Theresa Kestly, Ph.D. is a psychologist, educator, consultant, and a registered play therapist/supervisor. She is an international presenter, and she maintains a private practice with specialties in play therapy and sand tray therapy in Corrales, New Mexico. She works with children, adults, families, couples and small groups. Theresa is a former senior staff psychologist at the Albuquerque Family and Child Guidance Center where she supervised psychology, counseling and psychiatry trainees as an adjunct faculty member of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Theresa was founding president of the New Mexico Association for Play Therapy, and is the founder and director of the Sand Tray Training Institute of New Mexico where she provides on-going training for psychotherapists in child and adult sand tray therapy.She is currently preparing a book onthe neuroscience of play therapy.

Bonnie Badenoch, Ph.D., LMFT is an in-the-trenches therapist, supervisor, teacher, and author who has spent the last seven years integrating the discoveries of neuroscience into the art of therapy.She co-founded the nonprofit agency, Nurturing the Heart with the Brain in Mind (Portland, OR) and was founder and former executive director of Center for Hope and Healing (Irvine, CA) for 17 years.Her work as a therapist has focused on helping trauma survivors and those with significant attachment wounds reshape their neural landscape to support a life of meaning and resilience.She has been a mentor/supervisor of marriage and family therapist interns for two decades.Bonnie currently teaches at Portland State University in the Interpersonal Neurobiology certificate program, and speaks internationally about applying IPNB principles. She is author of Being a Brain-Wise Therapist: A Practical Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology and The Brain-Savvy Therapist’s Workbook.

Content of Presentation

How does understanding the brain's developmental processes help us engage the play circuitry in the children and adolescent clients we see? How might interpersonal neurobiology inform our understanding of the play therapy relationship and the process of behavioral change? How can these perspectives increase our stability and compassion, leading to greater ease with our young ones? In this workshop, we will keep these questions in mind as we plunge into the verbal and nonverbal aspects of working with clay and miniatures. Seeking to engage both our right and left hemispheres, we will offer ideas and experiences that can assist us in learning how to apply the new brain science in the practice of play therapy. We will explore mindfulness, the development and repair of attachment, implicit and explicit memory, and the many ways we may collaborate with the brain’s natural healing processes. In addition, we will offer ways of sharing this information to engage parents, school administrators, and others. By the end of the day, you will have many practical suggestions for integrating brain science into the flow of play.

Learning Objectives

• Describe basic brain structure and function as well as the processes of early brain development as they apply to play therapy.
• Apply the understanding of implicit, explicit, and autobiographical memory with children, teens, and parents.
• Understand and describe the autonomic nervous system and the seven motivational energies in the limbic system.
• Understand how to use miniatures and clay to foster neuroplasticity through play therapy and other therapeutic modalities.
• Learn how to integrate mindfulness into the practice of play therapy.

April 13th

***NOTE Location is at Sheraton Alb. Airport Hotel

Pre-Conference

Group Play Therapy Approaches and Techniques for Office and School Use Training Objectives

Registration: 1:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Workshop:    2:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.

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Honoring Cultural Diversity in the Playroom

April 14th

***NOTE Location is at UNM Gold Course

Conference                                             

Play Therapy with the Brain in Mind  

Registration: 8:00 a.m. – 8:45 a.m.

Continential Breakfast

Presentation: 8:45 a.m. – 10:15 a.m.

Presentation: 10:30 a.m - 12:00 p.m.

BREAK - Lunch on your own.

Presentation: 1:30 p.m - 3:00 p.m.

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Presentation: 3:00 p.m - 5:00 p.m.