Woven Roots Therapeutic Practice

10/01/2026

🌱 Why consistency and predictability matter so deeply in play therapy 🌱

Garry Landreth builds on attachment theory, and is explicit in his stance:

“The relationship is the therapy.”

In practice, this means that healing doesn’t come from clever techniques or quick fixes (though our work is grounded in extensive training, theory, and diverse therapeutic frameworks). It comes from reliable, repeated experiences of safety within relationship.

Consistency is what transforms the playroom into a secure base:
• the same therapist
• the same room
• the same limits
• the same emotional responses

Over time, this repetition allows a child to internalise something essential:

“This adult remains steady even when I am not.”

Without a predictable therapeutic frame, children often stay:
• defended
• overly controlled
• compliant or superficial

Not because they don’t want to go deeper —
but because their nervous system cannot yet afford to.

At Woven Roots, we hold consistency not as routine, but as care.
Because when the external world becomes steady, the inner world can finally begin to move. 🌿

09/01/2026

🌿 When Rejection Isn’t What It Seems 🌿

In attachment-centred play therapy, clinician and author Clair Mellenthin describes a pattern called the “reject–reject relationship cycle.”

It happens when a child is distressed and the adults caring for them feel helpless, unsure, or overwhelmed. Without anyone meaning to, both can begin to experience the other as rejecting.

The adult may pull back when their nervous system becomes overwhelmed — often experienced as guilt, shame, or shutdown.
The child feels that withdrawal as rejection — confirming fears of being too much or unsafe to need.

No one is choosing this.
It isn’t about blame, failure, or bad parenting.

It’s what can happen when unhealed attachment pain meets stress.

Trauma-informed work helps slow this cycle, name what’s underneath, and support repair — reminding everyone involved that these moments are about protection, not rejection.

At Woven Roots Therapeutic Practice , we hold these patterns with compassion and care, supporting families to find their way back to connection 🌱

08/01/2026

I appreciated this reflection from OT McAlpine on emotional WiFi and families as interconnected nervous systems.

It echoes something I see repeatedly in therapeutic work with children and families:
emotions don’t live in isolation. They move. They transmit. They ripple.

Children regulate through relationship. Their nervous systems are shaped moment-to-moment by the emotional frequency around them. This isn’t something to correct — it’s biology.

When a child is dysregulated, they are often signalling a need for an external regulator. Someone whose body, tone, pace, and presence can help their system settle. Before words. Before logic. Before consequences.

Nervous systems speak to nervous systems.
There is a metaphorical handshake happening below the surface.

Stress spreads. Calm spreads. Safety spreads.

Rather than asking “How do I stop this?”
we might ask:
What is being expressed here? What is trying to regulate? What is asking to be met?

Regulation isn’t about constant calm. It’s about repair, rhythm, and enough safety over time. Noticing when we are co-regulating — and when we are amplifying activation — matters.

Caring for your own nervous system isn’t optional.
It shapes the emotional field your child lives in.

Families don’t need fixing.
They need support to find a steadier frequency — together.

Emotional WiFi

I listened to a really insightful podcast by Dr. Bruce Perry this week, where he introduced the idea that families are connected much like WiFi.

It got me reflecting on a few important questions:

• How do emotions operate within your family?
• How would you describe your family’s frequency — individually and collectively?
• As a parent, are you co-regulating or unintentionally co-escalating when it comes to emotional regulation?

As with all aspects of parenting, there’s no benefit in blame — only an opportunity for self-awareness and a need for self-compassion.

Looking after your own emotional wellbeing is essential. Often, it’s the most powerful way to shift the frequency of your family’s emotional WiFi.

Self care is for the greater good. And parenting as a team is the dream for all.

I have my parents group - Reframe and Regulate due to start at the end of January. Please get in touch if you would like more information. 4 weeks, 4 reframes and lots of strategies to support emotional regulation - otmcalpine@gmail.com

06/01/2026

Secure Attachment — Close, But Not Clenched

Secure attachment is often misunderstood as “perfect parenting.”
In reality, it’s about balance — and, more importantly, repair after rupture.

All relationships rupture. Misattunements happen. Parents get it wrong. Children feel misunderstood, disappointed, or overwhelmed. Secure attachment is not the absence of these moments, but the presence of return.

In Attachment Centered Play Therapy, the hand model shows secure attachment as fingertips gently touching — close enough to feel connected, but with space to move, grow, and breathe. That space matters. It allows rupture to occur without the relationship breaking.

