This week-long, hands-on intensive is unlike any other play therapy training. Not only will you learn the foundational principles of the Somatic Experiential Play Therapy (SEPT) model, you’ll also bring those concepts to life in real time with children in the playroom.
Each participant will engage in at least six live play therapy sessions with a child, while receiving real-time coaching and guidance through bug-in-the-ear technology. After every session, you’ll join a powerful debrief where we unpack play themes, explore metaphors, deepen somatic tracking skills, and reflect on self-of-the-therapist awareness.
Prefer to learn by observing? You’ll have the chance to watch 24 live play sessions throughout the week, gaining invaluable insight into the process as it unfolds.
Objectives of this training:
1. Participants will be able to identify and differentiate at least three behavioral and/or somatic indicators for each of the following states: fight, flight, freeze, and dissociation, as observed in the playroom.
2. Participants will be able to demonstrate at least one developmentally appropriate play-based intervention matched to each nervous system state (fight, flight, freeze, and dissociation) during playroom interactions or role-play.
3. Participants will be able to describe how children use symbolic play and metaphor to express and process traumatic experiences and analyze at least two examples from the intensive, linking play themes to underlying affective and/or somatic states.
4. Participants will implement at least three of the five Somatic Experiential Play Therapy (SEPT) responses during supervised sessions and justify their intervention choices by articulating the child’s observed cues (e.g., body language, metaphorical themes, emotional expression) and intended regulatory outcomes.
5. Participants will be able to select and adapt at least two regulation-focused interventions in response to shifts in arousal, as demonstrated by real-time modification of their therapeutic approach during play sessions.
Whether you’re in the playroom or observing closely, this training offers a truly immersive, transformational experience that will sharpen your skills, expand your confidence, and forever change the way you practice play therapy.
Join SEPT Trainer Sara Werner live, in Killeen, Texas!
Learning Objectives:
List at least 3 underlying tenets of Child Directed Play Therapy
Name at least 3 skills you have learned for interpreting therapeutic metaphor during play therapy
Identify and list at least 5 various responses to use with a child during a play therapy session
Describe the autonomic nervous system’s fight/flight/freeze responses.
Identify at least 3 somatic cues that will alert a therapist that a child is experiencing a fight or flight or freeze response during a play therapy session.
Name 2 interventions through play when a fight/flight/freeze response has been identified.
Describe the differences between therapeutic working play and typical developmental play.
List at least 3 play based responses to a child who is using aggressive play in the play room.
Describe at least 2 differences between child directed play therapy and experiential play therapy.
Describe 5 common themes in children’s therapeutic work and play.
Join Sara Werner, MA, LP, LPC, RPT-S, SEP live in Texas!
This training offers 8 APT-approved CE hours and 24 Supervision Hours
Somatic Experiential Play Therapy Training Center, Approved Provider #16 -465, maintains responsibility for this program and its content