One of my specialties as a therapist is something called Expressive Play Therapy, and I’d like to share more about what it is and how it can help in the areas of business and creativity.

Expressive play is a form of improvisation or spontaneous sharing. It’s purposefully less structured than traditional forms of improv you may have seen or experienced. It’s NOT: “Okay, you two are married dogs who’ve just won the lottery, and you’re at the butcher shop. Go!” Instead, in Expressive Play we use what we are noticing in this very moment as a prompt to explore, play, and share. For example, perhaps you notice your tushy is sore from sitting at the computer. Or you notice you’ve been feeling preoccupied by some work stress. Or you notice there’s this buzzing noise coming from the neighbor’s place. These can all be great places to start an exploration, a share.

In Expressive Play we also noodle around with how we share, and we have lots of different channels. We may share with words, or sound, or rhythm and song, or facial expressions, body shapes, or gestures and movement. We may start a story, or share with emotions. Or play a “character” (another part of ourselves!).

Another difference with Expressive Play is that we share directly with the people witnessing us by looking at them. In traditional improv, there’s often a “4th wall” – a prohibition against looking at the audience. In Expressive Play, we make it a point to share directly, using eye contact. In this way we practice being brave and sharing ourselves, not having to hide anymore. I endeavor to bring an openness and acceptance to my facilitation of Expressive Play, and I invite participants to do the same. In this way, we as a group create a “vibe of allowance,” where participants are allowed to be who they are – no judgement and nothing they have to do or “be good at.” Your authentic self is most welcome, there is not need to “perform” at all.

Expressive Play is where self-exploration, authenticity, and creativity meet. It allows us to access less-expressed parts of ourselves. It allows us to build our confidence, to express hidden parts of ourselves, and to tap into our creative flow.

For business people and executives:

The world of business often involves more tightly scripted environments with a (more limited) repertoire of interactions. If you’re a business person or an executive, you may be expected to act a certain way, dress a certain way, speak a certain way. You’re supposed to be professional, serious, targeted, and goal oriented. Expressive Play can help you access a wider range of parts of yourself. It can increase your flexibility, your organic moment-to-moment flow, and your self trust. With more flexibility, flow, and self-trust, you can respond more easily to work surprises, interact more naturally and calmly with colleagues, clients, employees, and bosses, and respond to challenges with more ease.

For creatives and people in creative industries:

For those who monetize their creativity, “being creative” can bring a ton of conflicting feelings – pressure, fear, am-I-good-enough, or having to “perform” or be creative on demand in order to meet deadlines (no time to wait for the muse!). These tough feelings can suck away the joy of creativity that inspired you to pursue this work in the first place. Expressive Play can help you reconnect with your innate sparkle in a new way, without the pressure to produce a result. Expressive Play can help you increase trust in yourself, build your ability to work with “whatever shows up,” and enhance your ability to create at any moment.

Expressive Play for therapeutic exploration:

We can also use Expressive Play to explore emotions and challenges. As we move into our natural creative flow, we can open up access to unknown or lesser-known parts of ourselves. We can share and explore our feelings or needs. In our free flow of creative sharing we may learn more about ourselves and thus come to know ourselves more deeply. We may work through some difficult or painful challenge and bring ourselves healing. We may get new perspectives for how to handle a particular conflict by exploring it via the unplanned, out-of-the-box flow of Expressive Play.

Welp, I just love Expressive Play. If you’d like to learn more or come join a workshop, please feel free to reach out to me!