This kind of attachment allows a child to feel:
• safe to explore the world and themselves
• free to have their own thoughts, feelings, and preferences
• confident they can return when they need comfort, reassurance, or repair

There is connection and autonomy.
Support and individuality.

Secure attachment doesn’t mean there is no rupture — it means rupture is noticed, named, and repaired. The child learns:

“Even when things go wrong, we can come back together.”

In the playroom, we often help families strengthen this balance by supporting emotional attunement, slowing moments of disconnection, and making room for repair — while also protecting a child’s developing sense of self.

Over time, these experiences build an internal understanding that relationships can stretch, bend, and recover — without requiring the child to disappear, comply, or hold things together alone.

Connection doesn’t have to mean losing yourself.
And independence doesn’t have to mean being alone 💛

📖 Inspired by Attachment Centered Play Therapy – Clair Mellenthin

06/01/2026

When Attachment Becomes Enmeshed (Too Close to Breathe)

Sometimes closeness alone doesn’t guarantee safety.

In Attachment Centered Play Therapy, enmeshment is illustrated through the hand model as hands held tightly together — symbolising connection that has formed without enough room for rest, movement, or individuality.

In these systems, a child may unconsciously come to understand that:
• staying very close helps others feel steady
• their own feelings may need to be set aside
• separation or independence can feel risky, frightening, or disloyal

These patterns often emerge in families shaped by stress, loss, trauma, or heightened anxiety. They are best understood as protective adaptations — ways relationships organise themselves to maintain closeness and safety during difficult times, rather than as dysfunction.

Children growing within enmeshed relationships may appear caring, emotionally attuned, or “very close” to caregivers, while also experiencing challenges with:
• boundaries
• a clear sense of self
• feelings of guilt or worry when moving toward independence

Therapeutic work in these situations focuses on gently creating safe space — allowing each person to breathe, notice their own edges, and develop a sense of self, while preserving love, connection, and belonging.

Healthy attachment holds closeness alongside choice, connection alongside autonomy 🌱

📖 Inspired by Attachment Centered Play Therapy – Clair Mellenthin

06/01/2026

When Attachment Feels Disconnected

Sometimes families arrive in therapy because there is too much distance.

In Attachment Centered Play Therapy, Clair Mellenthin uses a simple hand model to describe this pattern.
When hands are apart, it symbolises a family system where connection feels fractured or emotionally unavailable.

In disengaged(avoidant) attachment, a child may learn:
• “I cope on my own”
• “My feelings aren’t noticed”
• “Needing others doesn’t feel safe”

Children in these systems often appear independent, compliant, or emotionally contained — yet underneath, there may be loneliness, anxiety, or big feelings with nowhere to land.

From an attachment-centred lens, the work is not about blame.
It’s about gently bringing hands closer together — rebuilding moments of felt safety, responsiveness, and trust.

In play therapy, connection is restored slowly, through presence, rhythm, and shared emotional experience — allowing the child (and family) to feel safe enough to reconnect 🌿

📖 Inspired by Attachment Centered Play Therapy – Clair Mellenthin

03/01/2026

🌿 The Body Listens Before Words Arrive 🌿

In therapeutic work, it is often the body that speaks first.

Long before words form, therapists often notice subtle shifts — a tightening in the chest, a change in breathing, a sudden wave of tension, warmth, or unease. These bodily signals are not distractions from the work; they are part of the work.

Babette Rothschild writes in ‘Help for the Helper’ about somatic countertransference — the ways a therapist’s body responds to the emotional world of another. These responses can include changes in posture, skin sensations, pressure, restlessness, imagery, or an unexpected emotional pull. Often, they arise before conscious understanding.

When we slow down and listen, these embodied responses can offer vital information:
• about what a client may be holding without words
• about relational patterns being activated in the room
• about echoes from our own histories that need gentle attention

03/01/2026

🌿 The Body Listens Before Words Arrive 🌿

I’ve been reading some research this week that speaks powerfully to the heart of therapeutic work.

In the early 2000s, Babette Rothschild and Maggie Shiffrar explored postural mirroring and somatic empathy — what happens when one person subtly attunes to another’s body while the other silently recalls an emotionally charged memory.

