Play Therapy Workshops
Play therapy workshops give professional therapists a chance to practice innovative and exciting therapy techniques that can be used with patients during play therapy sessions. These play therapy workshops allow mental health professionals an opportunity to begin, or continue, the path to becoming a Registered Play Therapist! A play therapist provides a unique opportunity for children to safely express experiences and feelings through a natural, self-guided, self-healing process. This process is so effective, because a child’s experiences and knowledge are often communicated through play. A play therapist might work with children who exhibit any of the following challenges: anger issues, grief and loss, divorce and/or family stress, anxiety and depression, developmental delays, other learning or attention problems, such as ADHD, episodes of sadness, anxiety, or depression, social withdrawal or isolation, other social challenges, such as being the victim of bullying or bullying other children, decreased interest in previously enjoyed activities, changes in appetite, sleep, or mood swings, overly aggressive behavior, and separation, divorce, or relocation.
If you are interested in taking a play therapy workshop, please contact Mary Ruth Cross. You can reach our office at 925-626-0084. Located in the San Francisco Bay Area, we are an approved provider for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, the Association for Play Therapy, and the American Psychological Association. We are approved to provide play therapy continuing education to MFT’s, LCSW’s, LPCC’s,and Psychologists. (APT Approved Provider 09-2411 CEs for Marriage & Family Therapists, Licensed Social Workers, Professional Counselors and Psychologists offered through Sierra Institute for Contemporary Gestalt Therapy BBS provider 349 and approved by APA AND Association for Play Therapy -APT Approved Provider 09-241.) We provide these continuing education credits through play therapy training events, such as our play therapy training, play therapy conferences, play therapy retreats, and specified play therapy continuing education workshops.
To give you a glimpse into our play therapy training and education, the introduction to play therapy is one of our play therapy workshops. This workshop presents the history, theories, and components of play therapy as a model to work with children, adolescents, and families. We cover theories such as psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, humanistic, Ecosystemic Play Therapy, family therapy and expressive arts. The learning is both didactic and experiential. In addition, this course meets one of the course requirements for basic play therapy training to become a Registered Play Therapist.
A different type of play therapy training offered by Mary Ruth Cross includes the play therapy training retreat. This training retreat is a wonderful opportunity to practice your play therapy skills with hands on learning. For example, this play therapy retreat dives into expressive arts and sand tray therapy in great detail. Sand tray therapy is one of the most often recommended play therapy techniques, as it offers a child the chance to enter into a fantasy world through role-playing. Children are able to act out their thoughts and feelings while giving the therapist a safe insight into the his or her world. By offering hundreds of toys for this type of play model, each child may arrange these toys in a sandbox in order to visualize his or her feelings in his or her own way!
When you are ready to learn more about any of our play therapy training events, please contact us today at 925-626-0084. Our founder, Mary Ruth Cross, is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with over 20 years of experience in the mental health field. She is a Registered Play Therapist-Supervisor with multiple interns under her wing. She is a former president of the California Association of Play Therapy and a member in good standing with the Association of Play Therapy.
You may also review our play therapy continuing education and play therapy workshops here on our website. You will find a list of our classes, including the number of continuing education given for the completion of all class requirements, as well as a look at your upcoming play therapy training’s, conferences, and training events. We look forward to hearing from you and answering any questions you might have about play therapy training and workshops!