Mariam Jensen, LCMFT, RPT - Joyful Heart Therapy, LLC

Mariam Jensen, LCMFT, RPT - Joyful Heart Therapy, LLC Mariam offers individual and family therapy to children and their families.

Mariam Jensen is a Licensed Clinical Marriage and Family Therapist (LCMFT), in the State of Kansas, and a Registered Play Therapist (RPT) with the Association for Play Therapy.

Do you remember using a Rotary Dial Telephone? ☎️ Well, I just built one as the newest addition to the Play Therapy Room...
02/15/2026

Do you remember using a Rotary Dial Telephone? ☎️ Well, I just built one as the newest addition to the Play Therapy Room! Nostalgia in a picture 😊



“Play is the highest form of research.” Albert Einstein Sometimes my work looks like playing in the sand tray, playing w...
02/13/2026

“Play is the highest form of research.” Albert Einstein

Sometimes my work looks like playing in the sand tray, playing with different toys, and discovering different meanings through miniature figurines…
But what’s really happening for the child is healing, connection, and growth 🧠💛

This is what I love the most about being a Child-Centered Play Therapist 💛 Children don’t always have the words for big feelings—but through play, they tell their stories, process their experiences, and discover their own strengths in ways that feel safe and natural to them.

Play is not “just play.”
It’s communication.
It’s emotional regulation.
It’s meaning-making of difficult situations.
It’s where change and healing begins for children✨

I’m so grateful and honored to do the work I do, that honors children exactly where they are—and to witness the incredible things that happen when children are given space to be themselves and speak out their feelings through play 🧸💛

I’ll be posting more about the Play Therapy field, and the History of Play Therapy, in the near future! Stay tuned 🙂 Play well, everyone!






“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Pla...
02/11/2026

“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.” - Fred Rogers

Play therapy is more than a collection of techniques—it is a developmentally responsive, relationship-centered approach to supporting children’s emotional and neurological growth. Throughout the International Play Therapy Week 2026, we explored together how play serves as a child’s primary language, how symbolic expression supports emotional processing, and how safe, attuned relationships foster regulation and healing.

For children, play therapy provides a space where emotional experiences can be explored at a pace their nervous systems can tolerate—without pressure to explain, perform, or verbalize before they are ready. Therapeutic progress often unfolds gradually and non-linearly, reflecting deeper processes of integration, regulation, and attachment.

Caregivers play an essential role in this work. When adults are supported in understanding the emotional meaning behind behavior, children benefit from greater safety, consistency, and connection across environments. Healing happens not only in the playroom, but within relationships that extend into daily life.

Thank you for taking the time to learn more about how Play Therapy supports children’s emotional well-being, through the “Why Play Therapy?” series, in the International Play Therapy Week 2026!


The “Why Play Therapy?!” Series - Day 8 – Understanding the Non-linear Nature of HealingNeurobiological healing is NOT l...
02/08/2026

The “Why Play Therapy?!” Series - Day 8 – Understanding the Non-linear Nature of Healing

Neurobiological healing is NOT linear. As children process through their emotional experiences, fluctuations in behavior, affect, and regulation are all expected and natural to happen. Moments of joy and playfulness, followed by withdrawal, or emotional intensity and dysregulation can all reflect active integration within the nervous system.

Recognizing these patterns helps Play Therapists and Parents/Caregivers remain grounded and supportive to the Child. Apparent regression may actually signal that deeper emotional reorganization and regulation is taking place beneath the surface, and this understanding may help the adults involved in the child’s life see the behaviors, or ‘big feelings’, in a different light💡

Sometimes things may appear to get worse, before they actually start to get better ❤️‍🩹


The “Why Play Therapy?!” Series - Day 7 – Caregivers as Partners in the Play Therapy JourneyChildren’s nervous systems a...
02/07/2026

The “Why Play Therapy?!” Series - Day 7 – Caregivers as Partners in the Play Therapy Journey

Children’s nervous systems are shaped within relationships, particularly with primary attachment figures, their parents/caregivers.

