What Are the Main Advantages of Play Therapy?
September 1, 2026
A mother asked me this recently, directly and a little anxiously: “Will I know what’s happening in there?”
Her fifteen-year-old had agreed to come to therapy – reluctantly, but agreed. And the mother was caught between two things she both meant sincerely: wanting to respect her daughter’s privacy, and being terrified of being shut out of something that felt important.
It’s one of the most common tensions in adolescent therapy. The most helpful answer is usually not that parents should always be in the room or always be excluded. Teen therapy often works best when privacy and parental involvement are both treated as important – but used for different purposes.
Teenagers often speak differently when a parent is present. They may minimize what they feel, avoid anything that could worry or disappoint the parent, or spend the session managing the parent’s reaction. Sometimes the clearest sign is not what a teen says. It is the glance toward their parents before they answer.
A private session gives the teenager room to explore feelings, relationships, identity, mistakes, family tensions, or fears without having to resolve everything immediately. That privacy can make it possible to be more honest, and honesty gives therapy something real to work with.
This does not mean the therapist is helping the teen keep dangerous secrets. It means the teenager needs some control over their story before they can begin understanding it.
Confidentiality for adolescents isn’t absolute – and being clear about this from the beginning is important for everyone in the room.
There are situations where a therapist is legally and ethically required to break confidentiality: if a young person is at risk of harming themselves or others, or if there are concerns about abuse or safety. These limits are explained to both the teenager and the parents before therapy begins. They are not negotiable, and most teenagers, once they understand the reasoning, accept them.
What remains confidential is the content of the sessions – the specific things a teenager says, explores, or works through. That stays in the room. Not because the therapist is keeping secrets from parents, but because the integrity of the therapeutic relationship depends on the teenager being able to trust that the space is genuinely theirs.
What I often explain to parents is this: you don’t need to know what your teenager talks about in therapy for the therapy to be working. What you’ll see – if it’s working – is the effect of it. A teenager who is a little more settled. Who is slightly easier to reach. Who begins, gradually, to handle things differently.
Giving a teenager privacy does not make the parent irrelevant. Parents may hold information the therapist needs: changes in sleep, school attendance, eating, friendships, substance use, anger, withdrawal, or family stress.
A parent can usually contact the therapist to share a concern, although confidentiality may limit what the therapist can disclose in return. Receiving information and releasing private information are not the same thing.
Whenever possible, I prefer to make parental involvement collaborative. A teen might agree that we share broad goals, warning signs, or ways the parent can offer support while keeping individual conversations private.
An initial meeting may help the therapist understand the history, family relationships, and what each person hopes will change.
Later joint sessions might focus on repairing communication, practising a difficult conversation, creating a safety plan, or helping a parent respond differently when the teen becomes overwhelmed.
The difference is purpose. A joint session should not feel like the teenager is being questioned or that the therapist has joined one side of a family argument.
In my work, I notice whether the teen can speak freely, whether the parent can listen without immediately correcting, and whether everyone understands why they are meeting together. Sometimes a short, planned conversation does more than having a parent sit through every session.
Instead of asking, “What did my teen tell you?” parents can ask questions that protect privacy while supporting treatment:
Parents can also ask their teenager, “Is there anything you want me to understand or do differently?” That leaves the door open without demanding that the teen walk through it immediately.
For families in Victoria, BC, it may be time to reach out when your child’s behaviour has become their main way of communicating distress – or when conversations about what is wrong keep ending in “I don’t know.”
The purpose of play therapy is not to make a child talk before they are ready. It is to meet them in a language they already use and help new possibilities begin to appear there.
I’m Paul Cellarius, RCC, CCC, MA, a child therapist in Victoria, BC. I’m trained in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Motivational Interviewing (MI), and I work with children and their families. I offer parents a complimentary 15–20-minute consultation to explore whether this kind of support might be right for their child. Even when they’re unsure about the next step, parents often leave the conversation with greater clarity.
If you’re a parent in Victoria who is considering therapy for your teenager – or who has already started and is trying to understand how this is supposed to work – a consultation before the first session can help clarify a lot of this.
What I try to do in those early conversations is give both the parent and the teenager a clear sense of how the process works, what to expect, and how we’ll stay connected as a family even while the teenager has their own space. Most families find that conversation settles a lot of the uncertainty.
You don’t have to have it figured out before you reach out. That’s what the first conversation is for.
