How does Play Therapy Help Young Clients Experiencing Depression?

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When parents ask for support in how to tell their child they will be visiting a therapist, my easy explanation typically works: “A Play Therapist helps kids when their feelings get too big. Sometimes kid’s mad gets too big and it causes problems for the kid and the people around them.  Sometimes a kid’s sad gets too big and it feels too hard for the kid to move around with all that sadness. And sometimes a kid’s scared gets too big and the kid needs help feeling safe. Therapists help kids shrink big feelings so they can get back to being a kid.” Learn More...

Does My Child Need Therapy?

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Does My Child Need Therapy?

Parents seek out our services for several reasons. Sometimes parents know that a big family change or stressor is in the child’s future and they want to proactively provide their child with a resource (a trusted therapist) which will help them through that transition. For these parents, helping and encouraging their children to manage the emotions related to that transition/change in healthy ways is their priority.  Other times, parents are concerned or worried about an event that has already happened. A traumatic event or social stressor has impacted their child and they want to provide their child with a healthy outlet to cope. Most often, parents have observed a change in their child’s behavior or the way their child is interacting with others and are seeking to understand how to help them and resolve that problem. Learn More...

Limiting the Overwhelm of Parents: Making Therapy More Accessible to Children and Teens at School

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As parents, we want our kids to be happy and healthy. Oftentimes this means running them all over town for various events and appointments – wellness visits, sick visits, tutoring, dentist appointments, lessons, sports activities, vision tests, club events…and the list goes on and on.  While their happiness and success is a priority, what happens when crises arise which add to the already over-scheduled family schedule? When our children experience mental health symptoms and concerns, this moves up quickly on the priority list of weekly commitments. Parents who are already burning up the road with mileage then try to find more time in the day to fit in one more (very important) therapy visit. Learn More...

Is This Normal? When Should I Seek Help for My Child?

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By Erica R. Myers, LPCC-S, RPT-S Clinical Director Creative Family Counseling

Mental illness can begin at any age and affects everyone – regardless of socioeconomic status, background, or upbringing. It is essential to recognize that the onset of mental illness is typically during childhood and the teenage years, meaning parents must be educated on the potential signs and risks. While mental illness can be scary, it is highly treatable. Those who seek early treatment for their child can find fantastic outcomes in therapy. Learn More...

Back to School: What to expect from your child and how you can provide them support

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For many parents, the return of children back to school is a mixture of relief and stress.  We feel stressed because there’s a lot of prep work for the return to school and there is also a sense of relief when we can all get back to a set routine and schedule. 

Leading up to the first day of school for your kids, you may notice feelings of concern, fear, and nervousness or even anger and irritability.   Learn More...

Back to School: Time for a New Routine Chart

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If your family has had a relaxed scheduled this summer, you may find that it’s time to get back into a routine to prepare for your back-to-school schedule! This afternoon my elementary-aged child and I created a new Routine Chart. Routine Charts are a positive parenting tool that can help streamline a routine or process, help your child increase their autonomy and skills and releases you of the nagging for all that has to be done! Instead of asking quick-fire questions in the morning about all their morning tasks, you can simply ask, “Have you completed your morning routine?” Learn More...

What’s the Difference Between Mental, Emotional and Behavioral Health?

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Depending on the professional with whom you speak, mental health can sometimes be referred to as emotional health or behavioral health. To me, they’re all the same. It’s hard to differentiate our cognitions (mental) from our emotions and our reactions (behaviors) because they are all interconnected and influence one another. What is happening in our environment impacts the way we think about ourselves and our surroundings, influences how we feel both physically and emotionally, and therefore causes us to react in our behavior.  While emotions can oftentimes be recognized through non-verbal communication, we cannot read one another’s minds, and yet, the behaviors of children are oftentimes what gets the grownup’s attention.  Challenging behaviors are usually why parents call us for support. Learn More...

Creating a Summer Schedule for Your Family

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As the school-year ends, many families embrace a slower schedule, or lack thereof. Taking a break from the busy school schedule is well-deserved, but if you’re like my family, some structure and routine to the day can keep things interesting when day in and day out at home can seem boring after a while.

A summer schedule can also help set some boundaries around use of technology, which research shows is correlated to poor academic performance and higher mental and emotional health symptoms. And at least at my house, the more screen time there is, the more outbursts we have, which tells me their brains need less of it!  If you want to include technology time in your summer schedule, you could designate a limited amount somewhere throughout the day. Learn More...

Why is There a Sandbox in Your Office?

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It is International Play Therapy Week!  As a practice who provides play therapy for many of our clients, I thought it would be helpful to illustrate one of the interventions we regularly use in our offices with child, teen, and even some adult clients.

In most of our offices, we have a sand tray.  In play therapy, sand trays are used most often with a collection of small figures.  These small figures range from animals, humans, buildings, landscape, and other day to day items, which are all used within the sand tray.  Without geeking out and getting too far into Play Therapy Theory on you, I’ll just summarize that there are many ways a therapist who provides play therapy can utilize sand and miniature figures.  In both Sandtray Therapy and Sand Play Therapy, therapists provide access to a sand tray and miniatures to allow the client to create scenes in the tray.  Sometimes, depending on the client and the focus of the session, the scene completion is the intervention itself.  Other times, the scene may turn into an evolving story which is played through while the Therapist observes or even participates if the client invites them to do so.  Sometimes clients explain their sandtrays and other times they do not.  Use of sandtrays in therapy can be a powerful intervention for people at various ages. Learn More...

Creative Family Counseling Prospect

Creative Family Counseling, A Children’s Therapy Practice in Louisville, Kentucky, Expands with Growth in Both Clientele and Business Following COVID-19 Pandemic

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When Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Registered Play Therapist Lacey Ryan opened the doors of Creative Family Counseling in Louisville, Kentucky in 2019, keeping those same doors open through a pandemic was not in her five-year plan. However, that’s exactly where Ryan, the Founding Director of Creative Family Counseling, found herself in the early months of 2020 as COVID-19 started to make its way into the lives of Louisvillians across the city including her staff members’ and patients’. While plenty of businesses were forced to close their doors over the last year and a half, Creative Family Counseling has done the opposite. After a period where Ryan and her team worked together to realign their business approach to meet the new normal that included telehealth and social distancing, the practice continued to offer therapeutic services throughout the pandemic. And now, 18 months later, Creative Family Counseling is preparing to open a second office location in Prospect, Kentucky as the team of therapists and the list of specialties and services offered continues to grow. Learn More...