Play Therapy Weekend Four

Hi everyone

I am writing a blog post, well, I am dictating a blog post about my play therapy course over the weekend. One of the teachers on the course recommended this app called Otter to me where you dictate into it and you can e-mail it directly to yourself so this is so handy for me especially in terms of writing up notes after placement sessions for play therapy, and also for blog posts. It makes everything a lot more doable when you can work on the move!

So this weekend I had my 4th weekend of my play therapy classes and I have my final one in May. I actually really enjoyed this weekend. I found the last one tough because it was in January, it was after Christmas, it was after my first week back in school after maternity leave, it was dark, it was cold , it was a lot! The difference in this one was when I was leaving the house it was bright and when I got home it was bright and that just for that made it so much easier!

In terms of the course I’ve started my placement. I have 12 hours done out of 100 so it’s slowly getting there. We had 5 weekends in total to attend. They were in September, October,  January, March and next May. Then when that’s over we continue with our supervision every two weeks, our placement hours ,our case studies, final portfolio and assignments. All going well I should be finished my placement hours by next Christmas and my course work and everything should be all done by hopefully February or  March of next year so it’s definitely all falling into place!

 After the first weekend I went in and it was not what I was expecting at all! I rang Mom afterwards and I was like ‘what have I done’! It’s just worlds away from teaching and one of the tutors said  teachers are always like that at the start. Tutors have found that teachers find the nondirective style of play therapy difficult to get used to which was definitely the case for me!

This weekend we were learning all about the modalities of puppets and sand . I use puppets all the time in school but it was interesting to see the different ways in which they can be used in play therapy. We did loads of sand tray work and I honestly felt so relaxed after it’s like my mind went blank when I was playing with sand. That never happens to me. My mind is always going 100 miles an hour so this was quite surprising to me.  I can never do meditation,  yoga, mindfulness, visualisations, you get the idea.  Anything that requires me to sit still and not think I cannot do so this was a huge thing for me!

I feel like if I just keep chipping away at the hours , keep working on the assignments that the end is in sight and I know it will be worth it . I can’t see myself ever like leaving teaching as I’ve said before. (I get that asked that a lot) Maybe down the line I could do it part time. I am mainly doing this for when my kids are older when I’ll have more time on my hands! It is very exciting to think I could have a dual qualification of  teaching and play therapist it’s two lovely numbers I must say to go between!

Whenever I post about the weekend I get lots of questions so I am studying with APAC  through University College Cork and it is accredited through Play Therapy Ireland.

It was a busy weekend but a really nice weekend and so fun to be with like minded people and to just chat to others in the same position. I’m always a bit tired on the Monday after the course but Charlie slept through the night last night for the first time since Christmas so that was so nice! If you have any questions about play therapy just send me a message and I’ll be happy to get back to you but always do your research as well as to which course is best for you.