01 / Feelings
Explore emotions
Pretend play can offer children a way to explore feelings and experiences.
Child-centered support / Oakdale, Minnesota
Experiential Play Therapy
Play is a natural language for children. It gives them opportunities to explore feelings, experiences, and relationships in ways words may not always express.
Understanding play therapy
The work and language of childhood.
Play is the work and the language of the child. It is a natural part of a child’s daily development to engage in play. Pretend play allows children to explore different identities, feelings, and experiences.
In play, children can have a brave space to lean into feelings and experiences that may be too difficult to address or explore directly.
What play can make possible
Different ways to explore and express.
Imaginative play can help children explore experiences that may be difficult to describe directly.
02 / Experiences
Create meaningful scenarios
Through play, children may create scenarios that reflect real-life situations and themes.
03 / Connection
Invite a therapist into play
A child may invite a therapist to join these scenarios and explore what feels hard to put into words.
What sessions can look like
Making room for the child's experiences.
In experiential play therapy, children create scenarios through play and may invite a therapist into those scenarios to work through real-life situations and themes they cannot easily put into words.
Connect with Milestone
Learn more about this approach.
Our Oakdale team can answer general questions about experiential play therapy and next steps.