Working with Families and Children
Rebekah Cahoon, M.A., LMFT, CPDPE
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
Therapy for Children, Adolescents and Families
Counseling for Postpartum Depression
Support for NICU Parents and Families
Grief Counseling
Hello and welcome to my site. You might be wondering how child therapy can help?
Talk therapy can sometimes come across as a very strange way of communicating to a child. Oftentimes a child does not know how to respond to a therapist (an authority figure) in language. Play is a child's first language. Using play therapy allows the child to express themselves in a very comfortable, known way. Children learn about their world through play, and are able to manipulate their world on a smaller scale to work through their own issues. I work with children where they are. If they are most comfortable in speaking "play", why should we not allow them to “speak” with toys, so their internal world can best come out.
Maybe you’re a parent thinking about therapy for your child… or maybe you’re questioning how just playing with a child could possibly help. Here are some great reminders about what children learn in play therapy through the power of play and a nurturing relationship with a play therapist. Play has long been used as a therapy tool to treat presenting issues in work with children such as behavior challenges, grief, trauma, depression, and anxiety disorders. Play can be used for children to connect, learn, provide reassurance, calm anxiety, rewire the brain, regulate emotions and improve self-esteem. Very young children express themselves through play; they don’t have the language skills to talk about complex ideas. Play is an indirect way for therapists to help recast children’s perceptions, cognitions, and behaviors. Children communicate metaphorically, and use play instinctively to process both environmental stress and inner-conflict. Play therapy helps them to make sense of confusing and traumatic events and eases their worry and fear. It is especially valuable in the early years, before children can verbalize their feelings. Children can play out disturbing feelings when they can’t tell us what’s wrong.
Play therapists are masters level or higher and are most often marriage and family therapists, family therapists, social workers and psychologists. I have trained to use this modality in working with children. Play therapy is a valued and professionally recognized intervention in working with children and is an effective tool for helping support the process of your child’s healing.
Play therapy, art therapy and sand tray therapy are interventions that are used with children as an imaginative and creative way for them to express feelings, emotions and thoughts but they often times cannot or will not let these be expressed with language. Play Therapy is based upon the foundation that play is the child’s natural way of self-expression. Play Therapy gives the child an opportunity to play out their feelings and problems, just as adults talk out their difficulties.
Play Therapy teaches children:
To respect themselves
That their feelings are acceptable
To honor their feelings
To express their feelings appropriately
To be creative and resourceful with their problem solving
Builds upon their normal communication level
To externalize the problem
To make choices and be responsible for those choices
To accept themselves
Why am I not feeling better after the birth of my child?
Having a new baby is a wonderful and sometimes complicated journey!. If you are depressed and feeling like there is something missing to your experience of having a child, please give me a call. You might be experiencing more than the baby blues, you might have postpartum depression. I would like to help, if you have been sad for a while after having your child or are experiencing any of the following for more than a few weeks after birth consider counseling:
Worrying or anxiety that seems extreme
Negative thoughts about self or the baby or your relationships
Crying and tearful
Feeling guilty or that you are not a good mother
Sleep, eating disturbances
Poor concentration or can't make decisions
If your child's birth was not what you expected.
Oftentimes the birth of a child does not meet what the parents had expected. This can be either a complicated pregnancy, a c-section rather than a natural birth, a still born child or a child born prematurely. These life events can have a toll on a parents functioning and the relationship between the parents. If you have experienced one of these events I would like to talk to you about what is going on in your life right now. These birth events can be very isolating to a family and it helps to have someone to help process this. You are not alone and there are people who can help.
I provide services to the highest ethical standards of my profession, and my relationships with my clients are confidential. As such, I must inform you that the information provided in this Website is offered for informational purposes only; it is not offered as and does not constitute professional advice. Replies to e-mail messages will be general in nature and will not form a therapist-client relationship. Be aware that the confidentiality of information sent over the Internet, including e-mail, may not be legally or otherwise protected or secure.
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