Working with Aggression and Intensity in Play Therapy (Keynote, PTUK 2025 Annual Conference)
June 21, 2025
Save the date! Lisa is coming to the UK for the Play Therapy United Kingdom (PTUK) 2025 Annual Conference on Saturday the 21st of June, 2025.
What will she be presenting on? …….
Although aggression and death play are a common part of the play therapy process, many therapists don’t have a clear understanding of what to do and how to facilitate the intensity when it enters the playroom during play. The result can lead to inadvertently promoting aggression and increasing lower brain disorganization. It can also lead to the therapist feeling beat up, exhausted, and hyper-aroused themselves, which can over time significantly impact their longevity in the field, as well as their ability to stay attuned and present to a child in the playroom.
This keynote presentation is designed to help play therapists understand aggression and death play from a neuro-biological perspective and a Synergetic Play Therapy lens. With the help of neuroscience and interpersonal neurobiology, therapists will learn how to effectively work with this type of play in a way that supports nervous system regulation, repatterning of the child’s autonomic activation patterns, and decreases compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma.
*Lisa will also be doing a breakout session as part of the conference on Working with Aggression and Intensity in Play Therapy Part 2.
This 2 hour workshop is designed to help you learn what it really means to become a child’s external regulator for trauma integration. You’ll be guided through experiential role plays and activities designed to help you explore your own experience with aggression while learning how to regulate and co-regulate with a child when aggression and intensity arises in the playroom. Come take what you learned in the keynote presentation and put it into practice further helping you embody the teaching.