Good, Ethical, Practice in Play Therapy often includes regular and consistent caregivers/parents consultations and Family Therapy sessions with and/or without the child present, with the Registered Play Therapist™️, whenever possible and safe for the child, which are essential to extend regulation and attunement beyond the Play Therapy room.

When caregivers/parents understand the emotional and neurological reasoning behind the behavior, through the process of play therapy and understanding general Themes of Play, as well as receive the resources needed to help their children at home, responses shift from correction to connection. As a result, undesirable patterns of behavior can then be resolved. At other times, modalities of Play Therapy like Theraplay™️ Therapy can be utilized by a trained Theraplay™️ Therapist, to assist parents/caregivers and children in shifting Attachment Adaptations towards a more Secure Attachment, when Insecure Anxious, Insecure Avoidant or Disorganized Attachment adaptations are present.

This relational consistency between the child and the parents/caregivers supports neural integration and reinforces therapeutic gains, allowing children to experience safety and predictability in their daily environments, outside of the Play Therapy room.


The “Why Play Therapy?!” Series - Day 6 – Play Therapy and Emotional RegulationEmotional regulation develops through rep...
02/07/2026

The “Why Play Therapy?!” Series - Day 6 – Play Therapy and Emotional Regulation

Emotional regulation develops through repeated experiences of manageable emotional activation followed by successful return to baseline. Play Therapy provides a structured environment, where children can safely experience frustration, fear, excitement, and mastery while being supported through co-regulation, by the trained and experienced Registered Play Therapist™️.

Over time, these experiences strengthen neural circuits involved in self-soothing, impulse control, and flexible problem-solving. The result is not simply improved behavior, but increased internal capacity for emotional resilience across settings - This starts in the Play Therapy room, then extends to other settings.


I love this! 💛
02/06/2026

I love this! 💛

The “Why Play Therapy?!” Series - Day 5 – Development Shapes Emotional ExpressionChildren’s brains develop from the bott...
02/06/2026

The “Why Play Therapy?!” Series - Day 5 – Development Shapes Emotional Expression

Children’s brains develop from the bottom up, and from right brain to left brain, meaning emotional and sensory systems mature before language and logic. Expecting children to verbalize insight before these systems are fully developed can increase dysregulation and shutdown, and will just not work!

Play Therapy aligns with the brain and nervous system’s natural developmental sequencing by engaging non-verbal, experiential pathways first. As regulation and integration occur, higher-level cognitive and verbal capacities naturally emerge. This approach respects neurological readiness rather than forcing premature verbal processing.

In this way, Play Therapy is NOT talking while playing, and it’s NOT also about playing about a feeling or an experience in order to be able to ‘talk’ about this feeling or experience. The goal in Play Therapy is NOT talking, the goal is processing, even if without words. Play Therapy is fully effective even if the child does not utter a word while playing, because the child’s brain is still processing, internally, what the child is experiencing and is needing to have processed, in order for healing to occur. The trained and experienced Registered Play Therapist™️ understands themes of play in the Play Therapy Room, and what they mean, and is able to provide reflections and support to the child, and to the family, in order to bridge the gap between the developmental stage of the child, and the fully developed brain of the adult caring for them 💛


The “Why Play Therapy?!” Series - Day 4 – The Therapeutic Relationship is the Primary Healing Agent“The Relationship is ...
02/04/2026

The “Why Play Therapy?!” Series - Day 4 – The Therapeutic Relationship is the Primary Healing Agent

“The Relationship is the Therapy.” - Dr. Garry Landreth

Neurobiological research consistently identifies safe, attuned relationships as central to emotional healing. For children, the therapeutic relationship provides a regulated external nervous system, before internal regulation in their own nervous system is possible. Through consistent attunement, responsiveness, and acceptance, the Play Therapist supports co-regulation and fosters neural integration, which then aids the healing process.

