Using Play Therapy as a


Roadmap on the Adoption Journey | SABRA STARNES, MED, LICSW, LCSW


W--C,, RP M y life philosophy, if you


can dream it, you can do it, has guided me in my


personal and professional decisions. Two of the most important decisions have made were to adopt my sons and t to become a play therapist. I love that I am at the stage in my life that I can share pla therapy knowledge and experience thrrough supervising and training others. And, more importantly, play therapy gave me a roadmap to follow as a new mother.


s. s I I o am e play


ough more


oadmap


Twenty-one years ago, I completed my graduate practicum in an inpatient treatment center for children. I had an amazing supervisor who introduced the world of play therapy to me. And like many play therapists, I found a career path that lets the kid in me come out and play! Providing play therapy is so much more than a job to me. It nourished a way of living for me.


When I was a little girl, I wanted to save the world! I imagined I could make the world a safer, friendlier, and happier place for everyone. Growing up in the Midwest as a transracial adoptee, I often experienced racism and discrimination. My parents did their best to protect and shield us, but it still hurt. I learned through play to be resilient and self-determined in dealing with strangers who asked me why I did not look like my parents, stared at me, or asked me uncomfortable questions about my hair, my skin tone, or about being adopted. As painful as those experiences were, they forged my beliefs about how people should treat each other.


RPT-S n 20


MEMBER STORYTELLING


CLINICAL EDITOR’S COMMENTS: Sabra Starnes tells her story and how play therapy provided her with a roadmap for parenting.


In 2001,, I started an amazing play therapy journey, but even greater than th


than that, I started an adoption journey in adopting my two sons! This a


his adventure in discovering how to be a new mom and play thera


therapist changed my life for the better. The year I completed 


 Thishi ultimately inspired my commitment to becoming a play the


therapist for adoptive and foster children and their families. I i I immersed myself in different interventions and techniques to use in the playroom. These same skills were helpful to my sons and I at home in creating a healthy relationship and an a


attachment bond.


Each ofmysons had dealt with trauma, neglect, and abuse. I felt that we needed more than just the attachment therapy that we were receiving to move forward together. Although I am their mom, and not their therapist, I learned to bring laughter and a sense of safety and trust to our interactions, using play therapy skills to enhance our bond. Through  giving my sons the best of me. My play therapy training gave me the parenting skills that I desperately needed at that time.


Each my


For years, I have shared those same skills with adoptive and foster families in play therapy. I still experience excitement and joy when children enter the room wide-eyed and say, “WOW! I get to play in here?!” And I feel the same way each day I get to help them imagine, dream, and heal in a safe and nurturing space! To enter the world of imagination, resiliency, laughter, and play each day with a child or a family reminds me of all the good in the world. I like to think that what I have created in Next Place Therapy is the special place that I wanted and needed as an adoptee for myself and my family to heal.


I continue to believe, as I did as a little girl, that I have the power to change the world, and with play therapy skills, or my “play-tastic powers,” as I like to call them, to bring joy, imagination, and self-determination to each child and family with whom I work.


ABOUT THE MEMBER


Sabra D. Starnes sand tray therapist. She received her MSW from Catholic University and her MEd from American University. Sabra is the owner of Next Place Therapy, a  sabrastarnes@yahoo.com


www.a4pt.org | June 2018 | PLAYTHERAPY | 29


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