Can Play Therapy Work with Teens?

Ever sit across from a teen in session, clock ticking, silence screaming… and your nervous system quietly panicking?

Yeah. This episode is for that moment.

In this week’s podcast, we’re naming the thing no one warned you about in grad school: why play therapists feel stuck with teens—and why it’s not because you’re doing it wrong.

Here’s the hard truth (said with love):

 👉 Trying harder to get teens to talk about their feelings is often the exact thing keeping them shut down.

If you’ve ever:

• Asked thoughtful, open-ended questions and gotten one-word answers
  
  
  
• Left therapy sessions wondering if you’re missing something obvious
  
  
  
• Questioned your competence because “nothing happened”
  
  
  
• Googled how to get teens to open up at 10 p.m. like an imposter
  
  
  

…pause. Breathe. You’re not failing. And they’re not resistant.

In this podcast episode, we’ll unpack what’s actually happening in the adolescent brain when teens are overwhelmed by trauma, anxiety, depression, or family stress—

and why traditional talk therapy often overloads their nervous system instead of helping it settle.

We’ll talk neuroscience (without making your eyes glaze over), development (in real-world language), and the mindset shift that changes everything:
 ✨ Stop pushing for verbal processing
 ✨ Start creating pathways for expression

You’ll learn how purposeful expressive arts—clay, art, music, sand, collage—help teens bypass cognitive overload, access safety, and express what they cannot yet put into words. 

Not because they’re immature. But because they’re human and still developing.

This is not about “playing.”

This is about working with adolescent development instead of against it.

If you’re ready to stop feeling stuck, stop blaming yourself, and start seeing teens engage in ways that actually lead to healing—come join the conversation.

Your future sessions will thank you.

Join my free Facebook Community Play and Expressive Arts Therapy Playground.

Check out my free resources for mental health professionals working with children, adolescents, and families who want to integrate play therapy and expressive arts into their clinical work.

I work with individuals and agencies to develop successful strategies and meet the treatment needs of your child and adolescent clients and their families using play therapy & expressive arts.

Contact me to schedule a free 30-minute video call if you're ready to level up your skills

Chapters

• 0:30 Intro
• 0:45 Today's topic overview
• 3:36 Can Play Therapy Work With Teens
• 5:03 Mindset Shift: Stop Pushing Teens to Talk About Feelings
• 10:53 The Neuroscience Behind Teen Shutdown
• 18:20 What to Do Instead: Expressive Arts
• 24:11 Why It Works: Therapeutic Powers of Play
• 29:33 Get the Framework: Training Plus Community Support
• 37:00 Take Your Skills to the Next Level: Play Therapy Academy
• 37:59 Outro

