PLAY THERAPY INTENSIVES

 

We are excited to offer Play Therapy Intensives!

 

Intensives are multiple appointments in a short amount of time. Play Therapy Intensives are for all ages (4 years old and up)! As a parent/guardian, you may want to sign your child up for Play Therapy Intensives. As a teen or adult, you may want to try a more experiential form of therapy, and Play Therapy Intensives are just the thing!

Research shows that multiple play therapy sessions in a short period of time can be as effective, or more so than meeting weekly over a longer period of time. Having appointments with increased frequency helps you/your child focus and get to work faster on the challenges. The experiences of our lives are an onion-like layer of feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. It is difficult to predict how much healing and integration you or your child will have in a single intensive experience. The healing of one experience may reveal another challenge to integrate. If that’s the case, we can talk about referrals or scheduling another intensive.

During play therapy, you or your child may engage in play in ways that reveal your and their inner worlds without needing to express it verbally. With a play therapist as your guide, play can be focused on exploring challenges and moving toward healing. Play therapy is a way to strengthen your ability to regulate yourself and re-pattern your nervous system.

This structure is intense. You or your child will be working hard in a short amount of time. In between sessions, you or your child may need quiet or rest time. If you’re a parent/guardian, your child may show a need to have more care from you, such as snuggling with you or making them some nourishing food. They may also need some space alone. Please follow your child’s lead for what they need. They may show you through behavior rather than words.

For an initial intensive, there are a total of 14 hours of sessions in an agreed-upon time frame.

  1. Intake session with the parent/caregiver/guardian (can be virtual) 
  2. 12 hours of sessions with the child in an agreed-upon time frame
  3. Final summary session with the parent/caregiver/guardian (can be virtual) 

We’ll work together to determine session lengths and frequencies that work best for you and your child.

Intake

Parents/caregivers/guardians are required to attend an Intake Session without their child. This meeting lasts 55 to 90 minutes and in it, we will discuss practice procedures and policies, discuss your concerns, identify your child’s strengths; gather relevant social, emotional, and physical background information; and teach you attentive play skills so you can support your child through play after the boot camp.

First Session

We will greet you and your child in the waiting room and take them into our playroom. In this room, the child can play with the toys in the way they want to. They are given the freedom to explore, play out, and communicate whatever they need to. In this way, they can reflect, problem-solve, experiment with different ways of interacting, and integrate their thoughts and feelings. 

Final Summary Session

We will meet to review where your child started and what you’ve learned and noticed during our time together. In this session, we’ll discuss if referrals to other providers would be helpful.

Add a Second Series

If you’d like, you have the option to add a second series of intensive play therapy at the time you schedule and commit to this process. The second series would be similar to the first and we’d work together to make any adjustments to dates and session length.

Instead of a summary session, we’d have a check-in session to review where we started and how we want to spend the remaining sessions, then we’d have 14 more hours of sessions together and a summary session. We could discuss scheduling a check-in session sometime after your child completes the intensive.

Cost / Good Faith Estimate

The investment for 14 hours of intensive therapy is: $3,875.00

The investment for 28 hours of intensive therapy is: $6,750.00

Payment plans are available and must be paid in full before the first scheduled session.
Missed appointments will not be rescheduled.

New Growth Counseling Services will not bill insurance for play therapy intensives. Our experience has been that insurance will not cover more than one appointment, up to one hour in length, in a day. In addition, insurance requires a diagnosis, and we do not diagnose those participating in the Play Therapy Intensives. According to Dr. Bruce Perry, a research psychiatrist who’s worked with traumatized children for over 30 years, diagnoses are not connected to the physiology of what is going on when a child is struggling. He believes “it’s not a valid way to think about the complexities of human beings.” Rather than a diagnosis, we will identify the specific behaviors, thoughts, or situations a child is struggling with and work with them to regulate and integrate the experience.

Contact us to get started on you or your child’s transformation!