Heartwood Health Play Therapy

02/08/2026

A child pauses, looks at the shelf, and picks. Not what I would have picked. Not what makes sense to anyone but them.

That pause matters, but it’s not the whole story. The whole session, the whole room, is the transitional space.

Winnicott called it that: a suspended place between imagination and reality, where a child gets to try being someone new, safely, on their own terms. Not just in one choice, but across the whole process.

And control is central to that. Children can’t control much of what happens to them outside the playroom. Inside it, control and agency is returned, session by session, choice by choice.

27/07/2026

02/07/2026

Each moment a child, family or community spends with a play therapist is providing Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs).

Play therapists can work beyond the play therapy room to ensure milieux of PCEs for a child across homelife, school life and community life.

When PCEs are delivered in a therapeutic context, they can be healing, through safe, attuned, playful and responsive relationships. PCEs also build a resilience shield against future adversity, so the positive gains of a child attending play therapy can be both in the moment, in their lives now, but also positively impact into the future.

19/06/2026

What a beautiful double rainbow amongst the rain yesterday.

13/06/2026

13/06/2026

This is a lovely analogy for the work l do with my child clients and my animals. It is less about what l do and more about who l am and how myself and my animals help my clients to feel accepted and cared for.

06/03/2026

So aligned with what l do.