PLAY THERAPY AND CREATIVE ARTS SUPPORT FOR CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS

I welcome the child or adolescent in a playful and creative space that is reassuring because it is their familiar world. It also establishes a reassuring psychological distance between oneself and one's "problem."

A wide choice of age- and developmentally appropriate creative means are available, allowing everyone to find the projective material that suits them and stimulates their self-expression. It is also suitable for nonverbal communication when words are missing.

Play therapy differs from regular play in that the therapist attends to what the child is communicating through what they do or play. I enter into the play to interact with the child, to encourage them to control and manage their emotions in a constructive way, to explore options and replay possibilities. This experience is a process, which respects the child’s rhythm and defenses. I make sure to welcome everything that needs to be expressed, without censorship or judgment. Play therapy is based on the belief that children are able, from an early age, to make choices and take responsibility for their emotions, behaviors, and personal attitude towards life's difficulties.

My goal is for the therapeutic process to allow the child to become aware of their resources, to regain control over their life, serenity, and positive self-image. And that this reverberates onto his social and family life, as well as on his academic performances. 

Benefits

• Succeed in becoming more responsible for one's attitude and develop better strategies to manage one's behavior;
• Experience new and creative solutions to problems;
• Develop respect and acceptance of oneself and others;
• Learn how to express emotions appropriately;
• Cultivate empathy and respect for the thoughts and feelings of others;
• Acquire new social and interpersonal skills; 
• Improve self-confidence; 
• Build capacities that allow them to be in a better place in family or society.

An initial interview between the child's caregiver and the therapist will attune the therapist  to the child's individual needs.

The therapeutic sessions for children (from 3 years old) and adolescents take place in Lausanne or Geneva.

PARENT-CHILD THERAPEUTIC SUPPORT

Parent-Child Therapeutic Support

Known under the names Theraplay®, Filial therapy, or Child-Parent Relationship therapy (CPRT), this therapeutic support invites the parent to actively participate in sessions with their child, supported with the guidance of the therapist.

 

The parent-child approach is especially recommended during the early childhood period, when verbal language is still developing and it is difficult to address your child’s blockages.

 

However, it can also be indicated for older children or even adolescents when it is necessary to repair the parent-child relationship.

The approach actively involves parents in sessions with their child to fine-tune the parent-child relationship.

Under the therapist’s caring guidance, parents are initiated in playfully addressing their children’s problems.

The emphasis is on attunement, shared pleasure, and co-regulation of affects, so that the child comes to see themselves in the mirror of their parents' eyes as lovable, capable, and valued.

Benefits

• Reinforce attachment;
• Increase self-regulation;
• Promote mutual trust;
• Repair relationship breakdowns and encourage healthy attachment;
• Overcome discipline impasses.

Grief and Bereavement Support for Children and Adolescents

Grief and Bereavement Support for Children and Adolescents

When one person in the family dies, children are deeply affected, just as much as adults, but in different ways according to their age, their emotional and their intellectual development. Children who experience their parents’ sadness will be reluctant to ask questions or to tell them that they didn't fully understand what happened or what they were told. They will seek to “protect their parents and show them that they are okay, hiding their own distress” (Accompagner l’enfant en deuil, 2015-translated by R.Chopard). 

The therapist will offer a supportive presence in a safe space that allows the child to share what happened and their resonances. Emotions and existential questions will be acknowledged and treated. The personal grief process will be honored.

Everyone will have the opportunity to take action as needed: finding a meaningful ritual, gathering memories, recalling what gives life meaning, regaining trust in life.

The therapist will support the child or adolescent individually, in sibling groups, or as a family, as needed. Sometimes a small peer group approach may be proposed.

Benefits

• Be able to talk about the death, it’s circumstances, what was experienced;
• Address questions that are still open;
• Share emotions and regrets;
• Find the meaningful symbolic gestures or the rituals that allow to take care of what needs to be taken care of;
• Give a place to memories and connection to the absent person;
• Encourage personal resources that allow to reinvest constructively in life.

An initial interview between the child's caregiver and the therapist will take into account the child’s individual needs and the family’s needs.

The therapy sessions can take place either in Lausanne or Geneva.

Cancer and Medical Illness Support

When a loved one is seriously ill, children's lives are turned upside down.

Separations due to hospitalizations, treatments that have side effects, physical changes in the sick person make the child feel insecure and worried. Parents want to protect their child(ren) and may be concerned how to talk to their child(ren) about the illness and answer questions without increasing their distress. Daily life becomes impacted and often needs to be reorganized. Children should be helped to understand what is happening so they can overcome their feelings of insecurity, without somatizing their symptoms and disinvesting in their daily activities or school.