Transcript

Cathi Spooner: 0:02

Welcome to Next Level Play Therapy. A weekly podcast dedicated to supporting the next generation of child and adolescent therapists to provide exceptional play therapy services. We'll explore all things play therapy. To elevate your work with children and adolescents using the therapeutic powers of play. I'll discuss practical tips and ideas so you can provide a transformative experience for your young clients and make a real difference in their lives. So get ready to take your play therapy skills to the next level and make a lasting impact in the lives of children, adolescents, and families. Hey there. Welcome to this week's episode of Next Level Play Therapy. I'm Cathi Spooner. I'm a licensed clinical social worker and a registered play therapist coming up on rounding the corner to 35 years in the mental health field. And today I wanna talk about something that I think creates a lot of stress for play therapists in particular. I would also say this creates a lot of stress for any mental health professional working with adolescents, and that is what do you do when you have a teenage client sitting in your office and they're sitting on the chair or the couch, and they are not saying a word. You are trying to engage them, but they are silent or they're giving you one word answers, and then you, you're feeling stuck, overwhelmed, and possibly wondering if play therapy can actually work or if maybe you're not using play therapy, but you are a. Um, mental health professional working with teens, then maybe you're thinking they're not ready. Air quotes ready. I heard that one the other, the other day. Um, and I'll be honest, in my head I'm like, ah, you're trying to get them to talk about their feelings and it's not working. So if that sounds like you, then this episode is for you. Today's episode is really about not trying to get your clients to talk about their feelings and why, why that doesn't work. So if that sounds like it's interesting for you, then that's what we're gonna talk about today. If you're watching the live stream, feel free to join the conversation. Let us know where you're from, what population you work with, with, um, with play therapy, or maybe you're using creative arts therapy or another expressive arts modality. Pop that in the comments and let's get started for today's. So today's topic is can play therapy work with teens. This is something that comes up a lot in Play Therapy Academy. Which is my online consultation program for child and adolescent therapists who really want to learn the skills to become a play therapist. So we get into all the core competencies we get into how do you use a play therapy model and apply it through all the theoretical stages in that model. And one of the things that comes up a lot is can play therapy actually work with teenagers? Like, how do I use play therapy so it doesn't feel like I'm treating them like little kids or treating them like babies? And so that today's episode is dedicated to that because what often happens, and I hear this a lot, is that you have that teenager sitting across from you. And they're giving you one word answers or they're, or they're not even saying anything. They're just kind of pulling their hoodie over their head, or they're just sitting in the chair looking at you with that blank face, and you're thinking to yourself, oh goodness, what do I do now? I can't seem to get this client to talk. And so we're gonna talk about the neuroscience of it. I'm gonna break it down a little bit and talk about why that happens and what's actually going on with that. And then some, some tips about like, what, what's going to work more effectively? So the first thing that we're gonna talk about is why play therapists feel stuck when you're using, uh, when you're working with teenagers. And so, I know it might feel a little bit uncomfortable what I am about to say. It might. S sound counterintuitive. My first tip is stop trying to get 'em to talk about their feelings. I know you're probably thinking what, what are you talking about? We're supposed to get them to talk. That's what therapists do. We get them to talk, we get them to open up, verbalize what's going on, process a little bit, help them get some insight that's gonna get, give them some understanding of the problem that will lead them to making the change, and that's where the breakthroughs happen. And that's not actually happening though. In fact, I had this conversation with somebody that I supervise a couple months ago because we were looking at the history of a client and this client had been through two previous therapists and got nowhere. One therapist actually said this client's not ready for therapy. Um, and discharged them 'cause they weren't doing anything. And in my head I'm like, Aw. There's another way, and here's what happens. What happens when you try to get them to talk, when you try to get them to use insight and use those cognitive areas of their brain, what ends up happening is you sit across from a teenager who's not gonna talk and then you're feeling anxious 'cause you don't know what to do, or you're asking open-ended questions, you're building rapport, you're doing all the right things, and they're giving you one word answers or my favorite, which is, I don't know. I don't remember. I get that one a lot sometimes I don't remember. You know, you know the parent has said to the child with all good intention, make sure you talk to Ms. Cathi about what you did, or make sure you talk to Ms. Cathi about what happened. Make sure you tell her this or make sure you tell her that. And then they come in and they plop down on your, your couch or your chair and all the signs