Play Therapy Techniques for Children with Trauma

When a child has lived through something frightening or overwhelming, the effects rarely show up in the tidy ways adults expect. Trauma in childhood doesn’t usually come forward through a clear narrative or neatly articulated feelings. Instead, it appears in behaviors, in silence, in play themes that adults don’t always recognize, in restless bodies or overly compliant ones, in sudden waves of emotion that seem to come from nowhere. The younger the child, the more their story lives in their nervous system rather than in their words.

Play therapy exists precisely because of this. It offers children a language that matches their developmental world. A way to express what happened, make sense of it, and regain a sense of safety and control using the medium that feels most natural to them: play.

One of the first things that happens in trauma-focused play therapy is the establishment of safety. This doesn’t mean avoiding difficult feelings; it means creating a space where the child feels secure enough to explore them. Children learn quickly whether an adult can handle their emotional world. A therapist trained in trauma understands how to sit with intensity, aggression, fear, or grief without becoming overwhelmed or trying to shut it down. This sense of emotional containment is, in many ways, the technique itself: a steady, calm presence that allows the child’s nervous system to settle enough to begin processing.

As trust builds, the child’s play begins to shift. A child who cannot yet say, “I felt powerless,” might show that feeling through a small figure trapped under a block, or a stuffed animal repeatedly losing control of a situation. Another child may reenact a frightening event again and again, adjusting the outcome slightly each time. Repetition is not a sign that the child is stuck; it’s a sign the brain is trying to work something out.

Sand tray work often becomes a powerful container for these stories. A child might create a world that feels chaotic or unsafe, only to gradually reorganize it as therapy progresses. The therapist doesn’t force meaning onto the scene but stays close enough to help support the integration the child is already attempting. In these small adjustments, moving a figure from danger to safety, adding a protector, shifting a landscape, there is often profound healing happening just below the surface.

Art materials serve a similar purpose. Drawing and painting allow children to externalize internal states without needing to describe them. Sometimes the artwork is symbolic, full of metaphors and imagery. Sometimes it’s purely sensory, which can be its own form of regulation and emotional release. The goal is never to interpret the child’s art but to meet them in the experience of creating it and to support whatever feelings emerge along the way.

Some children gravitate toward more structured forms of play. They may build worlds with blocks or construct elaborate scenarios with figurines where themes of danger, protection, harm, rescue, or escape play out. The therapist’s task is to stay attuned: to notice shifts in mood, changes in the child’s energy, moments when the child seems fully immersed versus moments when they pull away. Trauma often interrupts a child’s sense of agency, so one of the most important therapeutic shifts occurs when the child begins to experiment with power, control, and choice in their play, and the adult mirrors those experiences in a safe, grounded way.

Movement-based play can also be transformative, especially for children whose trauma lives primarily in the body. A child who experiences freeze responses may naturally gravitate toward kinetic activities, jumping, dancing, rolling, or rhythmic motions that help release stored tension. Another child may need slow, gentle, repetitive actions to feel grounded again. What looks like simple physical play is often the nervous system finding its way back to balance.

Across all of these techniques, the relationship between the child and therapist is the therapeutic engine. They need to feel seen without being pushed, believed without being interrogated, guided without losing their own sense of control. Trauma, at its core, is a disruption of safety. Play therapy restores safety not by avoiding the hard things, but by creating a space where the child can approach them without fear.

In that space, in a room filled with small worlds and big feelings, children find a way back to themselves. They reclaim the parts of their story that felt too overwhelming, too confusing, or too painful to face alone. And in doing so, they regain not just safety, but the possibility of growing into their life with a sense of resilience, connection, and hope.