Instructor: Dee Preston-Dillon, Ph.D., MA
CEs: 3 APA and APT
The House: Open-Ended Guided Imagination in Play and Expressive Therapy introduces a gentle, client-led approach to therapeutic imagination. Using a miniature house as metaphor and tool, therapists invite—not direct—clients to explore early memories, reclaim personal truth, and discover hope. Rooted in safety and agency, this process honors silence, pacing, and permission. Clients choose how to engage, populate the narrative with their own meaning, and reflect on what they find. Through symbolic discovery and imaginative exploration, clients are supported in re-authoring their stories and reconnecting with their authentic selves.
Objectives
- Describe one play therapy benefit of open-ended active imagination.
- State two ways guided imagination helps clients explore early developmental experience.
- State two Play Therapy principles reflected in the process of open-ended guided imagination.
- Explain two ways play therapists could collaborate with clients during guided imagination.
- Identify two examples of prompts to explore a miniature house for play and expressive therapy.
- Explain two developmental concerns that may emerge during guided imagination with a miniature house.
- State two aspects of guided imagination with a miniature house that help with containment, safe exploration of early experience, and possibilities for hope.
- State three interventions that interfere with the therapeutic process of guided imagination.