are I don't wanna do this. You kind of sit there watching the clock, feeling like you are failing your client and you're feeling really stuck because you don't know what to do. If that's, you know that you are not alone and we have all been there, including me, where I've gone through the internet trying to find all, like any activity that maybe is gonna help my client get this breakthrough to get them talking. How can I get them talking about what's going on and talking about their feelings, and does that sound familiar to any of you? If you are watching live, then go ahead and post in the comments, yes, or gimme that thumbs up in the comment. If you're listening on the replay, feel free to join the conversation post in the comments. I'd love to hear from you, or if you're watching on Instagram, feel free to message me or LinkedIn message me. But here's the thing that needs to happen. This is the mindset shift that we're looking at.'cause I, I get it. And we have these conversations in Play Therapy Academy. I know we'll be having these conversations in Play Therapy Elevation. Circle, which is my online play therapy membership. We do consultation in there, but it's more like community sport, um, community support and sharing ideas and staffing cases. We do a book club in there as well and give support that way. So I know that we go to graduate school and we learn all the talk therapy models when we're working with teens, so we naturally think well, it's a teenager, so I am not gonna use play therapy'cause I don't want them to feel like I'm treating them like a little kid or treating them like a baby. So I don't want to insult them 'cause that's not gonna help with therapeutic rapport and building rapport and trust and safety. So I'm gonna talk to them. I'm gonna revert back to my adult models and use adult talk therapy models. And if you are working with a teenager who's really kind of high functioning, intelligent, really solid internal resiliency and a strong sense of self. The likelihood that you can get away with that and that'll work is very high. And if you're working with adults, usually it works pretty well. But I'll be honest, it doesn't always, I've worked with plenty of adults. When I asked them about their feelings, they looked at me like, what are you talking about? Um, feelings. And, or they're like, I don't know. And they, they genuinely don't know. And I think that's the case for teenagers as well. And here's why. Teenagers are developmentally in between. They're not little kids anymore. They're not developmentally, developmentally, they're not adults. They're in that in-between transition stage and their brains are still developing. We know that the brain develops, right? If we use the hand model that we all learned from Daniel Siegel, we learn the hand model. We, we, right here at the wrist is our, our brainstem, and then in the middle is our limbic and the, right here where we have the, um, front of our fingers. If you're watching on the, on video or, um, then you'll be able to see me doing this. If you're listening to the podcast, then this is where when you make a fist and your fingers are overlapping your thumb. The fingers part in the front is your prefrontal. We know that the brain develops from back to front that those prefrontal cortex areas are the most advanced and they come online later. It could be into mid twenties, even late twenties or early thirties sometimes. But we're talking about adolescents. We're I, I would even say pre-adolescent, like let's say 10, 11, 12 year olds, the tweeners and the, the adolescents. 13, 14, 15. 16 and 17, they can access those prefrontal cortex areas a little better, but not always. If you've got a child who's got a lot of trauma or they're pretty hefty anxiety or depression, then it's pretty hard for them to access those areas when you're talking about emotional things. And so when we're talking about adolescents, we're talking about kids who are in between. Human beings who are not quite children and they're not quite adults, and their brain is developing, and those, those cognitive prefrontal cortex areas of the brain where they do their decision making. They are GA gaining insight and verbal processing and using those areas to help them regulate their emotions because they can think things through a little bit more. Those aren't fully formed yet, and so when they're emotionally overwhelmed, they literally can't access those cognitive areas of their brain that talk therapy requires because they're emotionally overwhelmed. So think about it. It's kind of so what you're asking them to do when you're asking using talk therapy to get them to talk about their feelings or talk about what happened to them, you're asking them to identify what their feelings are. Putting complex emotion words to that, reflecting on the way they feel about it, and then making those connections between emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. All while their, their emotion, their nervous system is probably in fight or flight or maybe even in shutdown mode because they're overwhelmed and that's why they're going silent. That's why they're not talking. That's why they're giving one word answers, maybe saying. I don't know. Or my favorite, which is, I don't remember. Um, maybe it's not that they're being resistant or, um, challenging or what's my other resistant is my favorite. Not really. I actually kind of banned that word. For myself, if, um, I banned it and then I, anybody I supervise, I always encourage them to ban that word resistant. I like the word reluctant because I reluctant to me is a little more, um, descriptive of what's actually going on in this session. And what I mean