Being able to benefit from a neutral and caring space in the face of these trials is supportive for the family. The therapist will facilitate family communication, welcome emotional ups and downs, and help family members stay invested in life. She will also be attentive to the changes that the family system is facing and will provide information on the assistance available.

Benefits

• Facilitate the discussion regarding the illness;
• Give clear and age-appropriate medical information to the children as necessary;
• Be open to address existential questions;
• Allow and normalize the sharing of anxieties or ambivalent emotions present;
• Experience ways to self-regulate anxieties, overwhelming emotions and destress;
• Bring to the child’s consciousness his unique resources;
• Regain mastery and positive energies for everyday life.

An initial interview with the child's referent will allow the therapist to take into account the individual needs of the child and his or her family. 

The therapy sessions take place either in Lausanne or in Geneva.

Creative relaxation sessions for children or adolescents

I use creative approaches promoting relaxation, inspired by evolutionary relaxation (Relaxation Evolutive - Geneviève Manent). Evolutionary relaxation uses all the major known relaxation methods that apply to children and adolescents (cf. sophrology, yoga for children, mindfulness, visualizations, etc.) because each of them is valuable and acts on one level or another of the being, thus multiplying the possibilities of meeting the child’s needs in an astute, efficient, and individualized way.

I also offer relaxation sessions using Tibetan singing bowls according to Peter Hess’s approach. Singing bowls are often experienced as very relaxing by children and adolescents. The “massage” provoked by the bowl’s vibrations is soothing. The body is re-energized and softly achieves harmony, promoting neurosensory and psychological wellbeing. Furthermore, the approach stimulates concentration and creativity. Relaxation with singing bowls is especially indicated for young people prone to anxiety, stress, nervousness, agitation, or with a concentration deficit. It is also popular simply because it promotes harmony and inner balance.

An initial parental consultation is proposed to determine the child or adolescent’s needs and to choose the most appropriate type of support.

Benefits

• De-stress when there are too many pressures (school, family, or other);
• Calm anxieties;
• Discover resources to regulate emotions, anxieties, sleep problems, or other tensions;
• Refocus and gain the capacity to find your inner calm in daily life.

Relaxation sessions are available in Lausanne or Geneva.

Supervision

I was trained in Creative Supervision by the Academy for Play and Child Psychotherapy (APAC-UK), as well as in Supervision in Art Therapy and Artistic Mediation at the School of Social Work and Health in Lausanne (HETSL-CH).

Taking time for self-care is vital to unburden, to find creative inspiration, to stay passionate, and to offer safe holding and support to one’s clients.

The creative supervision I offer encourages the supervisee to take distance and reflect on their clinical practice. Through the use of metaphorical objects, projective techniques or images, the supervisee will be encouraged to view themselves or the problematic situations encountered from a different perspective.

They will actively experiment and search for creative ways to be in a better place for themselves and find inspirations for further taking good care of children and adolescents.

Benefits

• Allow time to reflect on one’s self and one’s practice;
• Share feelings, thoughts and questions in a confidential space; 
• Develop competencies for analyzing situations and supporting children or adolescents;
• Deepen congruency with self and in line with one’s theoretical references;
• Research/experience creative ways to meet the child or adolescent’s individualized needs in their particular context;
• Ensure that a safe ethical and professional posture is maintained.

I mainly supervise trainees in play therapy and creative arts, and professional play therapists or art therapists working with children or adolescents.

Supervision can be done in French, German, or English.

It takes place either in Lausanne or in Geneva.

Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy is an active, creative, and multisensory process in which a profound exploration of your needs and resources will help you make changes in your life. Through exchanges and experiential activities encouraged in and between sessions, the goal is to create greater balance in your life.

Together, we will construct a personal approach to address your worries and concerns based on systemic, Adlerian, cognitive-behavioral, transactional analysis, and psychological trauma theories and impact therapy. This approach can be experienced through traditional (through words) or mediated means (through play, sand, creative arts). I a ready to help you face potentially traumatic events lived punctually or accumulated through several critical incidents.

 

Benefits

• Name and confront the sources of suffering
• Take time to recognize and live emotions in total security
• Improve social relations
• Recuperate physical and psychological integrity
• Promote physical and psychological wellbeing and improve self-esteem
• Consider other perspectives and points of view
• Find meaning and a feeling of self-confidence

Crisis Intervention Psychology

To be confronted by a terror-inducing event can provoke strong reactions and emotions lasting a few days to several weeks. This confrontation with life and death is capable of cracking one’s physical and psychological integrity. Adults and children can experience the consequences of these events differently.

For adults, a structuring interview helps to review facts, thoughts, emotions, and resonances to bring order to the potentially traumatic event and construct a plan for the near future. For children and adolescents, a semi-structured intervention conducted through mediated means (play, creative arts) helps them to activate their resources and regain their footing.

