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You've landed in the right place! Whether you've had Synergetic Play Therapy® training and are searching for ongoing support in its application OR you're new to Synergetic Play Therapy® and would like to receive consultation through an SPT lens, we've got you covered! This is for you if you:- Have previously enrolled or are currently enrolled in an SPT course and want ongoing support to continue to learn and grow in your application of Synergetic Play Therapy®;
- Have taken any of our 1-hr, 2-hr, 3-hr courses and would like consultation from an SPT lens;
- Have ever attended an event or 2-day training with Lisa Dion and would like consultation to continue to integrate what you learned into your practice;
- Or have never taken a course through the Synergetic Play Therapy Institute® and would just love consultation support from an SPT lens!
2024-2025 Synergetic Play Therapy® Certification Program
Applications are now CLOSED!
Please check back for information about the 2025-2026 cohort in October 2024 OR contact the Institute to be notified when applications open, info@synergeticplaytherapy.com!
Take a moment to reflect on the growth you’ve witnessed since starting the introductory course. How have your clients evolved? How have your therapy sessions changed? Most importantly, how have you changed? Your growth is the key to unlocking your clients’ full potential for transformation. During the introductory course, you've merely scratched the surface of what's possible for client healing and transformation. Imagine delving deeper into a wealth of knowledge and skills with 85 hours of content (plus 13 hours of consultation!). This is precisely what awaits you in our 10-month SPT Certification program, designed to empower you as a therapist or other professional! Here's what you can look forward to!- Dive deeper into understanding attunement, attachment, and mindfulness to enhance your client’s reflective awareness, self-regulation, and co-regulation.
- Gain insight on how to scaffold the development of a child’s interoceptive sense.
- Cultivate an ability to hold awareness of self and other (dual awareness) in order to become an attuned external regulator.
- Explore the interconnectedness between physics and psychology.
- Learn why individuals are driven to do what they do and become who they are.
- Discover how trauma is stored in the body and mind, shaping a client’s narrative.
- Learn how to work with implicit memory to repattern the somatic imprints and protective patterns of the autonomic nervous system.
- Understand the Vagus Nerve and the role it plays in trauma integration and regulation.
- Gain profound insight into the homeostatic mechanisms within the mind and how these contribute to emotions.
- Understand how to assess and work with a child’s emotional age.
- Overcome fears related to working with caregivers and create true collaborative partnerships.
- Master the use of sand and art in both non-directive and directive approaches.
- Learn about the sensory system and how to use this information with neurodivergent children.
- Explore directive interventions for groups, families, teens, siblings, and adults using the SPT tenets.
- Learn how to work with non-verbal regressive states.
- Work with your own activation that naturally arises in sessions and repattern your own nervous system response.
- Deepen your understanding of how to track a child’s progress on the SPT Therapeutic Stages.
- Master the art of managing endings, transitions, and strategies for facilitating a meaningful “goodbye process” with caregivers and children.
- Empower both yourself and your clients within the therapy process, tracking small moments and significant empowerment experiences in a client’s therapeutic journey.
- And so much more!!!!
*For all class details, class objectives, research scholarship, CE credits and more, see below.- 6-Month Online Introduction to Synergetic Play Therapy Online course
- 3-Day In-Person Introduction to Synergetic Play Therapy course
- Synergetic Play Therapy Supplemental course (no longer offered)
- 6-Day SPT Intensive Training (no longer offered)
Applications Are Now CLOSED! Thank you to all that applied for the 2023-2024 program!
