I believe that every child enters the world with an inner knowing — an instinctive sense of what feels right, safe, and balanced for them. It is almost like an internal compass of the heart.

This compass looks different for every child, just like their fingerprint. When children are in contact with their sense of self, they move toward what supports them and step away from what does not.

When life becomes overwhelming, confusing, or painful, children may lose connection with this inner compass. Because behaviour is the natural language of children, their distress often shows through changes in behaviour rather than words. It is usually these changes that lead parents to seek support.

Play therapy offers children a way to reconnect with their internal compass.

Through play, children can explore and make sense of what is happening in their lives in a way that feels natural and manageable. Play therapy provides hands-on, sensory-based experiences such as:

• Clay and creative materials

• Sandtray work

• Drawing and art

• Puppets

• Role play

• Projective cards
  
  

These creative processes allow children to work through challenges symbolically and imaginatively. Within the safety of the therapeutic relationship, children discover their own unique solutions — shaped by their personality, developmental stage, family environment, and lived experiences.

As Violet Oaklander describes, the intention is to strengthen the child’s sense of self:

“I work to build the child’s sense of self, to strengthen the contact functions, and to renew her own contact with her senses, body, feelings and intellect.” (Oaklander, p. 59)

Play therapy supports children in restoring contact — with their body, feelings, thoughts, and environment — so that their natural capacity for growth can unfold.

Play is not a distraction from real life — it is how children make sense of real life.

Children learn about themselves and the world through sensory engagement, imagination, movement, and relationship. Bob Hughes (2013) reminds us:

“When we see a child playing… what we are looking at is the child-like result of a deep and irresistible urge to interact with and have knowledge of the world and everything in it.” (p. 13)

This “irresistible urge” is the child’s natural drive toward contact — with people, with their environment, and with their own internal experience.

In Play therapy, this natural drive is supported within a safe, attuned therapeutic relationship. The therapy room becomes what Gestalt theory describes as the “border region” — the meeting place between the child and the world. In this protected space, children can:

• Express feelings safely

• Experiment with new responses

• Integrate difficult experiences

• Strengthen regulation

• Build confidence and resilience
  
  

Rather than directing or fixing the child, Play therapy honours the child’s developmental stage, temperament, and unique context. It trusts that, when given the right relational conditions, children move naturally toward growth and integration.

Through connection and play, children rediscover that their feelings make sense, their experiences matter, and their inner compass can once again guide them forward.

Depth Enquiry™ is a therapeutic approach designed to help young people process difficult experiences, emotions, or memories that continue to affect them. Developed by Amanda Gruhn, it combines the neurological benefits of EMDR with relational, experiential, and Gestalt-informed therapy, making it gentle, safe, and highly adaptable for adolescents.

Through Depth Enquiry™, adolescents are supported to:

• Explore and understand strong or confusing emotions

• Work through past experiences or ongoing challenges in a safe way

• Build self-awareness, resilience, and confidence

• Reduce anxiety, shame, or intrusive memories

• Strengthen their ability to respond rather than react to difficult situations

• Phobias

• Trauma and unresolved emotional patterns

• Deep‑seated negative self‑beliefs

• Anxiety, phobias, and shame responses

• Implicit memories that continue to influence reactions.

Depth Enquiry™ helps the nervous system process these experiences so they can be recalled without overwhelming emotion or automatic distress responses.

Because it is relational and grounded in Gestalt principles, Depth Enquiry™ often feels more fluid, embodied, and connected than traditional EMDR alone — and can be integrated alongside other therapeutic work when needed. 

Depth Enquiry™ is strengths-based, relational, and age-appropriate, helping adolescents develop insight, self-support, and confidence while processing experiences at a pace that feels safe for them.

If you are here, it likely means you are concerned about your child — and that care matters deeply.

Seeking therapy does not mean something is “wrong” with your child. Often, it simply means they are navigating something difficult and need additional support to process it safely.

In therapy, your child is met with warmth, curiosity, and respect. We move at their pace, building trust before working with deeper material. Play allows children to express feelings they may not yet have words for.

You remain an important part of the process. Where appropriate, we collaborate to strengthen understanding, connection, and continuity between therapy and home.

My intention is not to change who your child is, but to support them in feeling more secure, confident, and connected to themselves and to you.