Therapeutic Arts Counselling Studio

07/04/2026

Children learn about the world, and about themselves, through relationship.

Mirror neurons are part of the brain that help us understand and connect with others. They fire not only when we act, but when we see someone else act. This is how children begin to read emotions, develop empathy and feel understood.

From the earliest moments of life, children rely on attuned adults to reflect their experiences back to them. A look, a tone of voice, a shared moment of joy or calm. These interactions shape how a child understands safety, connection and themselves.

When a child has experienced stress or disruption in relationships, these systems can become less integrated. The world can feel unpredictable or unsafe, and connection can feel harder.

Play therapy supports this from the ground up.

Through consistent, attuned and responsive relationships, the therapist becomes a regulating and reflecting presence. Facial expressions, tone, rhythm and shared play experiences all provide opportunities for the child’s brain to experience connection in a safe way.

Over time, this helps to:

• strengthen the child’s capacity for connection and empathy
• support emotional understanding through lived, relational experience
• build trust in others and in themselves
• develop a sense of safety within relationships
• integrate social and emotional processing

As Daniel J. Siegel highlights, “The brain is a social organ, and our relationships shape the way it develops.”

Play therapy uses this knowledge to support healing, growth and connection, not through words alone, but through relationship and play.

07/04/2026

Children experience the world through their bodies first.

Somatosensory experiences are how children make sense of touch, movement, pressure and physical sensation. These experiences play a vital role in how a child develops regulation, body awareness and a sense of safety.

For some children, especially those who have experienced stress or trauma, the body can feel overwhelming or unpredictable. Sensations may feel too much, too little or difficult to interpret. This can show up in behaviour, but it begins in the nervous system.

Play therapy works with the body, not just the mind.

Through carefully attuned somatosensory play, children are supported to explore and organise their sensory experiences in a safe and relational space. This is not random play. It is meaningful, responsive and guided by the child’s needs.

In play therapy, somatosensory activities might include:

• sand, water or messy play to explore texture and sensation
• squeezing, pushing or resistance play to support proprioceptive input
• rhythmic activities such as tapping, rolling or bouncing
• use of soft materials, blankets or weighted items for deep pressure
• movement based play that supports balance and coordination

These experiences help to:

• support nervous system regulation
• build body awareness and interoception
• create a sense of safety within the body
• process sensory and emotional experiences
• develop the foundation for learning, relating and self regulation

Play therapy offers children the space to reconnect with their bodies in ways that feel safe, supported and meaningful.

07/04/2026

A child’s brain develops from the bottom up. Before thinking, reasoning and problem solving can happen, the nervous system needs to feel safe.

The bottom up, whole brain approach recognises that behaviour is not just about choices. It is about the state of the body and nervous system first.

When a child is dysregulated, their lower brain is in charge. This is where survival responses live. Fight, flight, freeze or fawn. In these moments, the thinking brain is much less accessible. So reasoning, consequences or logic often do not work.

Play therapy works with this, not against it.
Instead of expecting children to “think their way” out of distress, play therapy supports regulation from the bottom up. Through sensory experiences, rhythm, movement and relational safety, the nervous system begins to settle. Only then can higher level thinking and reflection start to come online.

In play therapy, the child is not pushed to explain or analyse. They are given space to express, experience and process through play, which is their natural language.

This approach helps to:

• support nervous system regulation before cognitive demand
• build felt safety through consistent, attuned relationships
• integrate emotional and sensory experiences
• strengthen connections between the lower and higher parts of the brain
• enable children to access thinking, learning and relating more effectively

As Bruce D. Perry reminds us, “Regulate, relate, reason.”

Play therapy honours this sequence. It meets the child where they are and supports development in the way the brain is designed to grow.

10/03/2026

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Therapeutic Arts Counselling Studio

Over the next week or two, I’m going to share a series of posts from the education side of my experience.

Before PDA Parenting and before advocacy became such a big part of my life, I worked in both primary and secondary schools as a teaching assistant.

I supported a range of students — sometimes 1:1, sometimes as a key worker for specific pupils.

It gave me a window into things I hadn’t fully understood before.

I saw some incredible practice from staff who really knew how to connect with young people. But I also saw practices that deeply challenged my thinking — things that didn’t sit right, but being fairly low down in the structure meant I wasn’t always in a position to change them.

What stayed with me most were the students themselves.

Every child I worked with taught me something.

How to adapt my approach depending on what they needed.

How to listen and observe until I found something that connected us.

How important it was to notice what they were good at and build their self-worth around that.

And how powerful it was to simply show up consistently, even when they pushed adults away or were in distress.

Through all of that, one theme kept coming back.

These students were never the problem.

From what I saw firsthand, the system often was.

So over the next couple of weeks I want to share some real examples of what worked and what didn’t — and keep the child’s voice at the centre of these stories.

Drop an emoji or a comment if you’d like these posts to appear in your feed 👇❤️

10/03/2026

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Therapeutic Arts Counselling Studio

Adlerian theory (Individual Psychology), developed by Alfred Adler, is considered a social theory. It proposes that human behaviour is shaped by relationships, social context, and our deep need to belong.

Adler believed people cannot be understood in isolation. Our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours develop within family, culture, and community.

