Meeting Clients Where They Are: Using the Language of Video Games in Adlerian Play Therapy-Online

Do you have clients who spend the majority of their free time playing video games, speaking “Videogame-ish” and conceptualizing life and relationships in terms of video games?  Even in your play therapy sessions?  Do you know what they are talking about when they tell you stories about what they are doing at home and with friends?  Can you use their concepts and language to understand and communicate with them in your play therapy sessions?  Or are you sitting in your play therapy sessions, feeling as though they are speaking in a foreign language, thinking in unknown concepts, doing things you have no possibility of understanding?

Video games are here to stay. We play therapists can ignore video games, or we can learn to use them in our work with clients.  Join this class to learn about the various video games that people are playing now.  We will explore vocabulary, plots, characters, relationships, and themes from the video games that are currently popular with clients across the life span.  Then we will practice using the vocabulary, concepts, characters, and themes in building relationships and designing therapeutic metaphors and interventions in play therapy. We will also explore ways to work with parents of play therapy clients to help them set up appropriate ways to deal with their gamer children.

16 Live Webinar CE Hours.    This workshop meets APT's definition of "Live Webinar." 

APT Approved Provider 99-055

League of Extraordinary Adlerian Play Therapists (LEAPT) has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7402. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. League of Extraordinary Adlerian Play Therapists (LEAPT) is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.

Participants will be able to:

1. Describe their attitudes toward video games and the place of video games in play therapy.
2. Explain why it is important for play therapists to have some rudimentary knowledge about video games.
3. Be able to define 10 general video game vocabulary words and explain how they might use these terms in their play therapy sessions.
4. Name 3 video games that are currently popular with elementary children and might come up during play therapy sessions
5. Name 2 video games that are currently popular with middle school and high school students and might come up during play therapy sessions.
6. Name 2 video games that are currently popular with adults and might come up during play therapy sessions.
7. Explain the central metaphor of the following games that frequently come up in play therapy sessions: Minecraft, Five Nights at Freddie's, Pokemon, and Fortnite.
8. List several suggestions for parents of play therapy clients who are playing video games.
9. Describe the process of finding out about specific video games and their content and explain how to guide parents of play therapy clients to be able to find this information for themselves.
10. List the requirements for a video game having a certain rating from the ESRB and discuss how to teach parents of play therapy clients how to use the ESRB rating to decide whether to let a child play that game.
11. Describe how to use their knowledge of specific characters, plots, relationship patterns, and themes from various video games  in communicating with play therapy clients. 
12. Describe how to use their knowledge of specific characters, plots, relationship patterns, and themes from specific video games to explore clients' lifestyles in Adlerian play therapy.
13. Describe how to use their knowledge of specific characters, plots, relationship patterns, and themes from specific video games to help Adlerian play therapy clients gain insight into their lifestyles.
14. Describe and demonstrate how to use their information/knowledge about video games in designing therapeutic metaphors for play therapy clients.
15. Explain the rationale for using video game play as part of a play therapy session.
16. Explain how they could determine whether they wanted to use video game play in their play therapy sessions.