How Can Play Therapy Heal Preverbal Trauma?

Next Level Play Therapy: A Podcast for Play Therapy Excellence

Do children who’ve experienced trauma prior to developing language have the capacity to remember what happened to them?

Does the traumatic experience go away on its own?

I’ve often heard people, including child serving professionals, dismiss the possibility of the negative impact of neglect and early trauma on infants and young children.

Especially the trauma caused by invasive medical procedures on infants and children even though the procedures are necessary.

I find it perplexing that professionals in the mental health community and social services community would dismiss the impact of early traumatic experiences on children.

That’s usually when I go back to what research tells us about trauma.

Research tells us, especially the groundbreaking work of Bessel Van der Kolk, that traumatic experiences are stored somatically in the body.

How can mental health professionals help these young children to overcome the negative impact of preverbal trauma?

Yep, you guessed it - Play Therapy!

Spiel, Lombardi, and DeRubeis-Byrne (2019) provide a case study using psychoanalytic play therapy to facilitate healing for a three-year old client.

It’s a fascinating case study with excerpts from sessions and a discussion of the clinical insights gained using psychoanalytic play therapy.

Interested in learning how play therapy can facilitate healing for young children who experienced pre-verbal trauma?

Join me for this free weekly podcast, I’ll provide an overview of the case study and discuss how play therapists can help traumatized young children to heal.

If you’re interested in reading the study, here’s the citation:

Spiel, S., Lombardi, K., and DeRebeis-Byrne, L. (2019). Treating traumatized children: Somatic memories and play therapy. Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy, 18(1), 1-12. doi.10.1080/15289168.2019.1566974

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Kapitler

1. How Can Play Therapy Heal Preverbal Trauma? (00:00:00)

2. Intro (00:00:01)

3. Today's topic (00:00:56)

4. What is Preverbal trauma (00:01:29)

5. About Cathi (00:06:47)

6. Traumatic Experiences Are Stored in the Body (00:12:10)

7. The Role of Theoretical Models in Identifying Themes (00:25:27)

8. The Role of Theoretical Models in Identifying Themes (00:30:36)

9. Recap of today's discussion (00:34:35)

10. Resources (00:37:23)

11. Outro (00:40:06)