Description:

Participants will leave this workshop equipped to use puppets in the following ways: 1) to create therapeutic stories and convey healing metaphors to child clients, 2) to teach skills (social skills, anger management skills, problem solving skills, and anxiety reduction skills, etc.) and practice these skills, 3) to process traumatic events and help the child gain mastery over them, 4) to overcome resistance to treatment, 5) to help children assess therapeutic progress and reflect on the work that has been accomplished during treatment and 6) to assess the child’s perceptions of family dynamics and salient events in their lives. Participants will create one puppet during the course of the day to take home to their playrooms. Videotape segments of puppet work in actual client sessions will be presented. Participants will see clients process everything from divorce to sexual abuse to adoption through puppets. This workshop will be experiential, so bring your favorite puppets (and the presenter will bring hers), and come prepared to play!!​

Learning Objectives:

• Identify several different uses of puppets in the play therapy playroom
• Demonstrate how to help a child practice a new social skill through puppet play therapy
• Explain how to use puppets to get information related to family dynamics in play therapy
• Describe how to instill a sense of mastery over traumatic events through puppetry in play therapy
• Create a metaphorical story for use in play therapy that conveys therapeutic learning through puppetry
• Demonstrate how to create puppets with children in play therapy