Play-Based & Creative Therapies

What Is Play-Based Therapy?

Play is one of the ways humans naturally learn, communicate, experiment, connect, and make sense of experiences.

In therapy, play-based interventions intentionally use those processes to help clients explore what's happening internally without relying entirely on direct conversation.

That might look like creating something, playing a game, using fictional characters to explore a situation, practicing coping skills through an activity, or finding a metaphor that makes an overwhelming experience easier to understand.

There is no single way it has to look.

Explore

Creative activities can provide a little distance from difficult thoughts, emotions, or experiences, making them easier to approach.

Practice

Games and interactive activities can create opportunities to practice regulation, communication, problem-solving, flexibility, and coping skills in real time.

Play can make therapy feel less formal and create another pathway for building trust, curiosity, and connection.

Connect

Play Isn't Just for Little Kids

You do not have to be six years old to benefit from play.

Play, creativity, imagination, humor, games, and storytelling continue to serve important roles throughout adolescence and adulthood.

For teens and young adults especially, a creative approach can make therapy feel less like being interviewed and more like actually doing something together.

A session might involve a card game while we talk, drawing out a problem instead of describing it, creating a character that represents part of an experience, using media or fictional worlds as metaphors, or turning a coping skill into something you can actually practice instead of another worksheet you never look at again.

There is also no expectation that every session needs to include an activity. Sometimes we play. Sometimes we create. Sometimes we talk. Usually, we follow what helps.

Who Might Benefit?

Play-based and creative interventions may be especially helpful for people who:

• Have trouble putting emotions or experiences into words

• Feel uncomfortable with highly formal or clinical therapy

• Learn best through doing rather than only talking

• Experience anxiety, depression, trauma, or overwhelming emotions

• Are neurodivergent or benefit from flexible ways of communicating

• Feel pressured when asked direct questions about difficult topics

• Enjoy games, art, storytelling, imagination, or creative expression

• Are teens or young adults who are thoroughly unimpressed by the idea of another worksheet

You don't have to consider yourself artistic, imaginative, or "good at games." There isn't anything here to be good at.

What Could a Session Actually Look Like?

Your sessions are shaped around you, your goals, your interests, and what feels useful. We might use:

Games
Board games, card games, collaborative challenges, or adapted games that give us opportunities to explore emotions, relationships, decision-making, frustration tolerance, communication, and coping.

Art & Creative Expression
Drawing, visual mapping, collage, character creation, writing, or other creative approaches that help make internal experiences more visible.

Storytelling & Metaphor
Sometimes it is much easier to understand a dragon, video-game boss, character arc, or imaginary world than it is to start with, "Tell me about your trauma." Metaphor can give us a safer place to begin.

Movement & Interactive Activities
Therapy doesn't require sitting perfectly still. Movement, hands-on activities, sensory tools, and interactive exercises can help make sessions more engaging and accessible.

Skill-Building Through Play
We can practice coping, emotional regulation, problem-solving, communication, boundaries, and other skills through experiences rather than simply talking about how they're supposed to work.

Especially for Neurodivergent Clients

Traditional therapy can place a surprising number of demands on someone.

Sit still. Maintain conversation. Identify exactly what you're feeling. Explain why you're feeling it. Make eye contact. Answer abstract questions. Do all of that while talking to another person about something vulnerable.

For some autistic, ADHD, and otherwise neurodivergent clients, adding play, movement, interests, visuals, activities, or something to do with our hands can reduce some of those demands.

Neurodivergent-affirming therapy doesn't mean teaching someone to appear more neurotypical.

Instead, we can explore what helps you regulate, communicate, understand yourself, navigate your environment, and build a life that works more effectively with your brain.

Play Can Be Serious

I don't use activities simply because they're "therapeutic." I want them to have a reason.

We'll talk about what works for you, what doesn't, and what you actually want from therapy.

If something feels childish, awkward, inaccessible, boring, or simply not like you, we can try something else. You are allowed to have opinions about your own therapy. In fact, I encourage it.

A Collaborative Approach

Using play doesn't mean avoiding difficult things. Play-based therapy can create ways to explore grief, trauma, identity, rejection, anxiety, relationships, anger, self-esteem, family experiences, and other deeply meaningful parts of someone's life.

Sometimes approaching something indirectly is what finally makes it possible to approach at all. And sometimes therapy needs room for joy, curiosity, silliness, imagination, and connection alongside the difficult parts. Both can belong here.

Play-Based Therapy Through Telehealth

Creative therapy can work surprisingly well online.

Sessions may incorporate things you already have around you, digital games or activities, drawing and shared visual tools, objects from your environment, storytelling, collaborative exercises, and other interactive approaches.

For some clients, telehealth even provides an advantage: you get to participate from your own environment, with your own comfort items, sensory supports, pets, hobbies, games, and interests nearby.

Ascension Point Behavioral Health currently provides online counseling to eligible clients located in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Meet Carson

I'm Carson Eckard, LPC, NCC, a queer and transgender therapist who works with teens and adults navigating trauma, anxiety, depression, identity, neurodivergence, relationships, and life transitions.

My approach blends traditional counseling with play, creativity, humor, metaphor, mindfulness, CBT, DBT-informed skills, trauma-informed care, and other approaches depending on the person sitting across from me.

I don't believe meaningful therapy has to look serious every second in order to do serious work. Sometimes growth happens through a hard conversation. Sometimes it happens while we're laughing over a terrible card draw. Both count.

Therapy can look different here.

You don't need to be great at talking about your feelings.

You don't need to sit perfectly still.

You don't need to know exactly what you want to say before you arrive. We can find another way in.

Play-based and creative online therapy for all ages in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Ascension Point Behavioral Health

Your journey, lifted.

hello@ascensionpointbh.com

(267) 291.4540

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Please note that all content on this website is not to be interpreted as therapeutic advice or a replacement for seeking professional support.