How do we let parents know, that we know, how important they are in their child’s life?  How can we stay grounded and connected to ourselves as play therapists when we find ourselves triggered or activated when working with overwhelmed parents? And how can we offer an “I see you” relational experience for parents that are experiencing complex trauma in their family system?...    Robyn Gobbel joins Lisa in this episode to answer these very questions. Not only do they discuss the value of working with these parents/caregivers and what to do when we feel stuck, but more importantly how to embrace working with parents in the play therapy process, honor the role they play in their child’s lives, and move from “ I should work with parents” to loving and adoring working with parents/families where complex trauma is part of their lives. Robyn Gobbel is a writer, trainer, speaker, and educator dedicated to understanding why humans behave the way they behave. She teaches parents of children who have experienced trauma how the brain works, why behaviors are simply an externalization of what's happening in the brain, body, and nervous system, and how to respond to children's behaviors in a way that creates healing, not just behavior change. Robyn hosts the Parenting After Trauma podcast. Find her on her website here: https://robyngobbel.com/ Podcast Resources:  Synergetic Play Therapy Institute Synergetic Play Therapy Learning Website FREE Resources to support you on your play therapy journey  Aggression in Play Therapy: A Neurobiological Approach to Integrating Intensity * If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcast, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and invite your friends/fellow colleagues to join us.

You’ve likely experienced this at some point … The child that comes to therapy because of a concern of having a difficult time separating. Or the child that struggles to leave their parent/caregiver to go into the playroom … Separation anxiety can often show up in many ways in the play therapy process. In this latest episode, Lisa discusses what separation anxiety is and what can cause it, how we know when it’s normal or when to seek help, and what play therapists can do to support separation anxiety when it shows up in the playroom. You'll hear fun and playful rituals that encourage co-regulation between the child and the parent/caregiver and how to encourage the child to develop an internal sense of safety from within. And you'll get ideas/interventions for what you can do when separation anxiety shows up for your child clients during the play therapy session including how to support the child in widening their window of tolerance for transitions and separations.   Podcast Resources:  Synergetic Play Therapy Institute Synergetic Play Therapy Learning Website FREE Resources to support you on your play therapy journey  Aggression in Play Therapy: A Neurobiological Approach to Integrating Intensity * If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcast, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and invite your friends/fellow colleagues to join us.

Lisa is joined by special guest Jackie Flynn for a conversation on how to make online play therapy a more deeply connected experience for your child clients and their families. They discuss: ...How you can offer authenticity and co-regulation to the session. ...How to create a sense of safety from the very beginning of the session and connect at deeper levels with your clients. ...How to make it a more meaningful experience for your clients (and yourself). ...And how you can use the fact that children are in their own home to your clinical advantage - the fact that the parents are available, children have access to their own toys, and in their own environment!! You'll get a plethora of ideas, tips, and resources to help you deepen more into teletherapy .. and, if you’ve been struggling, become a bit more inspired and feel like a play therapist again. (We might suggest having something to take notes while you listen.) *Jackie Flynn is host of the Play Therapy Community podcast and private Facebook group. She is a Registered Play Therapist, Education Specialist & Certified EMDR Therapist and Consultant. She is also host of the Annual Innovative Child Therapy Symposium.  Podcast Resources:  Synergetic Play Therapy Institute Synergetic Play Therapy Learning Website FREE Resources to support you on your play therapy journey  Aggression in Play Therapy: A Neurobiological Approach to Integrating Intensity * If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcast, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and invite your friends/fellow colleagues to join us.

How do we know when we are grumpy, tired, overheated, or overwhelmed? ... Lisa talks about this 8th sense called Interoception or the "How do we know" sense, which is absolutely critical to enhancing a child's regulatory capacity ... Why? Because what we see in the playroom is actually not behavioral issues, but really the child's inability to stay connected and regulate through the activation of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS). But what does this have to do with Interoception? ... Regulation and attunement starts with our interoceptive capacity. We can teach children tons of regulation strategies, but if they cannot register the clues that let them know they need to regulate in the first place, what we've done is just handed them tools that they have no clue how or when to use.  And as therapists we need to have this capacity enhanced in us!  Lisa shares ideas for starting to develop the interoceptive capacity in ourselves as therapists and our child clients, in this really important discussion that tells us that our body might actually be the most important toy in the playroom. Podcast Resources:  Synergetic Play Therapy Institute Synergetic Play Therapy Learning Website FREE Resources to support you on your play therapy journey  Aggression in Play Therapy: A Neurobiological Approach to Integrating Intensity * If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcast, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and invite your friends/fellow colleagues to join us.  

Sometimes we think we're feeling, when we're not ... Sometimes we think we're creating space for our clients to feel, when we're not ... And sometimes we are encouraging avoidance when it's hard to stay in our window of tolerance.  Join Lisa in this podcast that's all about reflecting on our own inner experience and gives understanding to this lifelong journey we're all on of learning how to feel at deeper levels so we can help our clients do the same - It's an invitation to look at our relationship with our emotions and how that impacts our clients. As well as getting curious about the parents/caregivers' experience with their own emotional landscape and how to help them to really understand the importance of being with the child's emotions instead of trying to fix/change/make it better.  Other podcasts that might be helpful on your journey of becoming aware of the feelings that you try to numb, avoid, move away from or that tend to flood and make it difficult to stay in your window of tolerance are: Ep. 88 - Countertransference in Play Therapy Ep. 76 - Attuning to Body Language in Play Therapy Ep. 44 - Emotional Flooding: When You Find Yourself Outside Your Window of Tolerance Ep. 25 - Emotional Flooding in the Playroom Podcast Resources:  Synergetic Play Therapy Institute Synergetic Play Therapy Learning Website FREE Resources to support you on your play therapy journey  Aggression in Play Therapy: A Neurobiological Approach to Integrating Intensity * If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcast, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and invite your friends/fellow colleagues to join us.

