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Resources
Connect to ideas. organizations, as well as positive relational and diverse ways to develop creativity in your practice across populations. Click below to start your journey....
American Music Therapy Association
American Art Therapy Association
President Picks!
Jennifer Baker LPC RPT ACS has a few favorites she would like to share with members.
NJAPT
Play Therapy is defined by APT as “the systematic use of a theoretical model to establish an interpersonal process wherein trained Play Therapists use the therapeutic powers of play to help clients prevent or resolve psychosocial difficulties and achieve optimal growth and development.”
Play Therapy should only be provided by mental health professionals who have met the required education, licensure, and additional specialized training and supervision specific to Play Therapy.
Safe and Sound Protocol
This non-invasive intervention involves listening to music that has been processed specifically to retune the nervous system (regulating state) to introduce a sense of safety and the ability to socially engage. This allows the client to better interpret not only human speech, but, importantly, the emotional meaning of language.
Developed by Dr. Stephen Porges, the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) is a five-day auditory intervention designed to reduce stress and auditory sensitivity while enhancing social engagement and resilience.
The SSP is a research-based therapy showing significant results in just five days in the following areas:
Social and emotional difficulties
Auditory sensitivities
Anxiety and trauma related challenges
Inattention
Stressors that impact social engagement
The SAFE AND SOUND protocol activates the middle ear back to the range of frequencies that mammals use for social engagement (safety), which are at different frequency band than that which animals utilize for threat monitoring (imagine the sound of growling predator or high screech of attack).
Resetting the ear for sensitivity to these 'safety' frequencies can steer our body away from an ongoing feeling of being unsafe which can be expressed as reactive anxiety, fear, and/or anger.
In other words, by recalibrating our nervous system we may go from frequently feeling overwhelmed to being more attuned to others, able to 'listen' better to others, have more access to problem solving and calmness.
This is not a stand alone therapy but is seen as a compliment to therapies being done concurrently for optimum results.
Somatic Experiencing
Somatic Experiencing Explained
Developed by Peter Levine, Somatic Experiencing (SE®) is a body–mind therapy specifically focused on healing trauma by helping clients draw their attention to their bodies.
The sensations and experiences explored are described as:
Interoceptive (i.e., internal awareness of the body)
Proprioceptive (i.e., spatial orientation of the body)
Kinesthetic (i.e., movements of the body; Payne, Levine, & Crane-Godreau, 2015).
Unlike other forms of trauma therapy, SE® intentionally avoids directly evoking traumatic memories and, therefore, does not focus on thoughts and feelings related to the traumatic experience.
SE® approaches these memories using the body as a gateway, exploring them gradually and indirectly by promoting more adequate, safer, and comfortable bodily experiences (Payne et al., 2015).
