Supporting Your Child’s Emotional Health Through Creative Expression
At The Whole Family, we know that not every child can put their feelings into words. Children often communicate through play, art, and imagination, and as part of your village, it’s our role to listen, understand, and help them thrive. Expressive Play Therapy is a gentle, evidence-based approach designed to support children to communicate, explore, and heal using their natural language of play.
What is Expressive Play Therapy?
Expressive Play Therapy is a trusted, child-centred therapeutic approach that provides children with a safe and supportive space to express complex emotions and experiences. Through creative play, symbolic expression, and therapeutic art activities, children are supported to make sense of their inner world in a way that feels developmentally appropriate and emotionally safe.
Expressive Play Therapy can be helpful for children experiencing:
- Anxiety and low mood
- Trauma, grief, and loss
- Emotional regulation difficulties
- Behavioural challenges
- Social and peer-related struggles
- Adjustments to family changes, separation, or other life transitions
Our approach to expressive play therapy
Expressive Play Therapy at The Whole Family is delivered by trained clinicians with experience in child-centred and trauma-informed practice. Sessions may incorporate sand play, imaginative role-play, drawing, storytelling, and other creative modalities to help children express themselves in a way that feels natural and empowering.
This approach is grounded in attachment theory and best-practice therapeutic principles for working with children, allowing emotional exploration to unfold at the child’s pace and in a way that feels safe and supported.
Supporting your village: an integrated, family-centred approach
We believe meaningful and lasting change happens when families are supported together. While your child engages in expressive play therapy, parents and caregivers may also be offered guidance and support through our clinical psychology services.
This collaborative approach helps families to:
- Better understand the emotions behind their child’s behaviour
- Build practical, effective parenting strategies
- Support emotional regulation at home
- Create consistency between therapy and everyday family life
By working alongside families, we aim to ensure that the growth and insights gained in therapy extend beyond our rooms and into daily life.
Expressive Play Therapy and the NDIS
Expressive Play Therapy may be accessed through NDIS-funded supports for children who are self-managed or plan-managed. Our team can assist you in navigating this process and help determine whether this service is suitable within your child’s NDIS plan.
Taking the next step
If your child is experiencing big emotions, behavioural challenges, or difficulties adjusting to change—and you’re unsure how best to support them—Expressive Play Therapy may offer a gentle and effective way forward.
If you are unsure whether Expressive Play Therapy may be more suitable than traditional talking therapy, the following questions may help provide clarity:
- Does your child struggle to talk about their thoughts or feelings, especially when upset or anxious?
- Does your child express themselves more easily through play, drawing, or storytelling rather than words?
- Have you tried psychology (or talking therapy) previously, but found it difficult for your child to engage?
- Does your child display big emotions or behaviours that are hard to understand, even when they can’t explain what’s wrong?
If you answered ‘yes’ to one or more of these questions, Expressive Play Therapy may be a developmentally appropriate path to explore for your child.
We’re here to support your family every step of the way. Contact us today to book an intake session or learn more about how we can help.
Because in our village, every child’s emotional wellbeing matters.
