Psychology and Play Therapy Australia

24/07/2025

**ECO-MAPS**
Eco-maps help create a visual representation of the child’s network and support system.

As child therapists, they enable us to understand the child’s experiences in their different contexts and relationships, and help us to target our work effectively with the systems around the child, such as:

👉🏻 Child therapist as advocate – helping others in the child’s system understand their expressed need, and “what is the child communicating through their behaviour?”
👉🏻Supporting caregivers – around issues impacting on their care of the child, attunement, responding to emotions, responding to behaviours, co-regulation, meaning-making, therapeutic re-parenting
👉🏻Schools – scaffolding understanding of child in this setting, developing Therapeutic Response Plans

22/07/2025

Your specialist knowledge is the voice of the child, and every time you are communicating your knowledge, you are the child’s advocate.

Advocacy takes many forms: it might be a conversation with a parent or teacher, a recommendation to another service, a report, or even how you participate in a care team meeting.

The special role of the child and play therapist is that we hold deep knowledge and awareness of the child’s internal world - something that’s often missed by other adults and systems around the child, because they’re caught up in the problems that brought the child to therapy in the first place.

21/07/2025

You’re probably good at interpreting a child’s internal world, but not always great at letting the case conceptualisation framework be your anchor.

That framework is what helps us survive the work, especially when we’re navigating the adult agendas surrounding the child. It gives us an anchor to return to and sit in, which brings us back to the child’s needs - which is why we do this work in the first place.

Are you confident in your ability to let the case conceptualisation framework be your anchor? If not, our Case Conceptualisation and Reporting Progress PD Series is essential for you.

Learn more and register here: https://psychologyandplay.mykajabi.com/offers/2f2TBpm3/checkout

20/07/2025

As a supervisor, people often say to me when we’re discussing a client case:
“You just get it so quickly. You hit the nail on the head with very little information and can articulate exactly what’s going on.”

I always say to my supervisees: “I’m not doing magic. I’m not some whizz-bang person, and I don’t see myself as having a superpower that lets me do that.”

What I do have is a skill I’ve refined over years of practice - the skill of case conceptualisation.

It’s become an embodied process; it’s just how I think now. That’s why I can hit the nail on the head quickly!

That’s what the workshop ‘Report Writing: Conceptualising and Reporting Progress’ aims to offer you - the process to assist you in case conceptualisation one you can truly embody and use in the moment, within your day-to-day work.

Learn more and register here: https://psychologyandplay.mykajabi.com/offers/2p2czYZP/checkout

19/07/2025

** WEEKEND WONDERING **

Identifying the needs that emerge from your case conceptualisation is the guts of the work.

You need to have a clear story and conceptualisation of what’s happening for the child and about them in order to uncover the underlying needs, because those needs are what should inform your therapeutic goals.

Having a framework for case conceptualisation also helps you tune out other agendas and voices around the child to stay focused on what the child truly needs.

THERAPIST REFLECTION PROMPT:
“If you tune out for a moment, the adult voices and agendas related to your child client, what needs of the child emerge?”

Warmest wishes
Katherine
(Director, Psychologist, Registered Play Therapist-Supervisor™)

19/07/2025

Taking a quiet moment between sessions…facilitating a Child and Play Therapy Business Planning Retreat. Nipaluna/Hobart, you once again are the perfect host for this event.

19/07/2025

This webinar is open for all to register.

This webinar aims to support participants to transform their child psychology practice from a focus on diagnosis and pathology to a needs-based approach. Further, it will introduce play therapy as an effective child-centred, developmentally appropriate and neurobiologically sensitive intervention for children.

Grounded in the principles of The National Children’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy, this workshop will offer theoretical frameworks for needs-based case conceptualisation and intervention for children, and the broader settings in which they live, learn and play.

Register here: https://ow.ly/uC8F50WnqvY

18/07/2025

**FRIDAY FUNNY**

17/07/2025

** Meaning making and therapy **

When we speak with children about therapy, we are giving them information to create meaning of their new experience.

Open and transparent conversations with children about why they are attending therapy can promote a cue of safety, as the child is not left wondering about why they are with you.

In the absence of any other information, children will make their own meaning.

Children interpret meaning through an ego-centric lens – a vulnerability of their developmental stage - which can often lead to feelings of shame.

This meaning-making process with the therapist helps lay the foundations for a trusting and safe therapeutic relationship.

16/07/2025

**TRANSPARENCY**
I've has been immersed in facilitating a lot of training over the past 10 days. During a discussion a big question was asked -

“What do you do to create safety in the therapeutic relationship for children?”

A big question! Huge!

One with many responses....yet time only for one.

My response: “TRANSPARENCY.

Being open with children about who I am, what my job is, why they are coming along to therapy, what I know about them already, the worries their important adults have for them, AND curiosity about their thoughts about this.

I find this transparency with the child helps to create safety, particularly with children who have experienced trauma and present with high levels of mistrust of others.

Children make meaning of their experiences with whatever information is available to them....in the absence of information they will make meaning through their own cognitive world-view, which is often fear- or shame-based”.

Transparency helps to create predictability and certainty = safety.

Wishing you all the best in this special work!
Katherine
(Directore, Psychologist, Registered Play Therapist-Supervisor™

15/07/2025

When you have case conceptualisation… what do you do with it?

The point of having case conceptualisation is to use your therapist self in a targeted way through your play therapy reflections and interpretations to respond to the therapeutic goals.

We need it for understanding, but it also informs the work that we’re doing in the room with the child.

Our Case Conceptualisation and Reporting Progress PD Series aims to provide a robust learning experience to help strengthen your competence and confidence in this area of your work.

Learn more and register here: https://psychologyandplay.mykajabi.com/offers/2f2TBpm3/checkout

PS. If this image is going over your head, you have to watch The Castle! I suggest you choose it for your next movie night.

14/07/2025

One of the tricky things about case conceptualisation is that for many therapists, it just feels like ‘the vibe’ - they can’t articulate it.

How do you get from having ‘the vibe’ to being able to construct it in your mind in order to articulate it in a report or to adults?

Because in those contexts, ‘the vibe’ isn’t enough.

This is the gift of our Case Conceptualisation PD Series. It will give you the tools for conceptualising your child and play therapy practice, evaluating progress and/or change for the child, and effectively communicating about this to the adults and systems around them.

Learn more and register here: https://psychologyandplay.mykajabi.com/offers/2f2TBpm3/checkout