New England Association for Play Therapy

Annual Fall Conference

Friday, November 4, 2011    4:30PM - 9:00PM

Saturday, November 5, 2011   9:00AM - 4:30PM

Sheraton Needham Hotel,  Needham, MA

Friday Pre-Conference A

Replays/Affective Behavioral Play Therapy; A Play Based Model for Treating Anxiety and Specific Phobias in Children with Autism, Spectrum Disorders and/or other Developmental Disabilities           Presented by Dr. Karen Levine and Naomi Chedd, LMHC

Replays is a highly pleasurable form of adult-child play, used to gradually desensitize children to their specific upsetting  'everyday' types of events (i.e. haircuts; taking medicine; shots; wearing  hats, glasses, shoes; bugs; other people singing; environmental sounds; food aversions). Through Replays the adult helps the child explore their own intense responses and develop new more adaptive, emotional associations with and hence responses to the trigger events.  Replays integrates principles from CBT/ERP, as well as from typical early pretend play development. Presentation includes theoretical and empirical background, case studies, and many videoclip examples.

Attendees will: 1. Learn a set of strategies for using play therapy with a minimally verbal child, related to their phobia triggers fun, as determined by child smiling and laughing and requesting more of the play. 2. Learn to be able to use play therapy based approach to treating specific phobias in children with a range of intellectual disabilities. 3. Learn what sorts of problems this approach is and isn't likely to be helpful for. 4. Learn how to monitor if their work is effectively treating the child's phobias.

Friday Pre Conference B

Sand Tray and Symbol Play Therapy: Exploring Pathways for Healing Grief and Loss       Presented by Judith Kneen, LICSW 

We will explore how providing the “invitation to play” using sand tray play therapy and symbolic miniatures brings ones nonverbal inner world alive and begins a healing journey within the safe and protected space of the therapeutic co-attunement. 

This Jungian modality speaks to the need for people of all ages to be connected to the core of feeling inside themselves that brings life vitality and meaning. When life circumstances present overwhelming experiences of loss and suffering, our protective defenses can exile unresolved grief into the dark unconscious of the psyche. Sand tray symbol play therapy can provide an energizing and illuminating pathway into that deep well of remembering and healing. 

Slides of client sand play therapy processes - child, adolescent, and adult -  will exemplify how opening to the unconscious and lesser knows aspects of ones unremembered past makes it possible for buried losses to come into conscious awareness and be experienced, witnessed, and openly grieved. 

This creative and transforming work asks from us, as attuned witnesses and therapeutic guides, to embrace a full understanding of symbolic play as well as taking a symbolic attitude while we provide the "temenos" for the deep work to take root. Dora Kalff reminded us that the essential ingredient for real change and healing within the sand play therapy process is the "relationship of confidence" that provides the containment for that most important moment in healing, the "constellation of self".

We will have the opportunity for a group experiential with symbolic reality, using miniatures to create sand tray worlds and to share our process narratives. 

Saturday Conference

Fawns in Gorilla Suits: Play Therapy Strategies with Children Who Act Out with Aggression or Violence    Presented by Dr. David Crenshaw

The workshop will explore key concepts rooted in an integrative, theoretical model called Child Responsive Therapy (CRT), with roots in psychoanalytic and attachment theory, relational therapy and informed by neurobiological and developmental psychopathology research.

The specific practical play therapy strategies presented will be grouped under the following main goal-directed headings: 1) creating a safe place, 2) modulating affect and anger expression, 3) teaching the language of feelings, 4) accessing the inner world of the child, 5) “tickling’ the self-observer, 6) addressing the invisible wounds including when indicated trauma work, 7) facilitating hope, and 8) preparing for therapeutic termination.

CEU’s provided for both days NASW and APT approved, LMHC & LMFT pending

Online registration

Registration form to complete and fax

Directions to the Sheraton Needham

Hotel reservation information

Questions about the conference, dietary concerns, CEU questions call 877-509-7755 ext 2 

APT Provider # 02-123