ABSTRACT
The Warm-Up stage is critical to creating safety for clients to conduct their therapeutic processing. Without the safety of the therapeutic relationship, the specific work the client needs to do cannot occur. In this chapter, the authors present the purposes of the Warm-Up stage, which are to create safety, to build trust, and to assess the client for symptoms, history and resources. The Warm Up includes the informed consent process which establishes the boundaries of the relationship, including the actions sometimes needed to keep a client safe. Authors offer sample questions to begin a session and areas to assess. In addition, authors discuss how Creative Play Therapy can utilize creative prompts even in the Warm-Up phase to further assess the client’s presenting issues and to develop trust. Ideas for prompts are given, and considerations are presented for determining if using a creative prompt will be useful in this Warm-Up phase. Ideas for creating safety between sessions are discussed.
