Counseling
Play Therapy
for Adults
Hi, I'm Jess (they/them), an LPCC based in Longmont, CO. I offer trauma-informed and LGBTQ- and neurodiversity-affirming play therapy for adults.
I believe in the healing power of play. I love working with people who don't fit into the traditional set up of talk therapy, who are looking for something different, and want to bring their whole self into a therapy space.
Although play is often undervalued and viewed as childish, I've witnessed how play can be a transformative force.
Play is generally a present-moment, embodied and regulating activity. Within the therapeutic context, play allows people to engage with their habitual patterns and form new ones.
I love doing play therapy because play can be a liberating experience and reconnect us to our inherent goodness.
You might find play therapy supportive if you resonate with any of the following statements:
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You find the implicit expectations of traditional talk therapy stifling
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You are looking for a right-brain experience and/or you like communicating in analogies, metaphors, and dreams
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You are interested in inner-child healing or have experienced developmental trauma
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You are hoping to move away from intellectualizing and into a more embodied and joyful experience
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You are neurodivergent and seeking therapy that supports your unique way of being in the world
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You want to have some fun on your healing journey
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You just want to try something different
The Power of Play
From The Interpersonal Neurobiology of Play, by Theresa A. Kestly:
"Play that occurs in a safe and supportive interpersonal environment allows us to temporarily suspend reality enough that we are better able to look at our life situations in a new way.
Playing in the presence of another--partly by directly involving the body and partly because of the support provided--allows issues that are often out of sight, in our right hemispheres (stored as emotions, bodily feelings, patterns of actions, and perceptions), to bubble to the surface, where we can experience them directly enough to arrange and rearrange them playfully in different patterns.
It is "just play," after all, and that, coupled with the caring eyes of another, gives us the safety and the courage we need to look at the painful issues, in the symbolic language of play, and to dare to experience them in different ways.
Playing within relationship creates safety automatically, for the most part, and safety is the first requirement for therapeutic change or for any long-lasting learning to occur."