Challenging a One-Size-Fits-All Approach to Treating Child Trauma Through the Development and Dissemination of TraumaPlay™: An Integrative Play Therapy Model for Traumatized Children and Their Caregivers

This thesis examines three interrelated projects and provides a critical reflection on the development and dissemination of TraumaPlay™, a flexibly sequential play therapy model for treating traumatized children and their caregivers. The first project explores TraumaPlay’s development through thirty years of practitioner-researcher practice. The second project critically analyzes the pedagogy and iterative refinements of the model’s teaching and learning methods. The third project investigates the cultural adaptations and global dissemination of TraumaPlay. Three critical lenses, including autoethnography, bioecological systems theory, and the MRC Framework for Developing and Evaluating Complex Interventions, are applied to each project and across the three collectively. Twelve curated outputs illustrate the scope of work within each project, and three guiding questions provide the scaffolding for critical review across them. The thesis demonstrates TraumaPlay’s unique contribution to the fields of <br/>play therapy and child trauma.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctoral Thesis

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Student thesis

Year dc:date.issued

2026

Author dc:creator

• Goodyear-Brown, Paris

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Lancastle, Deborah
• Jones, Alexis
• Bai, Jiping

• TraumaPlay
• trauma play
• play therapy
• child trauma
• autoethnography
• bioecological systems theory
• MRC Framework
• posttraumatic play
• trauma narrative
• continuum of disclosure
• experiential mastery play (EMP)
• emotional literacy
• Safe Boss
• Nurturer
• Storykeeper
• enhancing safety and security
• coping
• soothing the physiology
• co-regulation
• self-regulation
• addressing the thought life
• core components
• embodied roles
• flexibly-sequential play therapy
• integrative play therapy
• scaffolding
• neurobiology
• neuroscience
• neuroception of safety
• SOOTHE strategies

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

oai:pure.atira.dk:studenttheses/160eace8-8938-4065-aa89-4a9e5d09b263

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:pure.atira.dk:studenttheses/160eace8-8938-4065-aa89-4a9e5d09b263