Workshop Overview:  

Although aggression and death are a common part of the play therapy process, many therapists don’t have a clear understanding of what to do and how to facilitate the intensity when it enters the playroom during play. The result can lead to inadvertently promoting aggression and increasing low brain disorganization. It can also lead to the therapist feeling beat up, exhausted and hyper-aroused themselves, which can over time significantly impact their longevity in the field, as well as their ability to stay attuned and
present to a child in the playroom.
This workshop is designed to help play therapists understand aggression and death play from a neuro-biological perspective and a Synergetic Play Therapy lens. With the help of neuroscience and interpersonal neurobiology, therapists will learn how to effectively work with this type of play in a way that supports nervous system regulation, repatterning of
the child’s autonomic activation patterns and decreases compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma.
This workshop will take therapists to new possibilities as they explore a science-based process for working with children at the deepest, most profound levels while staying safe and sane. They will learn how to make aggressive play therapeutic while understanding what it takes to maximize growth and integration for their clients and themselves.

Learning Objectives

• Examine how play therapy works from a neurobiological perspective
• Recognize the significance of congruence and authentic expression in the play therapy process
• Identify strategies for maintaining regulation in the midst of intense play/trauma play and death in the playroom
• Identify at least 2 strategies for working with aggression and trauma in the playroom without experiencing nervous system shut down leading to vicarious trauma
• Explain the link between a child’s dysregulated states of their nervous system and their aggressive and traumatic play
• Describe how a therapist’s “window of tolerance” can impact the child’s healing process
• Practice facilitating aggressive play in the play therapy process without increasing or promoting aggression
• Examine the Synergetic Play Therapy concept of “The Set Up” in the playroom
• Demonstrate at least 2 strategies for setting boundaries without shaming or shutting down a child’s play
• Explain what it takes to become the “external regulator” in the playroom to support nervous system integration
• Define “emotional flooding” and identify at least 2 strategies to employ when this happens in a play therapy session
• Describe the importance of becoming the child’s external regulator for trauma integration

Diversity Issues

As the foundation for this course is neuroscience and interpersonal
neurobiology, it encourages participants to view behaviors through
a lens of nervous system activation rather than labeling and
pathology. It helps develop a framework for relational empathy and
co-regulation that is able to be applied to any population that the
play therapy chooses to work with.

Powers of Play

As the play therapist works to support the child during intense and
aggressive play, the therapist uses play to teach the child about self
regulation, allow for experiences of catharsis and abreaction and
work on stress management as the child learns how to stay
connected to their own body and emotions. These therapeutic
powers of play, and others, are at the heart of the theoretical
framework presented in this presentation.

About the Presenter

Lisa Dion, LPC, RPT-S, is an international teacher, creator of Synergetic Play Therapy, founder and President of the Synergetic Play Therapy Institute, co- founder of the Synergetic Education Institute, creator of the Business of Therapy and host of the Lessons from the Playroom podcast. She is the author of Aggression in Play Therapy: A Neurobiological Approach for Integrating Intensity and is the 2015 recipient of the Association for Play Therapy’s Professional Education and Training Award of Excellence.

Schedule:  

Lodging:  

Hilton Garden Inn
9785 North by Northeast Boulevard
Fishers, IN 46037
Phone: (317) 577-5900
*Cutoff date to reserve a room through the
room block is 5/27/26

ADA: If you need special needs, please contact Paige Young via email at bpmark85@gmail.com or by phone at (574)340-3963

Dietary accommodations: If you are in need of dietary accommodations please contact us at inapt4u@gmail.com

Refund Policy:
Refunds up to 7 days before event
Eventbrite’s fee is nonrefundable