therapist, who is warm, accepting, open, genuine and responsive to the child's emotions. All feelings are accepted but not all behaviour. The Therapist will set limits to keep the child and herself physically and emotionally safe. Because of prior knowledge of the child's probable issues, the therapist is alert to possible links between the child's play and emotional conflicts.

What you can expect from the Therapist:

• Regular feedback on the child's progress 

• Regular reports as a means of review and evaluation 

• Regular liaising with the child's system of support (including contact with any professionals previously involved in the child's therapeutic treatment) 

• Short term support as part of an assessment process or a longer term therapeutic programme 

• Attendance at core group meetings, reviews etc 

What the child can expect from the Therapist:

• A regular space that is consistent and held within clearly defined boundaries 

• An agreed plan of work that matches their needs 

• Intervention and methods appropriate to their needs, for example, directive and non directive 'play' and/or skills training within group work