Child & Adolescent Therapy

PLAY THERAPY

Many children and adolescents need support to develop a vocabulary to articulate their distress. Play therapy is less direct approach to building insight that allows a child’s content to arise naturally. Through the metaphor of games and play, themes can coalesce while avoiding retraumatization.

At Sequoia Therapy, play and art are processes by which a child can work more comfortably on issues that may be too hard to speak about or mentally focus on. If you sense your child’s behavior or emotional distress is beyond their current understanding a more arts-based approach can form the bridge they need to greater insight and self-control.

Our developmentally sensitive approach evolves with your child’s self-understanding. We build a shared vocabulary to develop how to articulate and be in greater control of their reactions to frustrating experiences. Integrating Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) techniques to develop better emotion regulation skills in combination with Alderian play therapy (a less directive, more individually led use of toys, art, story telling and role-play) to build your child’s behavior-modulation skills, and gradually empower their verbal language to speak about and proactively prepare to navigate triggers causing distress.