MEMBER STORYTELLING
Game Over – Restart H
|MARIA DE LA PAZ CHIO, MEd, LP (SWITZERLAND), LPC-S, NCC, RPT-S
a relationship, or a client situation, and found that it ended
RESTART. I have felt it many times, both personally and professionally. we learned to level up. In my case, play therapy and its intrinsic guiding principle of resiliency is one of the forces that motivated me to trust life in its process. In playing, we develop and grow through life transitions.
Argentina, I left the country to broaden my horizons. I had trained in psychoanalytic child therapy and found it fascinating, but somehow it didn’t inspire me. I wanted to pursue further training and take that back to my country, with hopes of making a living working as a therapist. University of North Texas Counseling Program, I learned to see the world from a child’s perspective and to work with traumatized adults and children through play therapy. During this time I was fully in the my littlest traumatized clients that these transitions were made more manageable when singing children’s songs in the hallway. I learned that play therapy is a continuum that starts in the waiting room and ends when you see the client close the door to leave.
implicit and episodic memories, and how our nervous and limbic systems will react to the new phase. When the transition is rough every day can feel as though it is impossible to advance, and the GAME OVER is smooth, our bodies respond to our mastering the game and make it easier to level up.
After graduate school, my practice was blossoming and it was GAME to speak the language, unable to practice my profession, and a new
38 | PLAYTHERAPY | December 2022 |
www.a4pt.org
mother. The transition became brutal. It felt like a total GAME OVER, but play therapy in the relationship with my daughter helped me RESTART “singing children’s’ songs in the hallway” of life. It moved me to become an RPT-S and to continue developing play therapy in Switzerland.
I share this experience with you in hope that when you experience a GAME OVER point of life transition, you will be compassionate with yourself and with your clients. A good part of life happens in the meantime, in between phases, and the RESTART button is one push
away from helping you to level up. ABOUT THE MEMBER
Maria de la Paz Chio, LPC-S, NCC, RPT-S, specializes in family violence and sexual maltreatment from psychodynamic and Jungian analytical perspectives. She uses play therapy and Jungian analytical sandplay in private practice with children, adolescents, and adults. Originally from Argentina, she has practiced on three continents.
maripazchio@gmail.com
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