A Core Human Need: Belonging

Adler suggested that every child’s primary goal is to feel significant and that they belong. When children feel discouraged or disconnected, their behaviour often reflects mistaken ideas about how to achieve this belonging.

The Four “Mistaken Goals” of Misbehaviour

Children may seek belonging through:

• Undue Attention: “I belong when I’m noticed.”
• Misguided Power: “I belong when I’m in control.”
• Revenge: “I will hurt others because I feel hurt.”
• Assumed Inadequacy: “I can’t succeed, so I give up.”

From an Adlerian perspective, challenging behaviour often reflects discouragement, not defiance.

Family Constellation & Birth Order

Adler also explored how a child’s perceived position in the family can influence their approach to belonging:

• Firstborn: may strive for achievement after feeling “dethroned.”
• Middle: often develops negotiation or peacemaking skills.
• Youngest: may become the entertainer or feel less capable.
• Only child: may relate well to adults but struggle with peer competition.

Adlerian theory reminds us that encouragement, connection, and belonging are central to children’s emotional wellbeing.

10/03/2026

For many families, it starts with a label.

“Defiant.”
“Oppositional.”
“Controlling.”
“Just refusing to do what they’re told.”

But sometimes what looks like defiance… is something very different.

PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance) is an autistic profile. That means it sits within autism, but it has its own set of features that make it distinct.

It isn’t simply about avoiding demands.

At its core is an anxiety-driven need to maintain autonomy and control, because everyday expectations can trigger a powerful nervous system response.

When pressure rises, the brain shifts into survival mode.

What you might see on the outside can look like refusal, negotiation, distraction, or even explosive reactions.

But underneath it is often anxiety, overwhelm, and a need to regain a sense of safety.

Some signs that behaviour might be linked to a PDA profile include:

✔️ Extreme resistance to everyday demands — even things the child wants to do
✔️ A strong need for autonomy and control
✔️ Using social strategies like negotiation, humour, distraction or role-play to avoid demands
✔️ Sudden emotional overwhelm or meltdowns when pressure builds
✔️ Appearing very capable one moment and completely unable the next
✔️ An undeniably strong sense of justice
✔️ Focussed interests sometimes on people

When this profile is misunderstood, children are often pushed harder.

But pressure is usually the very thing that escalates the behaviour.

Understanding the profile can change the approach entirely.

Less confrontation.
More collaboration.
More flexibility.
More safety.

If this helped you understand PDA a little more, save it for later or share it with someone who might need to see it.

And if you know anyone with a PDA profile, you’ll know they need to do it ‘my way’ too!!! ✌️😂

24/02/2026

I’ve just finished reading ‘School Isn’t for Everyone’ and it quietly put into words what so many of us discover the hard way.

Learning isn’t something we force. It’s something that happens.

The book describes unschooling as reigniting internal motivation — that a child’s ability to learn is as natural as breathing. Our role isn’t to control it, but to create the conditions where it can return if it’s been dimmed.

There’s a great metaphor about nesting that I loved — about softening the environment instead of making it uncomfortable.

And it struck me how often families of anxious or PDA children are told the opposite:
❌ “Make home less comfortable.”
❌ “Take away their screens.”
❌ “They need to do school work.”

But what if recovery looks more like safety? More like repair?

The diagrams showing learning through LEGO, through Bluey, through play, open your mind beyond worksheets and timetables. They gently move you away from rigid beliefs about what education “should” look like.

For children who’ve fallen out of school, this feels like a repair manual.

For families starting home education, it’s grounding.

For staff building alternative provision, it’s a reminder that joy isn’t extra — it’s essential.

Unschooling isn’t doing nothing.

It’s doing less of what harms and more of what heals.

And for any parent worrying their child “won’t learn at home,” this book offers steady reassurance: learning is a process. Especially when trust has been broken.

If you’re struggling with school right now, this might reshape how you see what’s going wrong.

Maybe your child was never the problem?!? 💯👏🏻❤️

24/02/2026

Erik Erikson was a developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst whose work continues to shape how we understand children’s emotional and social development today.

He introduced the idea that we move through a series of psychosocial stages across the lifespan, each centred around a key question — Am I safe? Can I do things for myself? Am I capable? Do I belong?
These aren’t questions children necessarily ask out loud, but they are expressed through behaviour, relationships and, importantly, through play.

In the playroom, we often see children revisiting these developmental stages:
✨ Testing whether adults can be trusted
✨ Exploring independence and control
✨ Working through feelings of shame or guilt
✨ Building a sense of competence and self-worth

Play provides a safe, developmentally appropriate way for children to explore and make sense of these experiences.
Erikson’s work reminds us that development happens within relationships.

As play therapists, we offer a consistent, attuned and emotionally safe space where children can express themselves freely, process their experiences and begin to heal.

🌿 Development isn’t always linear and that’s okay. With the right support, children can revisit earlier stages and move forward with greater confidence, resilience and a stronger sense of self.

11/02/2026

Our first gathering of the year and we explored with watercolour paints, paint sticks, pastels and plants/ herbs.

05/02/2026

I love this example of how arts compliments medicine.
Kelly Barnett
Therapeutic Arts Counselling Studio

In this talk, Dr. Barnett explores how the creative arts - music, dance, visual art, and writing - may play a meaningful role alongside conventional medicine...

28/01/2026

Back to school this week. Preparing for my students.