Area of work
Child-Centered Play Therapy
I work with children and their families at my office in Kartal, Istanbul, and online, in English or Turkish: in the playroom in the child’s own language, and with parents through parent sessions and Filial Therapy.
Working with children
Approach
Child-Centered Play Therapy
Children make sense of the world they grow up in through play. In play therapy we create the conditions for children to build strong social skills, to express their feelings freely and appropriately, and to develop psychological flexibility. Within the safe relationship they build with the therapist, children work through what they have lived, learn to self-regulate and develop new ways of coping. Play therapy is one of the interventions with the strongest scientific support for its positive effect on children’s well-being through difficult times such as anxiety, behavioral difficulties, trauma, grief and divorce.
Teaching
Play therapy has become a craft I gladly practise and also teach to my colleagues. In DİLGEM’s Play Therapy Certificate Program for psychologists, counselors and child development specialists, I teach the Child-Centered Play Therapy and Filial Therapy courses and support students through supervision.
I also teach a range of child development tests, psychological tests and clinical assessment tools that support counseling work and referrals to special education and psychiatry (in Turkish):
- Ankara Developmental Screening Inventory (AGTE)
- Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test
- Frostig Test of Visual Perception
- Gesell Developmental Figures
- Metropolitan Readiness Test
- d2 Test of Attention
- Burdon Attention Test
- Frankfurter Attention Test
- Stroop Test
- Anxiety and depression scales (such as the PHQ)
- ADHD screening scales
- Scales for emotional and behavioral difficulties in children
Certificate programs at DİLGEM: Play Therapy Developmental Tests ADHD and Attention Assessment