Renate Ruddock

Play Therapy – Renate Ruddock

Hear For You – Confidential Play Therapy Service for Children in Crisis Conflict or Distress

What is Play Therapy?

How can Play Therapy help my child?

What can Play Therapy help with?

Hear for You specialises in working with children and young people aged between 3-18 years. Hear for you helps children who:

• Have trouble eating or sleeping;
• Have low self- esteem;
• Have emotional and behavioural difficulties;
• Have experienced loss, family breakdown, or bereavement;
• Have witnessed violence, parental conflict, or substance abuse,
• Have experienced neglect, abuse or trauma;
• Are ill, disabled, or have caring responsibilities, or siblings with disabilities.

Benefits of the Play Therapy

Play Therapy can provide a child or young person with time to express themselves in a safe and contained way. It can promote resilience and steady emotions to enable a child to cope with the future. The Play Therapist can also help a parent or  carer understand their child’s inner world.

How it works

Play Therapy helps children in a variety of ways. Children receive emotional support and can learn to understand more about their own feelings and thoughts. Sometimes they may re- enact or play out traumatic or difficult life experiences in order to make sense of their past and cope better with their future. Children may also learn to manage relationships and conflicts in more appropriate ways. The outcomes for the child can be general such as a reduction in anxiety and increased self-esteem, or more specifically a change in behaviour and improved relationships with family and friends.

What happens in a session

Sometimes, it is hard for children to talk about their feelings so the Play Therapist will try to help a child to feel better without having to explain things in words. That is because children play their feelings better than they can talk about them. Children’s problems can get better when they understand their feelings.