Join Lisa as she Keynotes 2-days at the 2024 Louisiana Play Therapy Association Conference. On day 2, the topic will be Playing Perfectly: A Play Therapist’s Guide for Working with OCD in Play Therapy.

Description: 
From perfectionism to anxiety to self-doubt, the world of a child struggling with OCD can be incredibly overwhelming. Come explore how to support these children in play therapy and discover how their need for perfection is in fact perfect.

Supporting a child struggling with obsessive compulsions and perfectionism can be incredibly challenging as the desire to move the child out of their rigidity and rituals can overshadow the deeper issues and stressors driving the behaviors.  Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a complex disorder as the reasons behind the behaviors vary from managing anxiety to past traumas to focused energy inside of a child driving them towards their genius and that which is most meaningful.  Due to the complexity, therapists often mis-label, mis-understand and mis-guide these children in how to work with and understand their rituals and need for perfectionism.  Without an understanding of this disorder and how play therapy is able to support the integration of the underlying drivers of the behaviors, play therapists can inadvertently intensify the inner struggle that is often experienced by these children as they attempt to stop, control and even deny the urges in their bodies.

Drawing from Synergetic Play Therapy and interpersonal neurobiology, this workshop explores non-directive and directive play based interventions to help support play therapists on a path to understand the perfection in these children’s perfection, while teaching the child how to do the same.  Play therapists will take a deeper look at the regulatory function of the child’s behaviors that manage the internal conflicts and anxieties these children often carry.  Through discussion and experiential exercises, play therapists will learn how to separate the underlying drivers from the wisdom of the rituals themselves.  With this knowledge, play therapists will learn how to use themselves and many forms of play to help these children access an understanding of the greatest perfection that exists, the child just as they are.

This is event is open to the public, please visit the organizations website for additional information. If you would like your organization to receive training in Synergetic Play Therapy, please contact the Institute at info@synergeticplaytherapy.com.