Transform Your Child and Teen Clients' Lives with EMDR and Play Therapy, Healing Their Trauma for a Lifetime of Possibilities

If you are EMDR-trained and wish to effectively use it with your children and adolescent clients, register for our EMDR With Kids course. Enjoy 1-year access and a follow-up one-hour Zoom consultation.

Why integrate PLAY?

  • It Is How Kids Communicate

    Kids share their realities and painful stories through play, much like adults do through conversation. Whether through puppet play, turn-taking games, creating art, playing ball, or a variety of other activities, children feel safe enough to express themselves and progress through therapeutic phases.

  • Creates Safety, Making EMDR Possible

    Play increases children's capacity to tolerate the stress of accessing trauma by adding essential safety, enhancing autonomic flexibility to move in and out of survival states, and supporting healthy behavior changes. This approach allows children to access more of their developing brain's potential, which is beneficial in therapy, especially to support integration.

  • Supporting Children's Healing and Development

    Play, whether through non-directive "being with" or more directive approaches, supports natural therapy for children. It fosters connection, helping them overcome trauma-related isolation and reintegrate into social settings with safety. This reduces resistance, prevents them from getting stuck in survival states, and enables trauma processing without explicit discussion, vital in EMDR therapy.

"But they don't answer my questions or follow through on any of my directives. They just want to play."

Being a child therapist is challenging and exhausting, especially when working with children who have faced trauma. As an EMDR-trained therapist, you understand the importance of the 8-phase protocol, yet children and teens respond differently than adults. They express themselves through play, and their behaviors are survival adaptations. You know EMDR therapy could be transformative, but the challenge remains—how does it work with kids?

Does EMDR Therapy Work with Kids?

As a child therapist, your days are filled with dragon-and-dinosaur battles, turn-taking games, storytelling in the Sandtray, and playing the "bad guy" restrained with toy handcuffs to the dollhouse. Some days, you even go home and find clay in your hair from an early morning session with an 8-year-old. It feels very different from the EMDR therapy you learned to do with adult clients, making you question if EMDR is practical for kids given their developing nervous systems. You know EMDR is powerful, and you don't want to get it wrong, but moving past the preparation phase feels daunting.

What Does EMDR Look Like in Play Therapy?

Imagine being a fly on the wall in a play therapy room where a 5-year-old reprocesses trauma during an EMDR session. The child serves a small plate of toy food and the therapist, sitting on a floor pillow, responds as if they were a child, seamlessly incorporating phase 3 assessment elements. This deep attunement sets the stage for phase 4 desensitization, with natural bilateral stimulation through play. You witness how these phases, while playful and developmentally appropriate, effectively address trauma in children.

You are not alone, and many EMDR-trained child therapists face these challenges too.

It's crucial to integrate the reciprocity of play and play-basedother opportunities for expression into the 8 phases of EMDR therapy with children while maintaining protocol fidelity. Many EMDR-trained child therapists face similar challenges. The key is to balance EMDR fidelity with the needs of a child's developing nervous system and work compassionately with parents and families, sharing information in a practical and respectful way.

In the following sections, get a glimpse of the 8 phases of EMDR with children and teens. We'll honor the developing nervous system by integrating playful approaches, including movement, expressive opportunities, shared experiences, sensory activities, and connection for a truly transformative experience.

Phase 1: History Taking and Case Conceptulization

During this phase with children, gather detailed information from parents, reports, professionals, and the child themselves. Avoid creating a cookie-cutter treatment plan, as trauma affects the nervous system uniquely for each individual. Explore trauma related to their body (e.g., medical issues, disabilities), relationships (e.g., attachment wounds, abuse), and environment (e.g., violence, safety concerns). Use play-based assessments like drawing and painting to aid communication. Build a strong therapeutic alliance and tailor treatment plans to their specific needs. Assess suitability for EMDR therapy, identify targets, resources, and potential obstacles.


Phase 2: Preparation

For this phase, the child is introduced to EMDR therapy in a developmentally appropriate way. Using animal imagery, games, and activities, the child playfully develops internal and external resources, practicing regulation skills like breath work, safe place imagery, and containment. The main purpose of this phase is to ensure the child feels safe and prepared for reprocessing. Additionally, resources for parents and caregivers are provided to support their understanding and involvement in the therapy process.

Phase 3: Assessment

In this phase, the clinician identifies a target and supports the client in activating their neural networks through play. Using metaphors, the clinician explores areas that might be inaccessible to the client. It's essential to naturally incorporate procedural steps like identifying the worst part, the image, cognitions, emotions, and the felt sense before moving on to Phase 4: Desensitization.

Phase 4: Desensitization

This phase is sometimes mistaken for the entirety of EMDR because it utilizes fast bilateral stimulation (BLS) to reduce distress. However, EMDR actually consists of eight phases, and this is just one of them. In this phase, the clinician helps the child reprocess traumatic memories through creative BLS, incorporating playful movement. Allowing the child to move naturally and playfully, rather than sitting still, makes a significant difference. Creating a shared experience can alleviate feelings of isolation. Activities like drumming, punching a bop bag, stomping, music, pool noodle fights, or alternating movements help maintain their engagement in BLS.


Phase 5: Installation

In this phase, the first step is to determine if the positive cognition identified in phase 3 still fits. The clinician then supports the child in strengthening positive cognitions related to their target, such as "I am good," "I can handle this," and "I have choices." Often, the child takes the lead in expressing these newfound beliefs, embedding them as their new truths. Methods like drawing, storytelling, playful embodiment, or role-playing are utilized to help integrate these beliefs into the child's sense of self.

Phase 6: Body Scan

In this phase, the clinician supports the child in performing a body scan to notice any lingering physical sensations, or "dust bunnies," remaining from the therapy target. Using kid-friendly body scans and playful activities like guided imagery games or simple relaxation exercises, the child becomes aware of these sensations. The clinician collaborates with the child to move through these sensations safely, using shared bilateral stimulation (BLS) or allowing movement as needed to help complete the processing.

Phase 7: Closure

This phase occurs at the end of the session. It is essential to make time for it, as it plays a crucial role in the therapeutic process. The goal is to ensure the child feels grounded and stable by the end of each session. This may involve engaging in a shared activity, such as tossing a ball, keeping a balloon in the air, picking out something from every color of the rainbow, practicing mindful breathing like dragon breaths, digging in sand using a playful container, participating in freeze dancing, or playing a favorite turn-taking game. These activities help the child return to a state of equilibrium.

Phase 8: Re-evaluation

In this final phase, which happens at the start of a return from a processing session, it's important to playfully revisit previous sessions. This helps to check the child's distress levels regarding past targets. Using play-based methods, you can assess any lingering distress from the last session, ensuring the child remains engaged and comfortable during the process.

I am thrilled to teach you how to deliver the healing power of EMDR to your clients. This self-paced course includes one year of access and a follow-up consultation hour.

In this course, you'll also learn …

  • Gain insights into collaborating effectively with parents, helping them understand and support their child's therapeutic journey

  • Deepen your knowledge of the developing nervous system and how it influences behavior and processing of trauma.

  • Learn to seamlessly integrate play therapy techniques into each phase of EMDR, leveraging the therapeutic power of play to achieve emotional regulation, expression, and healing.

Who is eligible to attend:

This training is open to clinicians who are at least partially trained in EMDR. Please note, this is and EMDRIA approved advanced course, not an EMDR Basic Training.