Therapy Services
Theraplay® is a child and family treatment designed to enhance attachment, self-esteem, trust in others, and joyful engagement. It is based on the natural patterns of healthy interaction between parent and child, and is personal, physical, and fun. Theraplay® interactions focus on four essential qualities found in parent–child relationships: structure, engagement, nurture, and challenge.
What it can help with:
· Strengthening parent–child relationships
· Enhancing attachment and emotional security
· Building self-esteem and confidence
· Supporting children with trauma or developmental challenges
· Improving emotional and behavioral regulation
What to expect: create an active and emotional connection between the child and parents, resulting in a change to the child’s internal working model — a shift in how the child views themselves, enhancing self-worth and enabling them to perceive themselves as lovable and capable of forming positive, rewarding relationships. Fun activities are used throughout, primarily through play-based interactions.
Various kinds of touch are essential in Theraplay® treatment. Touch is a normal, healthy part of all parent–child interaction and is very important for the healthy development of all children. Theraplay® touch is playful, engaging, and present in many of the surprising and delightful activities. It is nurturing in caregiving; organising and modulating in structuring activities; and it is used to support or guide the child during more challenging tasks.
At all times, our goal is to maintain the child’s safety and support their developmental needs.
What is Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy?
DDP is an attachment-based intervention to address complex developmental trauma and reactive attachment disorder. In particular, it is helpful for children and younger people who have experienced complex developmental trauma.
DDP explores the potential impact of current emotional and relationship functioning, which is naturally impacted and shaped by the complex developmental trauma. Through these therapeutic interactions, the hope is that it enhances the parent child relationship to one of acceptance and understanding. Allowing a parent to hold a space to accept the child, whilst also supporting and managing the child’s behaviour.
What DDP can help with:
-
DDP focuses on building strong, safe connections between children and caregivers, encouraging emotional exploration and healing.
-
Attachment difficulties relating to developmental trauma,
-
Behavioural and emotional regulation
-
Trauma recovery
-
Enhancing family relationships
-
with the support of a therapist to find strategies for emotional regulation, stress reduction and ways of coping that are more helpful.
-
help the child to build on their tolerance in relation to environmental stimuli at home, school or other spaces in the community, including relationships.
What to expect:
DDP supports dyadic (two brain - two hearts) understanding between parent and child and supports parents with their own attachment needs and triggers surrounding their traumatised child.
DDP sessions commence with parent only sessions, to gain a therapeutic alliance with the DDP practitioner, exploring the parents own attachment history and how they learnt to relate to others, explore how they were parented, and how a parent functions in a relationship and any trauma history that a child may be triggering.
Walking the path a parent is experiencing with a child is important for the practitioner to learn first before a child enters the room. This way the practitioner can hold the parents voice in the room.
DDP helps children to understand their own inner world, children will start to gain interoception and learn to understand and interpret signals from their body and their perception of internal bodily sensations. The hope is that over time a child will move from shame to being able to hold a sense of others experience and the impact behaviour has on them.
DDP Network - The home of Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy
EMDR Therapy (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing)
EMDR® is a structured, evidence-based therapy designed to help people recover from trauma and distressing life experiences, including PTSD, anxiety, depression, and panic disorders.
Unlike traditional talk therapy, EMDR focuses on helping the brain reprocess disturbing memories so they no longer feel overwhelming. It uses guided eye movements or other forms of rhythmic stimulation to help “unlock” traumatic memories and support the brain’s natural healing process.
When distressing memories remain “stuck” in the nervous system, they can continue to cause emotional pain, intrusive thoughts, or physical symptoms — sometimes years after the original event. EMDR helps desensitise these memories and reprocess them in a way that brings relief and resolution.
What can EMDR help with
-
Trauma and PTSD
-
Anxiety and panic
-
Childhood or developmental trauma
-
Grief and loss
-
Phobias
-
Low self-esteem or negative self-beliefs
-
What to expect:
EMDR sessions are safe, structured, and led at your pace. You don’t have to talk in detail about the trauma if you don’t want to — the focus is on how it’s stored in your body and mind, and helping you move through it. Over time, clients often report feeling lighter, calmer, and more in control of their emotional world.
Trauma Centre Trauma Sensitive Yoga (TCTSY) is the first yoga-based, empirically validated clinical intervention for complex trauma or chronic, treatment-resistant post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Developed originally at the Trauma Center in Brookline, Massachusetts by Dave Emerson and Jenn Turner, in collaboration with Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, Trauma Cen ter Trauma Sensitive Yoga (TCTSY) is now a program of the Center for Trauma and Embodiment, a non-profit organization dedicated to training and educating trauma-informed professionals around the world in innovative interventions for treating trauma.
TCTSY uses gentle, trauma-informed yoga practices to help participants reconnect with their body, regulate emotions, and build a sense of safety and resilience.
What it can help with:
-
Complex trauma and chronic PTSD
-
Emotional regulation and self-awareness
-
Reconnecting safely with the body
-
Reducing the physical and emotional impact of trauma
What to expect:
Sessions are safe, structured, and paced to each participant’s needs. Participants engage in gentle, guided yoga movements and breath work in a supportive environment. Over time, TCTSY can help individuals feel more grounded, emotionally regulated, and empowered in their recovery journey.