I know I haven’t been blogging much for the past six months,
but I have been very busy working on improving the therapeutic experience for
my clients. For starters, I’ve moved my
office. The old building just wasn’t as
relaxing and as inviting for my clients as I had hoped. Our new
office (I share this office with other therapists) has a much more ‘homey’ feel
– providing a more relaxing experience.
This helps clients entering our office more easily relax, open up, and
talk about their feelings. The space
feels friendly, open, and inviting to clients.
I am most proud of the therapy/healing garden we have
created in a space behind our office. Creating
this new therapy garden has been both fun and exciting. I find that this garden is relaxing for both
adults and for children. For children
they can express/release their feelings
through many different outlets, such as painting, moon sand, a some themed play
gardens. One garden involves dinosaurs,
and encourages children to “roar your feelings”. The second garden encourages children to believe
in their dreams. For adults there is a calming area with a
water fountain that one can relax too.
Some of the children also like to help take care of the garden by
watering, which gives them a feeling of responsibility.
This summer I also went through Therapy Dog training with my
Goldendoodle Tasha. We are still completing
our supervised visits, but I do plan to complete these visits as soon as
possible. Tasha is a very friendly dog
with a gentle demeanor. She is a very
relaxing dog – I find she helps some of my clients (adults, couples, and
children) be able to let go of some of their stress when they pet Tasha. I had Tasha go through this training to make
sure that he had the right disposition to be a therapy dog – and she’s proving
to enjoy the visits!
I invite you to come visit my new office, and see our new
therapy / healing garden. Please call
first, however, as I have been very busy over the summer. And – now that summer is over, I hope to have
more time to blog periodically. If you
have any requests, or subjects you’d like to learn more about, please let me
know.
--Sandra
