"It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child."
- Pablo Picasso
Children are communicating all of the time to the people around them, they just don't use words as one might expect. They speak to the people around them through their dreams, through their behaviors, through their emotions, through their play, as well as through their language. Child psychotherapy consists mainly of play therapy, which provides the child a safe space in which they can communicate to me what needs to be communicated. Through play, a child is able to think about, thus process their life experiences. In the case of trauma, the play allows the child to process the traumatic experience, allowing them to communicate the experience to me, even when words to describe the experience are unavailable to the child, and then to heal the wound through a corrective emotional experience.
Some of the symptoms that I treat are:
- Behavioral problems
- Trauma
- Grief
- Nightmares
- Social and relationship deficits
- Developmental deficits
- Drug and alcohol use
- Suicidal ideation
- Anger problems
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Phobias and fears
- Obsessive compulsive tendencies
- Emotion regulation problems
- Homicidal ideation
- Violence
