What is Play Therapy?

Play therapy is an evidence-based therapeutic approach designed for children, facilitated by a mental health professional with specialised training and qualifications. This method uses play as a therapeutic tool, with techniques varying depending on the specific model of therapy used.

In play therapy, the therapist utilises play and toys to help children express their feelings, thoughts, and experiences, much like adults use words in traditional counselling. Play therapy allows children to express themselves in ways they might not be able to with words.

Whether a child is experiencing trauma, grief and loss, major life changes, mental health or developmental difficulties, or emotional and behavioural struggles, play therapy provides a gentle, developmentally and emotionally attuned way to support their growth, wellbeing, and resilience.

Evidence Base for Play Therapy

This Evidence Based Child Therapy resource outlines the meta-analyses and systematic reviews supporting the effectiveness of play therapy in children’s mental health treatment:

Evidence-Based Child Therapy: Meta-Analyses and Reviews

How Can Play Therapy Help Your Child?

Benefits of Play Therapy

Play therapy supports the foundations of healthy development and wellbeing by:

Providing a gentle, developmentally attuned way for children to process experiences (including trauma and life transitions)
Supporting the expression of emotions
Building emotional awareness and strengthening connection to internal body cues
Supporting regulation and resilience
Enhancing a positive self-concept
Building trust, safety, and connection within relationships
Encouraging flexible thinking, problem-solving, and confidence in their abilities

Learn more about the benefits of play therapy

The following articles explore how play therapy supports children:

Psychology Today: How Play Therapy Benefits Your Child’s Emotional Wellbeing. Azmaira Maker

Australian Psychological Society (InPsych): Play Therapy: Working creatively with children. Jacki Short

Girl child, painting with orange and red on white paper

The Playful Minds Approach

The play therapy process involves being fully immersed in your child's world, to learn what it is like to be them. This builds understanding of their inner experiences, emotional and bodily regulation, and relational patterns, allowing therapy to support their unique needs.

At Playful Minds Therapy, we don’t ‘fix’ children or behaviours, instead, we look beneath behaviour to understand the underlying needs that may be driving it.

Therapy unfolds at your child’s pace. It is not a quick 'fix' approach, but a thoughtful, responsive process that deepens over time. When children feel safe, understood and supported at this deeper level, growth happens from the inside out

The Role of Play

Play is a primary way that children communicate, learn, develop, and make sense of the world and their experiences in it. In therapy, play provides children with a safe and developmentally aligned way to express emotions, communicate needs, and explore relationships.

Through therapeutic play, children can explore their experiences, spark curiosity, creativity and problem-solving, and strengthen their self-awareness, regulation, and emotional resilience. Play and toys become the child’s language in therapy, helping them express and process their thoughts, feelings, and experiences, much like adults use words in traditional counselling.

What Therapy Can Look Like

Therapy at Playful Minds is co-created with families. Depending on your child and family’s needs, therapy often includes:

Direct therapy sessions (child play therapy and/or parent-child play therapy)
Regular parent/caregiver consultation sessions and additional parent focused support as needed
Completion of screening tools and creation of therapeutic resources when helpful
Optional parent/caregiver individual therapy through our Nurture and Play collaboration with Nurture Geelong, recognising that parents own individual growth alongside child therapy, supports the best outcomes for the whole family system

The exact structure of therapy is created with you and will often shift and adapt over time in response to your child and family’s needs.

The Therapy Experience

Change for children is never linear, it can at times feel hard. Just like learning to walk, growth can involve vulnerability, regressions and lots of repetition and patience.

When parents/caregivers are actively involved and supported through this process, they are better able to aid their child’s growth, making therapy more effective and sustainable.

Is Playful Minds the Right Fit?

Finding an aligned therapeutic service is one of the most important factors in a successful experience. We strongly encourage families to take time to consider whether this approach feels right for them.

If you’re looking for a quick fix, we are unlikely the best fit for you. If you’re seeking a holistic, child-centred therapy that supports long-term emotional growth and wellbeing, our service may be a good match for your family.

Our therapeutic approach is guided by your child’s unique needs and unfolds at their pace. We provide a thoughtful, responsive process that deepens over time.

Importantly, our approach requires emotional engagement and time commitment from parents/caregivers.

As a private practice fee for service, it also requires financial resourcing and works best when families feel aligned with our approach and process.