1st Edition
Polyvagal Power in the Playroom A Guide for Play Therapists
Polyvagal Power in the Playroom shows therapists how to treat children using play therapy to address the hierarchy of autonomic states. What do children need and how do play therapists purposefully use the principles of play to increase the feeling states of safety and regulation? Step inside the playroom and discover how trained play therapists are addressing treatment using polyvagal theory when working with children and teens.
The book is organized into three parts:
- Interruptions explores developmental derailments brought about by relational betrayals such as domestic violence, child sexual abuse, and attachment ruptures implicated in a myriad of adverse childhood experiences. In these cases, the neuroception of safety scaffolded through "good enough" rhythms of healthy caregiver/child interactions is either compromised through a thousand relational cuts (parental addiction or parental mental illness) or abruptly ended (divorce, death or incarceration of a parent)
- Happenings explores events that involve an external intrusion, such as natural disasters, wars, and pandemics
- Expressions of risk and resilience explores mental health symptom clusters such as depression, anxiety, dissociation, and explosive behavior through the lens of dorsal vagal or sympathetic nervous system states, as well as specific play therapy methods for healing the nervous system
The therapeutic powers of play are illustrated through case examples and in practical, play-based interventions woven throughout the book.
Child and play therapists will come away from Polyvagal Power in the Playroom with the tools they need to help children and their caregivers achieve deeper levels of safety and connection.
Foreword: Play Therapy Through the Lens of the Polyvagal Theory
Stephen W. Porges
1. How the Science of Relationships Impacts Our Thinking about Development: Interruptions, Happenings, and Expressions of Risk or Resilience
Marilyn R. Sanders
2. Listening Inside Our Bodies, Outside our Bodies, and Between Bodies: Interoception, Exteroception, and Setting Up a Polyvagal Informed Playroom
Paris Goodyear-Brown and Lorri A. Yasenik
3. The Sounds of Safety in an Unsafe World: Recovering from Domestic Violence Through Polyvagal Informed Play Therapy
Lorri A. Yasenik and Jennifer Buchanan
4. The Genius of the Disembodied Self: Coping with Childhood Sexual Abuse
Paris Goodyear-Brown and Sueann Kenney-Noziska
5. Healing Attachment Ruptures with Safety and Connection through Play
Jackie Flynn and Bridger Falkenstien
6. Neurodivergencies: Incorporating Polyvagal Theory
Karen Stagnitti
7. Plagues, Pandemics, and the Polyvagal Theory in the Playroom
Natalie Nadiprodjo and Judi Parson
8. Reclaiming a Feeling of Safety in Natural Disasters: Preparatory and Advanced Interventions Using Play and Play Therapy
Claudio Mochi and Isabella Cassina
9. Polyvagal-Informed Practice to Support Children and Caregivers in War: Toward the Creation of a Huge and Reassuring Playroom
Isabella Cassina and Claudio Mochi
10. Anxiety, the Autonomic Nervous System and Play as Mechanisms of Change
Lynn Louise Wonders
11. Polyvagal Theory and Play Therapy with Children who Exhibit Aggression
David Crenshaw and Lisa Dion
12. Helping Depressed, Dissociative, and Withdrawn Children: Integrating Holistic Expressive Play Therapy and Polyvagal Theory
Marie José Dhaese and Richard Gaskill
13. Nature and Play as Polyvagal Partners in Play Therapy
Maggie Fearn and Janet Courtney
14. Child Centered Play Therapy: Person of the Therapist Presence, Neuroception of Safety, and Co-Regulation
Sue Bratton and Alyssa
15. Safety in Sand and Symbols: Polyvagal Shifts in the Sand Tray
Marshall Lyles and Linda Homeyer
16. Expressive Arts Therapy as Polyvagal Play: Shifting States Towards Safety
Carmen Richardson
17. Animal Assisted Play Therapy™ as a Polyvagal Process
Mary Rottier and Rebecca Dickinson
18. Digital Play Therapy™: Harnessing the Felt Sense of Safety in the Digital Space
Jessica Stone and Rachel Altvater
Biography
Paris Goodyear-Brown, LCSW, RPT-S, is the creator of TraumaPlay™, the Executive Director of the TraumaPlay Institute, the Clinical Director of Nurture House, and author of Parents as Partners in Child Therapy: A Guide for Clinicians.
Lorri A. Yasenik, PhD, RPT-S, CPT-S, is the Director of Rocky Mountain Play Therapy Institute in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and the co-author of Play Therapy Dimensions Model: A Decision-Making Guide for Integrative Play Therapists.
“Goodyear-Brown and Yasenik have brought together play therapists across the field to share their wisdom on integrating neuroscience and play therapy. Rich case descriptions offer the reader an authentic exploration of how we experience polyvagal power with the children we serve in play therapy.”
Dee C. Ray, PhD, Regents Professor and co-director of Center for Play Therapy at the University of North Texas
“This pioneering and innovative volume skillfully weaves complex constructs from polyvagal theory together with practical, embodied, and transformative play-based therapeutic interventions. It is a must-have masterpiece that will change child and play therapists’ perspectives on healing.”
Ana M. Gómez, MC, LPC, author of EMDR Therapy and Adjunct Approaches with Children: Complex Trauma, Attachment, and Dissociation