by that is. They're reluctant because they don't feel safe or they don't know how, or they're not quite ready because they're overloaded by what's going on emotionally for them. I can't tell you how many times over the last, almost 35 years, definitely 30 plus years, I've had, um, a reluctant adolescent sitting in my office. And they're kind of shut down. And I just focus on being with them. I just don't try to get them to talk about their feelings. And what I'll do is I'll shift my mindset to conceptualizing what is going on in that moment, in a way that, um, like the way that I conceptualize it is they're not feeling safe. Something is going on, they're overloaded. So then my, my thoughts shift to if I try to get them to talk, if I stick with tra strictly talk therapy right now that I'm not gonna get anywhere. They're gonna shut down even more. They are not going to experience my office as a safe place because their nervous system is gonna be overloaded and they're gonna be in what I call danger, danger Will Robinson Mode. Any of you? What was, oh, now I can't remember the name of that space. Oh goodness. What was the name of that show? They, they did a remake a little while ago now, and it's gonna come back to me after I'm like, later on in the day. It's an old show with the robber, uh, with the robot and it was a, the Robinson family, and they went in this space. I don't know you guys post that on there. You remember the show. And I did a remake probably back in like 2017, I think. Not as it was. Okay. Not too bad. I watched it. I enjoyed it. Anyway, danger, danger. Will Robinson danger, danger, and the robot would like kind of freak out a little bit? Well, that's the brain shutting down because it's an overload mode. And the harder we push, the more overwhelmed that they're gonna feel and they're, they're gonna shut down even more. And now I'm gonna have to do a lot of repair work to create a safety to help them actually feel safe and not make it worse. So what do we do instead? One is stop getting, trying to get them to talk about their feelings and give them way to express what's going on inside. Express their feelings. I love using expressive arts with adolescents. And truth be told I love using expressive arts with adults, especially adults who've experienced a lot of trauma because we know socially and emotionally trauma is gonna, um, delay that healthy social emotional growth. So let's say I have an adult who experienced a lot of trauma in their early childhood. And then maybe they had a stint with some substance misuse. I know that's gonna shut down growth, even social emotional growth even more. And so expressive arts can be a really effective way to bypass the cognitive areas of the brain, or I would even say bypass, trying to help them access explicit memories or explicit experiences before they're able to, and we can go right to those implicit experiences, those experiences stored away without language or those experiences that they can't quite access because they're, they're behind the wall, uh, you know, their defense wall, like back here. I have to keep this really, really safe, and I don't want anybody coming near it. So if we're thinking a little IFS here, internal family systems, we would say those protectors are alive and active, trying to protect those exiles and not able to really get to those exiles yet. So, so expressive arts can be a way to do that. Um, the tr there was a trauma model that I learned way, way back in the day, um, called, um, structured century intervention for children, adolescents, and parents for traumatized children, adolescents and parents. What I liked about this model, it was developed by, um, Steel and Rader. And one of the things William Steele talked about was this concept of, he, I think it's a term he coined, which wa I is Synchron, um, iconic synchronization. And the way he de de, um, described that is that there are things we can't really access through those cognitive areas of our brain. Yet if we, if we give those things symbolic representation. So if we use some expressive arts modalities, like this is my, my addition to what he said. So if we use clay, if we use art, if we use movement, if we use poetry. We give what's going on symbolic form. We don't have to label it yet. We don't have to describe it with those cognitive areas of our brain. We're simply giving expression through, so we're giving it symbolic form and then now it's externalized in symbolic form and now that it's out there like in the sand tray, I can't tell you how many times this has happened. I'll just say, Hey, what would that, you know, represent? What would that look like if you used the miniatures as many as view, and you put those in the sand tray? Doesn't always, um, make sense why you feel drawn to a particular miniature just kind of go with it. We'll see what happens, and I promise you it'll all be fine. However it ends up being is exactly how it ends up being. So we'll do that. They'll put them into the sand tray. When I've done this with adults, we are always getting the Kleenex box.'cause if they're feeling stuck and they're like, I don't know. And they're, they just can't access it. And the more you try, the worse it is for them. They get more overloaded. Then we go to the sandbox, or we use art, or we use some other kind of modality, uh, expressive modality, and then they put it in symbolic form, and now it's externalized. So if it's the sand tray, it's out there in the sand tray. And now, so we're accessing first and foremost those implicit avenues through the right brain creatively. And then now they're out there in the sand Tray, and now we have the ability to, to put words to it, to access