“Trauma comes back as a reaction, not as a memory.”
― Bessel Van Der Kolk
Children react differently to a trauma depending on their individual personality, age, past experiences, and the support around them. However, when a child is traumatized, it affects their whole person, mind, body, spirit and relationships with others. Treatment for children with trauma is so important. Children naturally react to trauma by playing out the experience to understand and cope with it. Play therapy facilitates this natural response and ensures that the play is healing and safe. Play allows children to distance themselves from the traumatic event through symbolic play rather than confronting the trauma directly. This provides a much gentler and safer approach than some other therapies. Play provides children with safety which allows them to express and explore their innermost feelings and vulnerabilities. Play therapy allows children to heal the trauma at their own pace, in their own unique way, ensuring they are not retraumatized.
Trauma-informed play therapy is facilitated by knowledgeable and skilled clinicians who understand the effects of trauma and are trained in helping youth recover from trauma. Trauma-informed play therapy requires an understanding of trauma and its effects, play therapy skills that utilize trauma-informed interventions, and importantly, expertise in attunement. When we empathically attune to another we gently tune into, sense, and resonate with their experience.
All children and adolescents benefit from attunement in their relationships with primary caregivers, educators, and mental health professionals. Attunement, however, is especially critical for people who have experienced trauma because too much stress for too long can change the way individuals respond to stress in their bodies. This may cause ongoing patterns of dysregulation, which can result in feeling overwhelmed or shut down. At Kiefer Counseling, LLC our professionals are skilled at demonstrating attunement during trauma-informed play therapy.
There are essentials of trauma-sensitivity, meaning safety, connection, regulation, and learning. If a child feels safe, are they experiencing a connection marked by acceptance with you. Trauma-Informed Play Therapy allows clients to regulate their thoughts and feelings enough to process their emotions, learn about new perspectives, or practice skills within the session. It encourages a client's self-expression, fosters support, encourages a child to explore views of not only their own self, but also others.