Service Description

A two-day CPD course for qualified and trainee TA psychotherapists Course Overview Play is not a supplementary technique — it is a relational stance, a therapeutic medium, and for many clients, the only route into material that words cannot yet reach. This two-day course offers TA practitioners a theoretically grounded, practically rich and ethically rigorous framework for integrating play, creative methods and gaming into their clinical work. Rooted in TA theory and drawing on developmental psychology, object relations theory, and intersectional practice, the course moves participants from theoretical understanding into embodied, experiential learning. By the end of Day 2, participants will have created a character, built a shared world, navigated complex ethical terrain through the Labyrinth of Ethics, and practised contracting for creative methods with real clients in mind. Who Is This Course For? Qualified TA psychotherapists, psychotherapists in training, counsellors and psychotherapeutic counsellors from within TA and other modalities with an interest in TA and creative practice. No prior experience of gaming or role-play is required — only curiosity. What Will Be Covered Building The Foundations - Day 1 Overview: - The history of play in psychotherapy: Freud, Klein, Vygotsky, Winnicott, Panksepp - TA and play: from Berne’s Secret Garden through the Ludic Third to contemporary gaming in therapy - Transitional space (Winnicott, 1953/1971): theoretical development, clinical application, and its relationship to Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development - Explore script messages within play, using a floor-based experiential mapping - Co-creating a shared world: an embodied experience of transitional space in a group - Introduction to video games, role-playing games and online gaming as therapeutic tools - Character creation and deepening across the day – and using this to explore and reflect on own script Applying Creative Methods - Day 2 Overview: - Returning to the shared world: explicit contracting for creative group work - RPGs as therapeutic tools: the Game Master role and its parallels with the therapist - Group inventory and symbolic resourcing - Labyrinth of Ethics with Myriorama cards: navigating ethical complexity through story and image - ITAA Code of Ethical Practice applied to creative and play-based methods - Group roles and their script origins - Skills practice: contracting for play demonstrated live, then practised in pairs