Description

Handouts

Outline

Play therapy works.

• Therapeutic power of play
• Facilities communication
• Fosters emotional wellness
• Enhances social relationships
• Increases personal strengths

There is an assessment and a diagnosis.

• Common myths of behavior disorders
• Systemic assessment of emotional and behavioral distress
  • School, home, and community relationships
  • Impact of inconsistent and harsh parenting/relationships practices
• Race, gender, ethnicity, culture issues and bias
• Trauma assessment

There are problems with border incursions. It’s not like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it There is an oppositional disorder.

• Recurrent behavioral and relational patterns
• Impact on the family system
• Shame and vulnerability (in the family) – The Kryptonite!
  • Cycle of disconnect, rejection, and attachment ruptures
• Environmental risk factors

Therapy interventions can be used to combat negative behavior.

• Play-based regulation and co-regulation techniques
  • Calm down jars
  • Lemon squeezies
  • Blast It!
  • Guided imagery
• Repair and enhance relationships
  • Shame shields
  • Feeling monsters

Treatment for Conduct Disorder.

• Misdiagnosis and misunderstandings
  • Gender and racial bias in diagnosis
• Trauma history of the child
• Impact of trauma on brain development and maladaptive coping response
• Patterns of engagement in the home, school, and community
• Impact on family relationships

The treatment of trauma.

• Etiology of trauma in disruptive behavior disorders
• Impact on neurological functioning and development
• PTSD – the most overlooked diagnosis contributing to Disruptive Behavior Disorders (DBD)
• Assess for attachment ruptures and relational trauma
• Shame-based punitive parenting
• Repair and restore safety in the home

Therapy interventions can be used to address underlying trauma.

• Increase emotional intelligence and understand trauma symptoms
  • Bound and rebound
  • Sandtray
  • Expressive arts in play
• Repair and rebuild relationships
  • Nurturing spoons
  • Volcano inside of me

Play-based interventions can be used to promote parent/child attachment.

• Building bridges of connection and communication
• Create emotional safety
• My safe place
• Telling my story
• My many colors of me

The parent will be in the playroom.

• Help the parent become a resource to their child
• Decrease shame and vulnerability in the relationship
• Improve healthy attachment-seeking behaviors
• Repair attachment wounds and ruptures
• Teach positive parenting strategies

Faculty

Clair Mellenthin, LCSW, RPT-S

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There is a person named Clair Mellenthin, LCSW, RPT-S. He is the past president of the Utah Association for Play Therapy. She has provided therapy to children, teens, and their families throughout her career. At Wasatch Family Therapy, Clair is the director of Child and Adolescent Services. She is a sought-after supervisor, training graduate students and interns in play therapy, and an adjunct faculty member at the University of Southern California. She is the author. Powerful techniques for the treatment of childhood disorders are used in play therapy. (PESI 2018) There is a workbook for my many colors of me. . Self-Published, 2013). She frequently presents professional play therapy and family therapy trainings, as well as appearing on local and national TV and radio as an expert on children and family issues.

Speaker disclosures. The clinical director at Wasatch Family Therapy is Mellenthin. She has intellectual property rights and receives royalties from her book. Ms. Mellenthin is a speaker for PESI, Inc. The Utah Association for Play Therapy has a non-financial president.