What is a Theraplay session like?

Finding your sparkle

Theraplay is a super powerful kind of therapy for families and children. It’s been around since the 1960’s, and is used around the world (http://theraplay.org). When you work with a certified, experienced Theraplay therapist (like me), sessions can sometimes feel fun, light, and joyous. In our sessions, one parent and one child do therapy activities that I direct. The activities are designed to be highly engaging and often feel like playtime.  There’s an important difference between playing with your child at home and experincing Theraplay with me, though.

Balancing nurture and structure

When you and your child/children play together at home, you’re usually being spontaneous and not using a plan for the time. That kind of play is very important for healthy development ( Harvard’s child development podcast on play here) but it’s really different from Theraplay.

Theraplay is built on four dimensions: nurture, structure, engagment, and challenge. We’ll use all of them in our work together. However, most of the problems in families organize around either too much or too little of either nurture or structure. Part of our work together will be to identify if one of those is true for you, and figuring out how to create more balance.

Playing multi-level chess

During our sessions together, I’m doing a whole bunch of things at once. I’m interacting with you and your child. I’m watching the micro-interactions the two of you are creating together, and I’m noticing the balance of nurture and structure you are providing. At times, I’ll also give you advice on how to achieve a better balance of these key ingredients of a healthy parent-child relationship. I might do that in the session if it’s something simple, like, “Hey, mom, I wonder if you could sit closer to Cade?” or in our monthly parent sessions if it’s more complex.

The fact that sessions may seem to parents like we’re “just playing” is a sign that I’ve been working hard at making this look easy over several decades. In reality, I’m watching for specific types of interactions, keeping an eye on and managing/co-regulating me, you, and your child, and thinking ahead to make a smooth transition to the next activity- and keeping us all on time. I love doing this work, but there’s a good reason so few therapists work this way- it’s hard! It feels a lot like I imagine Captain Kirk felt playing multi-level chess against Spock on Star Trek.

Using the power of connection for healing

If you’re coming to therapy because of something going on with your child’s basic wiring (a diagnosis of autism, ADHD, or OCD, for example), Theraplay can help your child navigate social environments more confidently. We’ll first strengthen your attachment relationship with your child (learn more here) and then leverage that to build his/her/their confidence. We’ll still be playing together, but I’ll add in more mild challenges for your child to experience mastery. I may also do a little psycho-education with your child about specific coping strategies.

For children who have experienced trauma (including medical trauma, NICU stays, foster care, adoption and single-incident trauma) we’ll use Theraplay to build up pockets of security in your attachment relationship as preparation for using EMDR (description of EMDR) to resolve the impact of negative experiences.

If all of this sounds good to you, let’s get going! https://drcatherinetucker.com/home-page/therapy-services/

Here’s a link to a video about Theraplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5IoEDHY-Y4