For Parents/Caregivers
Let modern neuroscience help you better understand and shape your child’s moods and behaviors.
For Parents/Caregivers
Leverage the insights of modern neuroscience to better understand and shape your children’s moods and behaviors.
What Is
Play Therapy?
Play is the primary language of children. Through play therapy, children are given the chance to engage in play that reflects their internal emotional experiences, allowing them to process and heal from their struggles.
In play therapy sessions, children choose special toys to express and recreate emotional conflicts that are significant to them. Through this process, the play evolves, helping them gain a better understanding of their feelings and ultimately find comfort.
“Research supports the effectiveness of play therapy with children experiencing: PTSD, behavioral issues, depression, impulsivity, self-esteem issues, academic difficulties, parent-child relationship struggles, social issues, anxiety, loss, divorce/separation, abuse and more…” Copyright 1998 Byron or Carol Norton
What Is
Synergetic Play Therapy?
Synergetic Play Therapy (SPT) was developed by Lisa Dion in 2008. It was born from the realization that it was possible to regulate another person’s nervous system by first regulating your own. Since then the fields of Neuroscience and Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB) have provided the science and research to confirm the profound healing that occurs when therapists are able to attune to themselves and co-regulate through the dysregulation that arises in the child’s play, allowing the child to move toward their challenging thoughts, feelings and body sensations. It is in this deeply resonate state that a synergy emerges and allows the child to heal and re-pattern their nervous system. Parents and caregivers can utilize this understanding to help children, through the practice of Synergetic Parenting™.
Getting Started with Synergetic Play Therapy
Why is Synergetic Play Therapy So Valuable?
As human beings, we possess a remarkable biological tool known as the nervous system, which functions as a “honing mechanism” to maintain our emotional and physical balance. When we face challenges, our nervous system activates, either energizing or calming us as needed to respond effectively.
All symptoms a child experiences stem from their nervous system’s difficulty in returning to a regulated state. When confronted with perceived challenges, children often try to avoid the physical sensations, emotions, and thoughts associated with those experiences.
Recent research in neurobiology highlights that true healing and integration occur when we confront rather than evade these sensations, emotions, and thoughts. Whether a child is dealing with anxiety, depression, loss, impulsivity, sibling rivalry, school or friendship issues, sensory overload, or emotional sensitivity, Synergetic Play Therapy® offers valuable support.
How a Trained Synergetic Play Therapist Can Help
A trained Synergetic Play Therapist specializes in guiding a child’s play to promote emotional healing. This approach can lead to a reduction in symptoms such as acting out, aggressive behaviors, physical complaints, withdrawal, and regression, ultimately helping to restore a sense of balance and well-being in the child.
In addition to assisting with the integration of challenging life experiences, a Synergetic Play Therapist also aims to enhance the child’s ability to self-regulate and to re-pattern their nervous system for improved emotional health.
Synergetic Play Therapists dig deep to identify the root of a child’s struggles, facilitating transformative change from within.
Online Parenting Course: Managing Your Child’s Moods and Behaviors
Did you know when your child acts out her most problematic moods and behaviors, that’s actually her incredibly wise way of communicating with you?
In this course, Lisa Dion, licensed professional counselor and registered play therapist, will teach you how to use the insights of modern neuroscience to better understand and shape your children’s moods and behaviors.
This course offered by Heal Bright normally costs $99 and includes video lectures, experiential exercises and easy to implement parenting techniques. But we’re offering the course for just $59.
Topics include
In this online parenting class, Lisa makes the growing field of neuroscience accessible and relevant to parents of all backgrounds. This course caters to both experienced and new parents, and will help parents manage toddler tantrums, teenagers getting in trouble, or just the everyday stresses of parenting. Parents will leave with this course with a powerful new perspective on parenting.
More Resources for Parents
We offer a variety of FREE resources for parents, caregivers, counselors – anyone supporting a child’s emotional health.
Check out our many Playroom Blogs to learn more about topics ranging from New to Therapy? Helping Your Child Adapt, Sleep Issues in Kids, Practicing Mindfulness in Parenthood, and The Brain on Shame.
Discover the Lessons From the Playroom Podcast and find episodes such as How Trying To Be Calm Gets In The Way of Regulation, The Mind-Body Blueprint: How Symptoms in the Body are Connected to Mental Health, and Navigating ADHD Through Play Therapy: Dual Perspectives for Therapists and Caregivers.
Watch some of our Playroom Videos, including Setting Goals in Play Therapy, Why It’s Hard for Kids to Tell the Truth Sometimes, Why All Behaviors Make Sense, and so much more!
Why Modeling Regulation is Crucial for Children
How a Dysregulated Adult Can Regulate a Dysregulated Child