the cognitive areas to explore it and make sense of it. Some kids though, just the very act of using those expressive modalities, that to me, that's how we help them access those therapeutic powers of play. So from a play therapy standpoint, the way that the Association for Play Therapy defines play therapy, which I love their definition, I use it all the time, is we use a theoretical model to help clients access the therapeutic powers of play within a strong therapeutic relationship. So that's the safe container, right? That therapeutic relationship, expressive arts, we. We can help them access those therapeutic powers of play of self-expression or access to the unconscious or what I 'cause. I love using a neuroscience and attachment lens theoretical framework. I would say access to the implicit experiences. We can do indirect teaching, we can do direct teaching, we can work on. Um, kind of titrating anxiety, like titrated exposure to the feared thing, and then use symbolic representation to do that. So. What I love about expressive arts is that it can bypass those cognitive areas where they get stuck and give them a safer way to access what's going on because they're using different parts of their brain and. They're accessing those therapeutic powers of play. And from a play therapy standpoint, it's not the talking that actually does the healing as much as it is that process. Using those ex um, those therapeutic powers of play to make sense of things and figure out what they need to do with that, they will naturally do that in a way that is healing for them, given that free and protected space. And so that's when the healing happens and that's how we, I can't tell you how many times I have seen this happen, and I have, I have talked this through with some reluctant play therapist or even maybe not necessarily play therapist.'cause I work in a variety of capacities. And so they're, they're looking at me like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think this is right. Like this, this client is like resistant to therapy or the other term we use all the time, which is they're not ready for therapy'cause they're not talking. Well this. Bypassing that, um, requirement to access areas of the brain, they're not able to access and given them another way to do that, opens up a door for them to be able to engage. And I have seen that happen over and over and over and over. And I have seen teenagers, I would even say adults be very successful doing this. I once worked with a therapist I was supervising, she was working with, uh, like a, a preteen with selective mutism. I think she worked with this client for about a year and every week this client would do sand Tray and would give one word answers for almost a year, every single week. And this client came every single week. And then when we went in and looked at the sand tray and we were looking at themes in the sand tray and making sense of those. This, this child was going deep. This child used that, those therapeutic powers of play for healing without talking it through. But you could see over time what was going on symbolically, and you could see that this client was going deep and reports from parents verified the changes that were happening in the child's life outside of the play therapy process. So I'm a firm com uh, firm believer that we need to stop trying to make preteens and teenagers talk about their feelings. They're not ready to do it. It's because they're overloaded and we can actually make it worse by trying to get them to do something they are not developmentally ready or emotionally ready to do. And there is another way to go about doing that, and that is using the therapeutic powers of play and accessing those therapeutic powers of play with expressive arts activities. And to do that, we really need to use a framework. So otherwise you just get into what I call the spaghetti against the wall uh, method where you're just like, you're not really grounded in a theoretical framework and you are just kind of trying this, that and the other. Researching all over the place, trying to figure out a, an, an activity you can use, but it's, there's no there's no real structure or framework to it. So oftentimes what will happen is you'll end up feeling lost and not sure what to do. And so that's, I do have a training coming up and I'm, I'm gonna tell you a little bit about that if you're interested. That's why I created this training play therapy with adolescents using expressive arts. And so in this training, I'm gonna kind of walk you through the neuroscience and attachment, interpersonal neurobiology, polyvagal things. We're gonna, that's our case, conceptualization. That is the lens that we're gonna use to look at it and understand what is going on. And then we're going to use an integrated integrative play therapy model grounded in that neuroscience and attachment that interpersonal neurobiology using a framework to help you apply the, not apply, that's not the right word, but using that framework to kind of structure your expressive arts activities and think about what kind of expressive art activities to use. When to use them. And then we're also, because we're play therapists, we're gonna do a bunch of experiential activities so that you can take this training and use it right away. And one of the things that I have committed to in 2026, because I'm a firm believer that the training is good, otherwise I wouldn't do them. And I take trainings. I'm actually in a training now. Um, I decided to just, timing was right. Finances were right. Everything a aligned with the right people to do it with. I am now taking, uh, EMDR training with playful EMDR. Shout out to playful EMDR'cause