Integrative Play Therapy

Children are not small adults. They are at very different developmental stages, with different cognitive capacities, different emotional vocabularies, and very different relationships to self-reflection. A six-year-old and a fourteen-year-old both need support, but they need it in completely different forms.

Integrative play therapy recognises this. Rather than fitting the child to a single model, it fits the model to the child. A highly anxious child might need more structure and predictability. A traumatised child might need the maximum safety of a purely child-directed approach before anything else is possible. A child with communication difficulties might work almost entirely in sand or art.

Integrative play therapy asks not "what is the right approach?" but "what is right for this child, at this moment, in this room?"

What parents can expect

Your therapist will explain their approach and the reasoning behind it. As the work progresses, the approach may shift — because good integrative therapy is responsive to what's emerging, not locked into an initial plan.

Parents are partners in this process. Understanding what your child is working through, and how you can support them at home, is part of what we offer. The most effective child therapy happens when the work in the room is met with attunement and consistency in the child's everyday environment.

Try this: Supporting integration at home

After a play therapy session, your child may be quieter than usual, or surprisingly emotional, or unusually talkative. Rather than asking "what did you do in therapy?" try: "I'm glad you went today." Or simply: "I'm here if you want to talk about anything." Making space without pressure allows the processing to continue in its own time.

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