02/04/2026
Learn more about play therapy as we celebrate International Play Therapy Week and meet our therapists!
What is Play Therapy?
Play therapy is a developmentally appropriate therapeutic approach for working with children, typically ages 3 to 11, that uses toys as a child's words and play as their natural language. Children often lack the verbal skills to explain complex emotions and play allows them to project their feelings, fears and experiences on toys, acting as a mirror of their inner world and experiences. Play therapy allows children to explore emotions, process traumatic experiences, develop coping mechanisms, and solve behavior problems in a safe environment with a trained professional. Play Therapy is empirically researched and has statistically sound results. For more information, visit the Association for Play Therapy at www.a4pt.org
You can also learn more under the "Children" services tab at www.ProsperCounseling.com
What is Registered Play Therapist (RPT) and what training do they have?
Unfortunately, there are a lot of counselors that work with children but lack the specialized instruction and training to do so. A Registered Play Therapist (RPT) is required to have 150 hours of specialty play therapy instruction. This is on top of having a master’s degree in counseling and meeting the state requirements of obtaining 3000 hours after graduation to become fully licensed. In addition, the RPT must complete 350 hours of direct clinical experience working with children, of which a minimum of 50 hours has to be supervised by an RPT Supervisor (RPT-S). This makes the journey to becoming an RPT a multi-year commitment!
At Prosper Counseling we have several RPTs (Dean Wisdom, Katelyn Lee, and Dr. Marcey Mettica (RPT-S) and several play therapists working toward this credential (Maddison Stahler, Lucy Harrell, Hunter Tranchina, and Cindy Chen-Wu).
How Many Registered Play Therapists (RPTs) are in Texas?
According to the international accrediting association of the Association for Play Therapy (www.a4pt.org), there are only 391 RPTs across the state of Texas, and 287 RPT-Supervisors.