"The experience of becoming a Synergetic Play Therapist Supervisor has been a journey in deepening my relationship and attachment to myself and therefore to those around me. I feel better resourced and skilled to support play therapists in their work and their own journeys. This course connected me to a community that I feel deeply privileged to be a part of. During a challenging time for our planet, I felt a connection to others that sustained me." -Katrina Bevelander Are you ready to become a Certified Synergetic Play Therapy Supervisor? For Certified Synergetic Play Therapists who meet the prerequisites we offer a path to becoming a Certified Synergetic Play Therapy Supervisor*. These courses also count towards Registered Play Therapy Supervisor requirements (please check with APT to determine full requirements). In this training, students will learn how to apply the Synergetic Play Therapy® philosophy and tenets to the supervisory relationship. Through video observation, didactic learning, group discussion, and self study (this course is heavy on independent study), students will learn how to step into the role of play therapy supervisor - one of the most important and influential roles in a play therapist's journey. Course Prerequisites: • At least two years post SPT Certification, holding a clinical caseload during that time with a focus on the application of Synergetic Play Therapy® principles • Demonstrate at least a year's worth of post-certification supervision/consultation with a Certified Synergetic Play Therapy Supervisor within 2 years of starting this course • Hold current LPC or LCSW Mental Health license or equivalent licensure/ability to offer supervision in your state or country • Hold "current" status of the Certified Synergetic Play Therapist™ credential • At least one year of purchase and participation in the SPT Community Membership within 2 years of starting this course Click Here to Submit Your Application for Fall 2023 (Applications have Closed) Please note: Completion of a Legal and Ethical Issues in Play Therapy Supervision course is not a prerequisite for this course, however, it must be completed before you can obtain the designation Certified Synergetic Play Therapy Supervisor. You will be asked to provide documentation of completion of a Legal and Ethical issues in Play Therapy supervision course. You will also need to have two supervisees during the six months of the course and that are willing to be video-taped. *Certified Synergetic Play Therapy Supervisor is a protected title held by those who have taken and completed all requirements of this training. Hear what other Certified SPT Therapists/Supervisors had to say about the course! Please scroll down for course details!
Embark on an enlightening journey with Lisa Dion as she delves into strategies for optimizing the intake process! In this course, you will gain insights into how the foundation of a therapeutic relationship is laid during the intake session and how this extends throughout the entire intake and into the clinical engagement. Lisa will impart valuable lessons on structuring the intake, commencing from the initial point of contact all the way to the conclusion of the session. Witness how Lisa skillfully incorporates key themes from Synergetic Play Therapy®, such as the regulation of the nervous system and a nuanced understanding of how the brain functions, into the intake process. We will also explore the pivotal and validating role of the therapist in the playroom, emphasizing how their presence can significantly influence the dynamics of the therapeutic relationship with the client, family, and beyond.
With their changing brains and hormones, finding ways to integrate play with pre-teens and teens can at times just feel “Awkward”. Learn how to navigate therapy with our clients who are no longer children, but also not quite yet adults. From twelve-year-olds to seniors in high school, adolescence is a time filled with change. This can make the notion of bringing play therapy to this population a challenge. Do we play? Do we talk? Do I ask questions? What do I do?" As such, many therapists find themselves at a loss with this age group, feeling just as confused as they do! In this workshop, play therapists will delve into the mysteries of the teenage mind as we bust myths and glean insight into how to best offer therapeutic support. Using neuroscience, Developmental, Synergetic, and Systemic theories, participants will explore how to navigate this "awkward" and sometimes "overwhelming" developmental stage using an eclectic framework of non-directive and directive play therapy approaches. Understanding how to assess the teen's emotional age, an area often missed when working with this population, will also be covered as a way to understand how to incorporate play into the therapy process. The information presented is designed to open minds and hearts as participants uncover the wisdom of the changing brain and the wisdom of the teenage years. Through lecture, demonstration, and discussion, this workshop will deconstruct this mysterious stage and support play therapists in discovering how they can help mature and remodel the teenage brain, while supporting movement towards the discovery of the authentic self- the cornerstone of the development of a teenager's identity. To get a sense for the course, check out this short video below:See course details below.
