A Fresh Take on Creative Trauma Informed Work with Tweens, Teens & Adults

You know what it is to sit with a client whose trauma history lives just beneath the surface.

You can feel the weight in the room, but language will not go there. Some clients go blank. Others circle with story but never touch the center.

Going into traumatic material is hard on clients and hard on therapists. Without regulation, containment, and shared pacing, the work can re-traumatize, stall out, or leave you feeling responsible for holding more than you can carry.

Trauma rarely lives in the talking brain. It is stored in images, sensations, impulses, fragments.

The right brain speaks in symbol, image, movement, and metaphor. When we enter through that doorway, clients often stay more regulated, more connected to the present, and better able to process what was once overwhelming.

You will learn how to use drawing prompts, visualization and image heavy card decks with older children, teens, and yes, even adults.

This is an EXPERIENTIAL CLASS. After watching case presentations with real images of artwork and image heavy card prompts, you will try out the activities yourself. Learn by experiencing the process first before taking it to your clients

☀️ Go into the memories without having to soley talk about them

☀️ Use images (cards, visualization and drawing prompts) to visually "talk" about the memories

☀️ Support the emergence of healing narratives

This training brings play-informed, image-based methods into trauma treatment with tweens, teens and adults. You will experience each method yourself, see it demonstrated, and leave with ways to help clients move into traumatic material safely and come back out with more of themselves intact.

Tell Me The Details!

Friday, August 22, 2025 | 9:30AM–12:45 PM EST ($99)

Virtual: 3 Non-Contact CE (NBCC & APT) (apt requires a passing grade of 80% on exam)

In Person: Loudoun Co: 3 Contact CE (NBCC & APT)

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, participants will be able to:

1. Describe the neurological limitations of talk therapy when working with trauma and identify how play based right-brained approaches support trauma processing in tween, teen and adult clients.

2. Demonstrate the use of playful symbolic card prompts to support emotional expression and identity work in clients from tweens through adulthood

3. Facilitate a guided visualization or meditation aimed at increasing client regulation and internal connection.

4. Apply art-driven interventions to help clients externalize and process trauma-related material without relying on verbal insight.

5. Explain the role of play therapy principles in trauma treatment for tweens, teens and adults, including the therapeutic use of metaphor and symbol.

6. Evaluate how experiential tools can support the therapist’s own regulation, presence, and clinical effectiveness when working with shutdown or emotionally guarded clients.

☀️ Who Should Attend ☀️

☀️ Play therapists and creative therapists alike

☀️ Trauma informed (non play therapy too!) therapists of tweens, teens, or adults

☀️ Counselors, social workers, psychologists

☀️ Anyone wanting fresh, right-brained tools for trauma healing and self-care

Agenda (Eastern Time)

9:30  Brain Hemisphere and Function Overview

10:30  Case Study, Experiential Practice & Collaboration 

12:45  See You Next Time!