The Use of Play Therapy and Other Expressive Therapies in the Assessment and Treatment of Children

National Play Therapy Week 2022

The Use of Play Therapy and Other Expressive Therapies in the Assessment and Treatment of Children presented by Eliana Gil, PhD, RPT-S, ATR

This workshop is designed for play therapists and other mental health professionals who would like to integrate a range of expressive therapies into their play therapy practices. This workshop will review the basic principles of expressive therapies and their resonance to play therapy, will discuss how to select and implement an integrated or prescriptive play therapy practice, and how to become familiar with the range of expressive therapies that are typically utilized when working with children.  Specifically, the program goals are to:

ü  Provide play therapists with opportunities for experiential learning;

ü  Describe a range of expressive therapies;

ü  Discuss how to assess when play therapy approaches can be integrated with other expressive therapies;

ü  Discuss play therapy themes across different media;

ü  Provide different examples of how play therapy integrates with drama therapy or art therapy, as examples;

ü  Discuss an integrated method of child-centered play therapy with therapist-led approaches;

ü   Discuss how to set the context with families about what an integrated play therapy approach might entail;

ü  Provide opportunities to practice a number of integrated expressive therapy techniques.

Day One: Friday, February 11th

• Introductions and needs assessment: “Your wish list”
• Didactic presentation and experiential activities

Day Two: Saturday, February 12th

• Continuation of lecture and experiential activities, group activities and group processing.

Learning Objectives: 

Participants will be able to:

1. Define expressive therapies and expressive arts therapy and visual arts;
2. List two basic principles shared by play therapy and other expressive arts;
3. List two compatibilities between play therapy and art therapy;
4. List three ways you can transfer the thematic material in children’s generic and exploratory play with other amplifying activities;
5. Define the term “amplification questions” for use with play therapy and other expressive therapies that elicit metaphors or symbols;
6. Name two rationales for an integrated expressive therapy practice to be accessible across cultures;
7. Discuss two gender specific differences in children that could elicit different play therapy responses and selection of interventions.

Level of training: Beginning

3 APT Non Contact CEs - Skills and Methods

About our presenter: Dr. Eliana Gil is a Founding Partner of Gil Institute for Trauma Recovery & Education, LLC, a group private practice in Fairfax, Virginia. She is currently semi-retired and resides in Florida and MA where she provides consulting and supervision on-line. In addition, Dr. Gil sponsors the Mid-Atlantic Play therapy Institute in VA in the spring, and she provides several trainings through Starbright Training Institute in Virginia, during the year. She is an Approved MFT Supervisor as well as a Registered Play Therapist-Supervisor and Registered Art Therapist. She is also a Circle of Security Certified Parenting Educator, a Level II Theraplay provider, and participated and completed a two-year individual certification process with Dr. Bruce Perry. In the last two decades Eliana has directed two child sexual abuse treatment programs in Northern Virginia (Inova Kellar Center and Childhelp Children’s Center of Virginia) and she has worked in the field of child abuse prevention and treatment for the last forty seven years. She is a licensed Marriage, Family, Child Counselor who received her doctorate in family therapy from the California Graduate School of Family Psychology in San Rafael, California. She is also a former President of the Association for Play Therapy and received APT’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011.

Dr. Gil has written numerous materials on child abuse and related topics and has a number of educational videotapes that feature her work available through Guilford Press, as well as a self-published videotape on Family Play Therapy. Her most recent books are Post-Traumatic Play in Children: What Clinicians Should know, Family Play Therapy, 2^nd Ed., and Termination Issues in Child Psychotherapy (with Dr. David Crenshaw). She has many other publications, some of which have been translated to other languages, including Spanish. Dr. Gil is a well-known lecturer, author, and clinician. She is bilingual and bicultural, originally from Guayaquil, Ecuador. 

VIRTUAL: This will be a virtual session. Participants will be awarded APT NON-CONTACT CE upon successful completion of a post test.

AZAPT is approved by the Association for Play Therapy to offer continuing education specific to Play Therapy. APT Approved Provider 97-035. AZAPT maintains responsibility for the program. Registrants understand and agree that any photograph (screen shot), video or audio recording of themselves may be used to further promote AZAPT.

Cancellation Policy: All cancellations must be requested in writing and received no later than January 11, 2022. Cancellations are subject to a $15 processing fee. Substitutions (someone else attending) or transfer of registration to another training date may be requested. No refunds or partial refunds will be considered after January 11, 2022.