Growing Out of The Playroom: Engaging Teens in Play Therapy

Credit

Speaker

Ann Meehan, MS, LPCC, RPT-S™ Related seminars and products

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Ann Meehan, MS, LPCC, RPT-S™, is a mental health therapist who specializes in helping children, adolescents, and families heal, grow and move forward from life’s difficulties, big emotions, and challenging behaviors. She is an EMDR consultant and Registered Play Therapist™ and supervisor. With a passion for inspiring and empowering fellow therapists, Ann supports professionals in honing their skills and thriving in their practices through her blog The Playful Therapist and the Meehan Mental Health Services Training Center, where she offers training in both EMDR and play therapy. She is the owner of Create Wellness Center for Child and Adolescent Therapy and is the president of the Minnesota Association for Play Therapy.

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Ann Meehan maintains a private practice and is the owner of Create Wellness and Meehan Mental Health Services. She receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Ann Meehan is a member of the Association for Play Therapy and EMDRIA.

 

 

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Objectives

1. Utilize at least 10 play therapy activities in teen play therapy sessions. 
2. Identify specific skills that are unique teen play therapy including managing confidentiality, rapport building and working through resistance, and involving parents. 
3. Demonstrate how development impacts functioning and mental health symptoms in adolescence including brain development and regulation abilities in play therapy.

Outline

Co-Regulation to Ensure Self-Regulation for Teens 

Good History Taking of Early Development 

Confidentiality – What to Know 

Improved Alliances 

CBT – Putting Client in the Center – Reduce the Biggest Teen Diagnoses     

• Expand your play therapy toolkit with over 10 interventions for teens  
• Connect with teens and increase therapy buy-in and engagement  
• Therapy Challenges for Teens  
  • Barriers to overcome 
  • Teens who aren't engaged and don't want to be in therapy  
  • Long periods of silence  
  • Feelings of vulnerability and overwhelm that cause shutdown  
  • Difficulty with sharing the tough stuff  
  • Frequently saying "I don't know" or answering with one- or two-word sentences 

Ways to Engage 

• Creative ways to engage teens and increase buy in and ownership to the therapy process  
• How to increase engagement through play and humor  
• Ways to meet teens where they are at with interventions that speak "the language of teens"  
  • Music, Memes, Humor, Games, Tech, and Art 

Target Audience

• Counselors
• Marriage and family therapists
• Nurses
• Physicians 
• Play therapists 
• Psychologists
• Social workers