INTENSIVES

Course Objectives

• Trainee will be able to assess the five development stages of EPT and respond to a child’s play needs expressed within that phase of the play therapy process.

  The trainee will identify three dynamics that indicate the testing-for-protection process is occurring and one behavior that indicates the process has completed.

  The child will express the behavior (acceptance of the therapist) that indicates trust toward the play process and the therapist.

  Trainees will be able to identify play and verbal metaphors that occur during their therapy sessions and will be able to facilitate these metaphorical expressions as the child expresses them during therapy (70% efficiency would be considered minimal during the final three supervisory sessions). (70% level would be appropriate because not every metaphor can be responded to during a session).

  Trainees will be able to identify a minimum of three themes expressed in the child’s play therapy.  Themes are usually broader than metaphors; however, a metaphor can also be a theme.

  Trainees will be able to identify signs of regressive expression that indicate the developmental stage the child’s trauma event occurred. (This is estimated in a monthly range of a 3 to 4 months span and pinpointed by the child’s behavioral style and information assessed in cooperation with parent or caregiver).

  The trainee will know the standard roles assigned to therapist in EPT and will execute these roles as indicated by the child’s directives and play style or mood expressions. (Roles during the dependency stage of play therapy may be: victim, perpetrator, switching back and forth, alter ego, mother/father, fear of death or identify confusion, just as examples.

  The trainee can name a minimum of twenty toys that would be present in an EPT equipped playroom and give three probable symbolic meanings for each of the toys identified or used by their child client.

  The trainee will be able to list ten major dynamics that contribute to the symptomology in childhood trauma and the therapeutic complexity that can occur during play therapy with a young child.

  The trainee will be able to list five ways that trauma sensations enter into a child’s play experiences that contribute to the play process and are a contributing factor in the child’s trauma complexities.

  Each of these objectives will be assessed over the course of seven individual supervision sessions and three bug-in-the-ear supervision sessions.

  Participants will also observe a minimum of twelve play therapy sessions with other participants supervised by RPT-S trainers.

  Participants will have a minimum of twelve group supervisions with other trainees receiving their individual supervision.