they'll integrate play therapy into it. Uh, but it is the MDR model 'cause uh, to me it's important do the gold standard to get it right. So, uh, so I, so I'm a believer in training. What I'm also a believer in is community, and this is where I see the magic happen in Play Therapy Academy and also now my new membership which is Play therapy Elevation Circle. So in Elevation Circle we meet once a month. We kind of put our collective heads together, staff cases, talk about specific play therapy topics to stay up to date on things. But then we're gonna take that information and how do you apply it. We also do a book club in there, staying up to date. On, you know, different important things going on in the, in the field. So right now we're reading Bonnie Bad Knocks book, being a Brainwise therapist, so applying that interpersonal neurobiology. She has a whole chapter on working with teens, using art, using sand tray. So I love that about that book. So. If you, for any of any of you who are new members, not yet members of Elevation Circle, any of you who register and, uh, take the training. So like this one is play therapy with adolescents using expressive arts. When you register for the training, you are also going to be getting access two months to Elevation Circle. Um, and the for free, if you're a new member, it'll be for free. The reason is because I wanna be able to help you apply what you've learned ongoing. You can stay, you have the option to stay on and stay as long as you want. There's no term commitment to that, and you can stay as long as you want after that as well. My hope is that you will stay and will enjoy having you in the membership. But the reason for that is I can't do, you know, like how many times? So you're like a month after the training, you're like, what did we talk about? Or what were some of those things? Or you have a client sitting in front of you that's really hard and you're like, ah, I'm not sure what to do. Well, to me, having that community of support, those community of play therapists. Um, to help work through some of those things, I think really supports you in the work that you are doing. And my, my vision, my mission is to help you make a difference in your community using play therapy with children, adolescents, and families. So community by community, we can create, um, a better world, right? We're only, our communities are only as strong as the families in our, in our community. So my goal is to kind of help create healthy communities by helping you and supporting you as a play therapist. So if you're interested. In that training, it is play therapy with adolescents using expressive arts. Then pop over to my website at rh play therapy training.com. Go over to the training page. Renewing Hearts Play Therapy Training. On the training page, you'll see all my upcoming trainings on there, and the two months of Elevation Circle for new members is available for all of the trainings that I have this year. So the, this training is virtual, so you can attend virtually, you can attend in person in beautiful St. George, Utah. Or let's say you're in a different time zone and you're like, Cathi, that time zone does not work for me, especially of those of you outside of the US. I hear this a lot. Um, if you're over there in the, um, in Europe or, or uh, Australia or another country outside of the US. The time zone change can be a little brutal, so there will be a recorded version that you can register for. The way that recorded version will work is I'm gonna record the training when we're doing it live, and then, uh, once the training is over, we'll break down the video into smaller bite size modules, and about a week after the training ends, then the course will drop into your account and then you can do all the things. So if you have questions about it, feel free to message me. If you have, look on my website, see what other trainings there are, if there's some other ones you have questions about, feel free to message me. If you really want to take your play therapy skills to the next level and you're ready to learn all the competencies and you want a little more than Elevation Circle offers, that would be Play Therapy Academy. I do have openings in Play Therapy Academy right now. So if you're interested in Play Therapy Academy, then schedule a video call with me. We'll see if Play Therapy Academy is a good fit for you.'Cause maybe Elevation Circle might be a better fit, but if you're looking to really develop those play therapy competencies to learn how to apply a play therapy model through all the stages and all the things. Then schedule a video call with me and we'll see if it's a good fit. So that is it for today, and I will see you next week. Bye. Thank you for joining me on this episode of Next Level Play Therapy. I hope you found the discussion valuable and gained new insights and ideas to support your work helping children, adolescents, and families feel. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review. Your feedback helps to improve and reach more people who can benefit from this information. Remember. Play therapy is a powerful tool for healing and growth. Whether you're a new play therapist or experienced, I encourage you to continue your learning journey to unlock the potential of play in your own work in relationships. If you have any questions or topics, suggestions for future episodes, I'd love to hear from you. Connect with me on social media and visit my website at Renewing Hearts Play Therapy Training to stay updated on upcoming episodes, trainings, and resources. Thank you once again for listening to Next Level Play Therapy. Until next time, keep playing, learning and growing.