Changing Leaves Play Therapy

30/01/2026

At the end of last year I recorded this episode of Journey of a Therapist with the wonderful Maddie Powell. It was so fun to talk about my journey and share what my work day is like.

14/12/2025

Yesterday, I attended a brilliant safeguarding training put on by PIP Solutions. Having attended Safeguarding training nearly every year of my career I was not expecting to as much new and helpful information as I did with this one.

As this one was presented specifically for play therapists it really made safeguarding even more relevant, important and eye opening for things to be aware of, look out for and another boost in my convictions when pushing safeguarding issues with parents and schools.

CPD is so important and yes sessions had to be cancelled for me to attend this training but it means your kiddos are even safer, protected understood and cared for when in my playroom.

Thank you so much to PIP SOLUTIONS for putting this training on and continuing to support play therapists to be at their best!

03/11/2025

20/05/2025

The fawn response, is an aspect of our nervous system that we utilise for our survival.

What happens is our neuroception (a clever aspect of our higher brain structure), detects threat in the environment & signals DANGER. This results in our autonomic nervous system, mobilising for threat - it may do this through fight/ flight, but another option it may use is the Fawn response. I spoke more about this in a previous post last week if you’re interested to hear more.

Quite often, and i think particularly for women, we’ve had to fawn in our environment to survive & get through tricky times. In Western culture too, woman are supposed to be in the patriarchal mould of - quiet, subservient, meek, a yes person, which really goes hand in hand with the fawn response.

So what are some ways we can change this?

It’s ALL ABOUT getting you nervous system back on your side. This might look like:

✨Tuning into & knowing your nervous system state.

✨Inhabiting your body, & listening to the messages within.

✨Developing skills to safely anchor yourself to the present moment.

✨From a place of grounded safety, being able to acknowledge your wants & needs. What I mean here is that when you are in a survival response, you need to first come back to regulation - and once we have this, we can respond rather than react.

✨Meeting yourself with compassion, particularly as this is a tricky
survival response to beat! And remember you won’t likely get it right each time. I still fall into this pattern every now & then.

If you’d like to learn more My NURTURING YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM COURSE⚡️focuses on getting to deeply know your nervous system & empowering you with the resources to move out of survival mode.
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16/05/2025