Play brings lightness into our lives as well as having long term therapeutic benefits.

Recent research in US with soldiers and others suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder has shown that play is “a powerful expressive approach to trauma counselling that provides pathways to accessing and expressing internal experiences, especially with individuals who have become stuck in talk therapy and other traditional methods (Baggerley, 2005; Gil, 2006;  Webber and Mascari, 2008). The multisensory process facilitates access to traumatic memories and gives voice to unspeakable events” Jane Webber, New Jersey City University and J Barry Mascari, Kean University.

So, if drugs aren't working (or you choose not to take them) and talking isn't helping, why not try play?

“Fragments of traumatic memory are lodged in the brain separated from the part that gives words to the story” van der Kolk, 1995, as in flashbacks. Playing allows the pieces of story to come back together without the need for verbalisation. Once the story has coherence many of the most disturbing symptoms of severe stress cease and play methods can be used to facilitate the work of healing.

Playing helps you put yourself and your story back together without the need for words.

Because of the way it works we stop going over and over specific memroies or parts of memories this happens because when something is just too much for us, our brain splits it into pieces.

It's once the memory is in pieces that it begins this endless circling. To stop this we need to be able to put it in its own place, to see where it fits within the story of our lives.

Play allows this to happen totally naturally but more than that, it enables us to create ourselves and our story anew.