What is Play Therapy?
Children often communicate their inner world through play long before they can fully express it in words. Play Therapy offers a safe, supportive, and non-judgemental space where children can explore feelings, experiences, worries, and relationships at their own pace through play and creativity.
Just as tides shift and change beneath the surface, children's emotions can sometimes feel overwhelming, confusing, or difficult to understand. Through the therapeutic relationship, Play Therapy helps children make sense of these experiences in ways that feel safe and manageable.
Play Therapy can support children who may be experiencing:
anxiety or overwhelm
emotional dysregulation
trauma or loss
low self-esteem
social or relational difficulties
behavioural challenges
life transitions or family changes
Children do not need to “have the words” to benefit from Play Therapy. Feelings are often communicated through creativity, symbolism and play, allowing difficult experiences to be explored safely.
Children naturally communicate through play long before they can fully express themselves in words. Using play as the child's language, sessions may include:
Sand tray and miniatures
Clay, drawing and painting
Storytelling and puppetry
Movement and Music
Guided imagery and relaxation
Imaginative and symbolic play
Rather than trying to fix children, Play Therapy offers a safe therapeutic relationship where emotional growth, resilience and self-understanding can naturally develop.
The Play Therapy journey
Children can be referred for Play Therapy by parents, schools, or other professionals using the referral form linked here. Before sessions begin, parental consent and an initial discussion help ensure that play therapy feels like the right support for the child at this point in their journey. Sessions take place weekly in the same calm, consistent space and last approximately forty minutes. Creating a predictable environment helps children feel emotionally safe and supported — an anchor point where they can explore at their own pace.
Every child’s therapeutic journey is unique. While children are usually offered a minimum of twelve sessions, the length of support is guided by individual need and reviewed carefully over time. To help understand a child’s emotional wellbeing and monitor progress throughout the process, Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaires (SDQs) are completed before, during, and after therapy. Alongside this, review meetings with parents and/or school provide opportunities to reflect together on the child’s development and emerging needs.
Play Therapy sessions are confidential, helping children feel free to express themselves safely through play, creativity, metaphor, and relationship.
how it works
At Woven Tides Play Therapy, sessions follow an integrative holistic model of play therapy. This means children are offered a carefully prepared therapeutic space and a wide range of creative materials through which they can explore thoughts, feelings, relationships, and experiences.
Woven Tides also specialises in Listening Stone style therapy
Sessions are primarily non-directive, allowing the child to lead the process in the way that feels most natural and meaningful to them.
Rather than directing or “fixing,” the therapist gently follows alongside the child — offering safety, attunement, reflection, and emotional containment as they navigate their inner world.
Just as tides shift and change over time, children often communicate through symbols, stories, movement, creativity, and play before they are able to express difficult feelings in words.
Through this process, children can begin to develop emotional understanding, resilience, self-esteem, and healthier relationships with themselves and others.
The therapeutic toolkit available within sessions may include:
Sand tray and miniatures
Clay and sculpting materials
Art and creative expression
Puppets and storytelling
Musical instruments and rhythm work
Dolls house and figures
Role play and dress-up
Therapeutic stories
Guided imagery and creative visualisation
Movement and sensory resources
At the beginning of therapy, each child is given their own special box to store creations and meaningful items from their sessions. This becomes part of their therapeutic journey and can be taken home with them when their sessions come to an end.