The Synergetic Play Therapy Institute® in collaboration with PIP Solutions presents “Conceptualizing Cases from a Synergetic Play Therapy® Lens”. Translating a right brain play experience into a left brain conceptualization is not an easy task. Play therapists often grapple with a sense of uncertainty when trying to comprehend a child’s unique therapeutic progression and assessing whether goals are being achieved. This course, led by Lisa Dion, aims to address this issue by introducing a structured framework derived from Synergetic Play Therapy. Students will gain insights into how to conceptualize cases effectively and apply this framework to enhance the efficacy of their therapeutic interventions.
Supporting a child struggling with obsessive compulsions and perfectionism can be incredibly challenging as the desire to move the child out of their rigidity and rituals can overshadow the deeper issues and stressors driving the behaviors. In this course, you will gain an understanding of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, the behavior of perfectionism, and how play therapy can support the integration of the underlying drivers of the behaviors so as not to intensify the inner struggle that is often experienced by these children as they attempt to stop, control and even deny the urges in their bodies.
From a stroll through the Lollipop woods of Candyland to a fight over the Thimble in Monopoly, games are part of childhood. In the playroom, certain games are more commonly used than others. How do we use chess as a pawn in our therapeutic healing? How can we call on checkers to check on the child’s state of regulation? What does a game tell us about a child’s emotional world? This webinar explores these questions and more!
This program is for you if you work IN SCHOOLS (as a school counselor, social worker or psychologist, or a school-based mental health professional) or if you COLLABORATE WITH educators or schools!
**For all program details and dates of when this program is offered, please visit the Synergetic Education Institute's website**
A Synergetic Approach to Education (formerly One Foot in Education: Exploring Education Through an SPT Lens) offered by our sister institute, the Synergetic Education Institute, is a distinct and transformative approach to learning and teaching, working at the intersection of education and mental health! Synergetic educators recognize that the collaborative efforts of educators, students, classrooms, and educational systems produce a more substantial impact than individual contributions. This approach spans the landscape of working with students and perceived challenges and barriers, considering all aspects of learners and the learning environment. It incorporates neuroscience and nervous system regulation research with empowerment practices to create positive change within the immediate environment while maintaining a broader perspective using integrated and differentiated approaches. You will delve into strategies designed for educational settings that promote trauma-informed, social-emotional support within schools. You'll learn to implement these strategies as well as understand the neuroscience behind them, empowering you to support others in deepening their knowledge and awareness. You will also learn how to...- Implement approaches based on neuroscience that support the development of self-regulation skills, including critical skills that are often missing from SEL programming.
- Support educators in understanding how to prepare brains and bodies to learn, including articulating the links between neurophysiological states and classroom behaviors
- Identify the dynamics behind complex student-adult relationships and how to shift these challenging interactions.
- Increase feelings of safety and belonging for students and adults
- Implement small shifts in daily routines that include explicitly teaching critical skills using both "top-down" and "bottom-up" approaches.
- Reframe “resistance” to meeting educators at their level of readiness.
- Embody Synergetic Play Therapy® principles and collaborate with teachers to empower them and shift their perceptions of students
Program Prerequisites: This program requires that you have taken a Level 1 Introduction to Synergetic Play Therapy® program. This includes the completion of one of the following:- Online or In-Person Introduction to Synergetic Play Therapy® program
- Six-Day Synergetic Play Therapy® Intensive Training (no longer offered)
- Synergetic Play Therapy® Supplemental Course (no longer offered)
Every therapist has been there – in a session with a child who doesn’t want to come in the room, a child who doesn’t want to do the task, a child who only wants to avoid the issue. This course explores what to do when a child client’s language and behavior say “no.” Join us as we explore resistance, with a focus on differentiating resistance from avoidance and differentiating resistance from the dorsal collapse in the nervous system. Emotional flooding is explored as well.
Divorce. The “D” word. The end of the marital road. A happily ever after run amok. It’s something that often gets a bad rap, especially when we think of the children stuck in the middle. But divorce, while it can be devastating to some kids, can also be a relief for others. Children’s perceptions are not all the same. This course explores how to support children in play therapy when they are experiencing divorce and separation.