What they recorded echoed known patterns, while also revealing something more:

When participants mirrored the posture of someone holding an unspoken emotional experience, they began to notice changes within themselves. Many reported similar bodily sensations and emotional states. Most significantly, some participants reported sensory imagery or impressions that appeared linked to the other person’s unspoken emotional experience. At times, they were even able to intuit the nature of what was being remembered, despite no words being exchanged.

The researchers were careful and measured in their conclusions. The sample sizes were small, and the variables complex. Yet the implications remain quietly profound.

03/01/2026

There’s a quiet pressure that arrives with a new year —
the sense that we should be working on ourselves, improving, becoming a better version somehow.

More efficient.
More disciplined.
More on top of things.

A recent article in The Guardian offers a gentler counterpoint:
that happiness doesn’t grow from constant self-improvement, but from spending more time with what already brings meaning and vitality into our lives.

Not striving harder —
but paying attention to what sustains us.
What draws us in.
What makes time soften rather than tighten.

Connection.
Creativity.
Being outdoors.
Moments that feel absorbing and real.

The invitation is simple:
don’t postpone living until everything feels resolved or optimised.
Life is already unfolding.

And choosing what nourishes us isn’t indulgent — it quietly shapes how present, generous, and grounded we can be with others.

If you’d like to read more, the article is here:

Stop stressing about self‑improvement or waiting until you’re on top of everything. This year give yourself permission to prioritise pleasure

31/12/2025

🍂🌱🪵 Woven Roots Therapeutic Practice 🪵🌱🍂

Over the years, my work has grown and deepened. What began as Blossom Play Therapy has expanded into something wider — supporting not only children, but families, adults, and the systems that hold them.

With this evolution in mind, I’m pleased to share that my practice is now Woven Roots Therapeutic Practice.

This name reflects the heart of the work:
🌿 tending to nervous system repair
🌿 weaving together story, body, and identity
🌿 nurturing connection, safety, and belonging
🌿 honouring roots — personal, ancestral, cultural, and relational

17/12/2025

🌿 Why Endings Matter in Play Therapy 🌿

In play therapy, endings are not simply about sessions stopping — they are a developmental process in their own right.

Psychotherapist Isca Wittenberg writes about how endings stir deep feelings for children and adults alike, often touching fears of loss, abandonment, and change (Wittenberg, 1999). Because of this, endings can be avoided, rushed, or minimised — yet they are one of the most meaningful parts of the therapeutic journey.

Children don’t usually talk about endings in neat sentences. Instead, they show us through play:
🧸 revisiting earlier games
🎨 looking back at drawings
🧱 breaking, rebuilding, or packing things away
📖 telling stories about leaving, journeys, or goodbyes

These are not setbacks — they are ways of making sense of separation.

Wittenberg reminds us that a thoughtful ending is not a “termination,” but something closer to weaning — a gradual, supported transition where the child experiences:
✨ feelings being noticed
✨ sadness and anger being allowed
✨ the relationship surviving the goodbye

A good-enough ending helps children carry an internal message forward:
“I can say goodbye and still be held in mind.”
“I can take what I’ve learned with me.”

In play therapy, endings are planned collaboratively.
They are part of how healing continues beyond the playroom.

— Blossom Play Therapy 🌸

17/12/2025

🌱 When Play Therapy Comes to an End 🌱

In play therapy, endings are not just about sessions stopping.

They are about holding and letting go.

For children, saying goodbye to a therapist can stir many feelings at once — sadness, anger, relief, pride, confusion. This is not a sign that therapy has failed. In fact, it often shows that something meaningful has taken place.

In play therapy, the relationship itself becomes a safe space where feelings can be explored and understood. When therapy comes to an end, the task is not to rush children through this transition, but to help them make sense of it in their own way — often through play, stories, drawings, or symbolic themes rather than words.

Endings matter because they offer children a different experience of separation:
✨ one that is talked about
✨ one that is planned where possible
✨ one that acknowledges loss as well as growth

For many children — especially those who have experienced disruption, loss, or sudden endings in the past — a thoughtful, supported ending can be just as therapeutic as the sessions themselves.

The aim is not a “perfect” ending, but a good-enough ending — one where the child feels held in mind, even as the relationship changes.

What children take with them is not the room or the toys, but an internal experience:
“I was seen.”
“My feelings mattered.”
“I can carry this forward.”

🌿 In play therapy, endings are not an ending to the work — they are part of the work.

— Blossom Play Therapy 💗