Benefits

• Understand survival mechanisms and their impact on the body
• Take time to recognize and live emotions in total security
• Begin a mourning process that such an event can provoke
• Encourage effective coping strategies and stress reduction techniques
• Activate personal and social resources
• Address symptoms harmful to your health, such as flashbacks, avoidance (of associated people, places, situations) and sleep disturbances
• Find meaning and a feeling of confidence

Play Therapy and Art Therapy

Play therapy and art therapy are therapeutic approaches particularly appropriate for children and adolescents, and those who have lived through traumatic experiences, even adults. People can relieve their burdens by using objects and creative materials. One of the mediating functions of play and the creative arts is to transform unbearable images symbolically into more positive ones.

In a specially designed play space, symbolic expression allows the person to regain their footing. Play therapy offers an alternative means of communication when using words is not easy or possible. Art, sand, and music become metaphorical vehicles for the person’s experience.

Benefits

• Engage in a global and holistic approach
• Take distance from intense emotions and learn to manage them differently
• Find other means of communication
• Recuperate physical and psychological integrity
• Improve social relations
• Promote physical and psychological wellbeing and increase self-esteem
• Support creative potential and intrinsic values (morals and/or spiritual)
• Develop a sense of control, security, and greater autonomy

Psychotherapy Supervision

Sarah Stauffer offers her 20+ years of experience in service to psychotherapists-in-training to help them according to a developmental approach (Goodyear & Brown) that targets their theoretical and practical needs. She shares her knowledge and skills through the use of props and activities germane to systemic psychotherapy (storytelling, genogram, metaphors, etc) through creative vehicles of expression for conceptualization through images, sand, and other art-therapy materials (drawings, paints, clay).

Although Sarah Stauffer is recognized as a systemic psychotherapist in Switzerland, she is also educated and experienced in Aderian (Adler; Dreikurs, Kottman) therapies, cognitive-behavioral therapies (Beck; Ellis), transactional analysis (Berne), and theories of psychological trauma treatment (Finkelhor; Gil; Herman; van der Kolk).

Every session will begin by defining a question to ask about the case being presented, then necessary means in terms of time and material will be at your disposal to work through resonances in total security.

Benefits

• Take advantage of a confidential space for sharing professional experiences;
• Share feelings, emotions, and thoughts;
• Allow time to reflect on one’s self and one’s practice;
• Develop competencies for analyzing situations and supporting clients (children, adolescents, adults)
• Deepen one’s use of theory and technique;
• Take perspective and hear other points of view;
• Ensure that you maintain a secure ethical and professional posture.

RNAPU Supervision

You handle situations where life, death, and physical and psychological integrity are at stake. You create and sustain a holding environment for primary and secondary survivors, as well as their loved ones, meeting their needs immediately and subsequently following a critical incident. These acts of intense caregiving can leave professionals providing psychological intervention with their own questions to ask and vicarious posttraumatic symptoms to treat.

Being qualified as a Psychologue d’urgence FSP (01.12.2012) a Spécialiste en aide psychologique d’urgence RNAPU (16.03.2021), I propose supervision sessions for professionals practicing crisis intervention (critical incident psychologists; Pairs from other professions trained in psychological debriefing, for ex., police officers, fire fighters, ambulance paramedics), as well as psychologists-in-training who are seeking their credentials in this field.

We will examine immediate and post-immediate interventions with particular attention paid to your questions, the people assisted and the sequence of events, the means employed or subsequently suggested, your resonances, and the lessons learned from the engagement.

Benefits

• Take advantage of a confidential space for sharing professional experiences;
• Allow time to reflect on one’s self and one’s practice;
• Share resonances, emotions, reflections
• Develop competencies for analyzing situations and supporting survivors and their loved ones (children, adolescents, adults)
• Deepen use of theory and technique;
• Take perspective and hear other points of view;
• (Re)build confidence in your ability to caregive;
• Ensure that you maintain a secure ethical and professional posture.

Parental Guidance

The goal of parental guidance is to help the parent(s) achieve a harmonious family life while respecting their role towards their child(ren). Discipline issues can be very complex and affect the entire family system.

Parental guidance is characterized by full parental involvement in improving their relationship with their child(ren) or their role in disciplining them. The therapist will share Adlerian concepts and notions of positive discipline to emphasize the need for eliciting cooperation, returning responsibility, and gaining autonomy to promote a healthier attachment and relationship.

The sessions may involve parent-child interaction in a therapeutic play context in a room specially designed for this type of service.

Benefits

• Calm interfamily relationships;
• Improve understanding of one’s child(ren);
• Consider a different perspective about what is communicated by a behavior;
• Decode the child(ren)’s needs;
• Find a parental posture and set limits;
• Discuss more constructively as a family;
• Regain confidence and legitimacy in your role as a parent.