Sometimes we can get stuck in either/or thinking when it comes to whether we use non-directive or directive play therapy modalities.  But what if we could understand the significance and potential for both? What if we could go beyond to see that one is not better than the other? And what if we could honor that there are many paths to healing and that all theories serve a purpose?  Join Lisa as she discusses how it's possible to combine different theories and approaches, why we might do this, and how to make a decision not based on external pressures, but instead based on the client goals, what the therapist needs, the timeframe, and the context in which the therapist may need to do play therapy.  Because ultimately, both paths will get us to the end result. Podcast Resources:  Synergetic Play Therapy Institute Synergetic Play Therapy Learning Website FREE Resources to support you on your play therapy journey  Aggression in Play Therapy: A Neurobiological Approach to Integrating Intensity * If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcast, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and invite your friends/fellow colleagues to join us.  

Countertransference is not something we can avoid, get out of, check at the door, or even separate from ourselves ... In this episode, Lisa discusses how transference and countertransference is really the therapeutic landscape from which to support our clients in a process of deep integration and healing. Using a lens of Synergetic Play Therapy®, Lisa offers an understanding of how countertransference is not something to be afraid of, but something that offers incredible wisdom and a window into the inner experiences of our clients. It gives us an opportunity to become curious about our beliefs, both that keep us from being fully present and authentic, and that support us in being more deeply present, more deeply resonant, and ultimately, more deeply attuned. As beautifully stated by Sebern F. Fisher in her book, Neurofeedback in the Treatment of Developmental Trauma: Calming the Fear-Driven Brain, "Countertransference and transference are always co-arising & co-constructing at the place where the therapist's experience meets that of the patient." Podcast Resources:  Synergetic Play Therapy Institute Synergetic Play Therapy Learning Website FREE Resources to support you on your play therapy journey  Aggression in Play Therapy: A Neurobiological Approach to Integrating Intensity * If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcast, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and invite your friends/fellow colleagues to join us.  

"With the understanding that a toy can be anything at all, we transcend cultural barriers and socioeconomic status to focus on the relationship and use whatever is in the environment. We also honor that the greatest toy in the playroom is really you, the therapist!" -Lisa Dion ARE TOYS NECESSARY IN PLAY THERAPY ... In this latest Lessons from the Playroom, we ask the question, are toys really necessary in play therapy? .... Join Lisa in this podcast episode dedicated to therapists around the world who may have limited access to toys. In this episode of Lessons from the Playroom, Lisa helps us understand what is really at the root of play therapy, what is the purpose of the toy, how to facilitate a child's process even if toys in the traditional sense are not available, and what it really means as the therapist to be the "most important toy in the playroom."   Podcast Resources:  Synergetic Play Therapy Institute Synergetic Play Therapy Learning Website FREE Resources to support you on your play therapy journey  Aggression in Play Therapy: A Neurobiological Approach to Integrating Intensity * If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcast, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and invite your friends/fellow colleagues to join us.  

Join Lisa Dion and guest Sonya Joyce as they discuss perhaps one of the most important topics in the play therapy process - touch! ... "Whether we like it or not, touch is a part of the play therapy experience." ... With this in mind, they explore ways to become more mindful and thoughtful about how to bring healing touch to children in the playroom, how to create a neuroception of safety around touch, how to model healthy boundaries and creative ways to bring touch into the child's experience, and the ramifications if healing touch does not happen for our child clients. Guest Sonya Joyce is a Child/Adolescent Psychotherapist in Ireland, trained in Play and Art Therapy. She offers, "I noticed that children were always leading me into play in my Art therapy sessions and this led me to study play further, firstly dipping my feet in the water with a short course in Therapeutic Play Skills, and then embarking on a 4 year Masters Course in Creative Psychotherapy and Play Therapy with the Children’s Therapy Centre, County Westmeath, Ireland. During this time I began work with an organisation working with children and young people who have experienced sexual abuse." Sonia is also a mother to 4 children, aged 17, 14 and 11 year old twins and describes this as "the greatest learning experience of all!" To read the Sonya's full dissertation - "What Did I Do?" - An Exploration of the Inner Experiences of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapists When Touch Arises in the Playroom: https://synergeticplaytherapy.com/what-did-i-do-when-touch-arises-in-the-playroom/ Podcast Resources:  Synergetic Play Therapy Institute Synergetic Play Therapy Learning Website FREE Resources to support you on your play therapy journey  Aggression in Play Therapy: A Neurobiological Approach to Integrating Intensity * If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcast, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and invite your friends/fellow colleagues to join us.  

"The dysregulation in our body is information about the congruency of our decisions." - Lisa Dion   As you enter into 2021, explore how to manifest decisions that are congruent and in alignment with your authentic self.    Join Lisa in this unique Lessons from the Playroom podcast that's not just about play therapy ... She'll help you explore how to plan, reflect and make decisions that integrate the left- and right-brain, how to know if you are making a congruent decision, and why there's no such thing as a "bad" decision. Podcast Resources:  Synergetic Play Therapy Institute Synergetic Play Therapy Learning Website FREE Resources to support you on your play therapy journey  Aggression in Play Therapy: A Neurobiological Approach to Integrating Intensity * If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcast, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and invite your friends/fellow colleagues to join us.