I REMEMBER THE FIRST DAY I WALKED INTO THE THERAPY ROOM.....

"I remember the first day I walked in to the therapy room and thinking what's this all about then? Toys? Sand pit? Paints, paper and pencils? wee family figures and doll's houses?...How is this going to work?"

I also remember the peace, the quiet, the Play Therapist who was always there at the same time same day in the same place and coming from a home where chaos was the norm there was something really good about how reliable that was...At the beginning I couldn't put what had happened to me that had brought me to therapy in to words- I didn't know how...she stayed with me though and never asked me direct questions or told me to think this or that- through the good, bad, and the days in the middle. Always using the materials and figures to tell my story and to communicate what was too unbearable to say...

Other people had tried to help in school and at other places but it became too hard to have to try to speak about it and if I'm honest I wasnt up for group stuff- not with people who I was seeing in the class or corridor every day- it was too hard.

As the weeks went by I began to trust this kind interested stranger in the therapy room who was there for me through all that I brought to the surface and as she helped me to recognise what I was feeling and she turned the mirror gently - I found the words that finally expressed shame, the family violence, childhood trauma, vulnerability and grief and as we worked through each of the difficulties she saved me.

My journey in Play Therapy had a beginning a middle and an end and I became equipped with the tools of survival, strategies to cope, and most important of all she helped me to accept that what had happened to me was not my fault.

Thank God for Mind Mosaic Child & Family Therapies in Inverclyde - the people there helped me to shift from a life that was on a downward spiral to being able to live my life to the full today"

Ryan - young person who received 16 sessions of Play Therapy at Age 12yrs....now age 25