Master Class: Enter the Metaphorical Journey: Inquiry Skills for Play Therapists

Join us and stay “out of the way” of inadvertently leading and deciding what an expressive product “means”. Until the client tells you what it means – you will not understand the material in front of you.

This 6-hour masterclass is for Play Therapy practitioners who use expressive arts, projective activities and sandplay with their clients. Inquiry is an essential skill for practitioners who work with various metaphors represented in art, clay, sand and other materials. This play therapy training program will introduce the play therapist to an array of questions that may be utilized when engaging with children, youth and adults during an exploration phase of an expressive-based activity. Through inquiry skills training, therapists will be encouraged to “stay out of the way” of interpretation and instead assist the client in exploring their scene or product while remaining in the metaphor.

By asking questions in a particular way, children and youth are facilitated to share what they project into their own products. Following the inquiry approach, a deeper story emerges, and therapists are invited into their clients' inner landscapes. It is often difficult for therapists to gain a sense of meaning or context when working with expressive materials, but by using inquiry skills meaning-making is made more apparent by the child client. Margaret Lowenfeld strongly believed in not anchoring a child’s sand world by making assumptions and naming things before the child named them. The inquiry skills training follows this principle as well as the non-directive guidelines of not asking direct questions led by the therapist’s thoughts and views.

Play therapy participants will have the opportunity to create their own expressive product(s) and work with a partner to practice several inquiries. Until you experience what it is like for you to truly enter a drawing or sand scene, it is difficult to understand the power of being with a skilled inquirer. In pairs and small groups, therapists will explore the power of assisting clients to journey through their personal expressions. Play therapists will also learn how to weave from one part of an art product or sand scene to another. Masterclass participants will make use of the Inquiry Skills Manual and try out atypical questions.

The Focus of the Program is to:

  • Help you to “stay out of the way” of interpretation
  • Show you ways to examine scenes or product with your clients while remaining in the metaphor
  • Explore working with various metaphors represented in art, clay, sand and other materials
  • Offer an opportunity to practice using questions provided in the inquiry skills manual
  • Practice “weaving skills” where you move from one part of the product to another
  • Practice gathering important content and organizing it into a case note

Course Objectives

  1. Explain the purpose of using non-directive exploratory questions with clients
  2. List at lease 5 types of Inquiry questions
  3. Discuss the difference between leading and non-leading questions when assisting a client to explore their expressive products
  4. Demonstrate the ability to follow the client’s lead when choosing what question to ask next
  5. Explain what it means to impose meaning on clients’ expressive products and how this changes the course of treatment
  6. Explain what it means to “weave” when doing inquiring about an expressive product with a client

Cost: $350 +GST