January 2024 Introduction to Synergetic Play Therapy® (SPT Credential Renewal/Recertification)

What You’ll Review: Special topics such as tracking the play, attachment, facilitating sand, art, trauma, and aggressive play are covered from the perspective of nervous system regulation, attunement, mindfulness, and authenticity. Participants will also learn how to track their client’s changes for caregivers, teachers, agencies, and themselves. And, we’ve added two additional video lessons – Synergetic Play Therapy® and Cultural Humility & 4 Threats and the Set Up Through a Cultural Lens!

Mandatory Book: Dig out your copy of Aggression in Play Therapy: A Neurobiological Approach for Integrating Intensity by Lisa Dion. The book is also now available in Audio format and in both Spanish and Japanese translations!

Introduction to Synergetic Play Therapy® Program Objectives by Module:

Module 1 / Webinar 1 – Understanding the Set Up / Offering

• Describe how Synergetic Play Therapy® was inspired, the tenets, the history, and its main play therapy influences
• Explain how children use The Set Up/Offering in play therapy to set the toys and the therapist up to feel how they feel
• Describe how children are looking for templates to help pattern and re-pattern their states of activation

Module 2 – Understanding States of Activation

• Explain the link between nervous system states and the symptoms that show up in the playroom
• Describe the importance of regulation in the playroom
• Explain what regulation is and isn’t according to Synergetic Play Therapy®

Video Lesson – Synergetic Play Therapy® and Cultural Humility 

• Identify the importance of differences in how a child approaches play therapy depending on an individual’s culture
• Explain what it means for play therapists to have “done the work” to become curious with their clients in play therapy using a cultural approach
• Understand the term “microaggressions’ and how to apply Synergetic Play Therapy® concepts in the play therapy process

Module 3 / Webinar 2 – Becoming an External Regulator

• Explain the “funnel analogy” as a way to understand what children are attempting to integrate in their play therapy sessions
• Describe how Synergetic Play Therapy® approaches boundary setting
• Describe what it means to become the external regulator in a session to help a child integrate their challenges

Video Lesson – 4 Threats and the Set Up Through a Cultural Lens 

• Explain why culture is important when considering the 4 Threats in play therapy
• Understand how culture impacts the Set Up and Offering in play therapy
• Demonstrate ways that as a therapist culture can be considered in the play therapy process

Module 4 – Partnering with Caregivers / Tracking the Play

• Discuss the implications for caregivers being in their own grief process when they bring their children to play therapy
• Describe what it means to become a caregiver’s external regulator
• Discuss the importance of setting goals and speaking in terms of what is important to the caregiver when partnering with them in therapy
• Describe the Therapeutic Stages in Synergetic Play Therapy®

Module 5 – Understanding Attachment & Emotional Age

• Discuss Synergetic Play Therapy®’s perspective on attachment
• Explain why interoception is the pre-req for the ability to regulate and co-regulate and why this is a key focus in a Synergetic Play Therapy® session
• Describe the difference between a child’s emotional age and their chronological age

Module 6 / Webinar 3 – Sand, Art, & Aggression in Synergetic Play Therapy®

• Explain how to use regulation as a way to help integrate aggressive energy in the playroom
• Describe how to facilitate the use of sand from a Synergetic Play Therapy® perspective in the playroom
• Explain how to facilitate the use of art from a Synergetic Play Therapy® perspective in the playroom

CE Credit Hours: 20 CE Credit Hours, NBCC Content Areas: Counseling Theory/Practice and the Counseling Relationship and Social and Cultural Foundations. *This course meets the full requirement for renewal of the Certified Synergetic Play Therapist or Certified Synergetic Play Provider credential!

If you are not a mental health professional and would like to receive a certificate of completion, you may contact the Institute upon completion of the program.

Presenter: Lisa Dion, LPC, RPT-S