ABSTRACT
This chapter will detail the ways in which play therapy can help titrate clients’ exposure to difficult emotions. The use of symbols to communicate right hemisphere encodings of emotion will be explored. Interventions that foster self-reflection of emotional expression are described as well as interventions that encourage a dyad to name and hold big feelings together. Playful metaphors for helping clients baby step into awareness and expression of core emotions will be discussed, as well as ways of helping both children and their caregivers sit with their big emotions without being afraid of them. The window of tolerance concept will be revisited here as we explore dimensions of affect regulation and the power of kinesthetic involvement in mitigating a child’s approach to emotions that have previously been inaccessible.