This relational safety allows children’s stress-response systems to settle, creating the conditions necessary for exploration, emotional processing, and developmental growth. Healing occurs not through directive instruction, but through repeated experiences of being emotionally supported and understood. In that way, and as Lisa Dion states: “the therapist is the most important “toy” in the playroom”. A trained, experienced, and possibly also Registered Play Therapist™️ has the clinical expertise, training, and knowledge to form a trusting therapeutic relationship with the child, to facilitate the healing process, in an age and developmentally appropriate manner, and according to the unique needs of every child.


The “Why Play Therapy?!” Series - Day 3 – Symbolic Play as Emotional ProcessingChildren’s brains process and store exper...
02/03/2026

The “Why Play Therapy?!” Series - Day 3 – Symbolic Play as Emotional Processing

Children’s brains process and store experiences differently than adult brains, particularly during early development when language, executive functioning, and narrative memory systems are still maturing. Stressful or emotionally charged experiences are often encoded in sensory, emotional, and relational fragments rather than as linear stories.

Symbolic play engages subcortical and right-hemisphere brain systems involved in emotional processing, regulation, and integration. Through repeated play themes, children gradually gain a sense of predictability, control, and mastery over experiences that may have previously felt overwhelming or disorganizing to their nervous system.

What may appear to parents as repetitive or simple play, in the Play Therapy process, is often an adaptive and neurobiologically driven process of emotional integration. In play therapy, these patterns are intentionally reflected back to the child, by a trained and experienced Registered Play Therapist ™️, within a safe therapeutic relationship, allowing emotional regulation, awareness, and meaning-making to occur without requiring verbal processing before the child’s brain is developmentally ready, even if the child is verbal.


The “Why Play Therapy?!” Series - Day 2 – Why Research Matters in Play Therapy!Parents often ask: “How do we know play t...
02/02/2026

The “Why Play Therapy?!” Series - Day 2 – Why Research Matters in Play Therapy!

Parents often ask: “How do we know play therapy actually works?”
That’s an important question—and one worth exploring.

Play therapy is not based on guesswork or intuition alone. It is supported by decades of research showing positive outcomes for children experiencing anxiety, trauma, grief, behavioral challenges, and difficulties with emotional regulation, to name a few. Many play therapy modalities have been studied using evidence-based standards.

If you’re someone who likes to look at the research behind the work, here are a few highly reputable and reliable organizations that collect, review, and publish play therapy outcome data:

🔹 Center for Play Therapy at the University of North Texas
https://cpt.unt.edu/research-and-publications

🔹 Association for Play Therapy (APT)
https://www.a4pt.org
(Research & Publications section)

🔹 Evidence Based Child Therapy
https://evidencebasedchildtherapy.com

🔹 Child-Centered Play Therapy International (CCPT-I)
https://ccptinternational.org/research

🔹 Sandplay Therapists of America
https://www.sandplay.org/jst-article/sandplay-therapy-an-evidenced-based-treatment/

These organizations compile peer-reviewed studies and clinical research that guide ethical, and effective Play Therapy practice.

Play Therapy may look simple on the outside—but it is grounded in science, specialized training, and intentional clinical care, by a trained and experienced Play Therapist who is also a Mental Health Professional holding at least a Master’s Degree and also holding the highest and independent level of licensure in their State of practice in the USA (Requirements may differ based on other countries). Play Therapy is designed to meet children exactly where they are developmentally and emotionally 💛


The “Why Play Therapy?!” Series - Day 1 – Play Is a Child’s LanguageChildren often feel big emotions they can’t yet put ...
02/01/2026

The “Why Play Therapy?!” Series - Day 1 – Play Is a Child’s Language

Children often feel big emotions they can’t yet put into words. They may act out, withdraw, or use imagination to communicate what’s happening inside. Play therapy honors this natural language of children, allowing them to express feelings safely through toys, storytelling, and creative expression. When parents understand that play is their child’s voice, they can see beyond behaviors to the deeper messages children are trying to share 💛



Address

2420 N Woodlawn Boulevard, Building 100, Suite K
Wichita, KS
67220

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

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