Services

What is Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation?

Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (IECMHC) is a prevention-focused service that brings a mental health professional alongside the adults who care for young children. Rather than treating the child individually, the consultant works with parents, caregivers, teachers, early childhood programs, and other providers to strengthen the child’s surrounding environments and relationships. Consultation may occur in child care programs, schools, pediatric settings, home-visiting programs, early intervention services, or other settings where young children learn and grow. The overall goal is to support healthy social-emotional development, relationships, regulation, and early resilience.

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How is Consultation Different From Therapy?

IECMHC is different from traditional therapy because the consultant does not diagnose the child, provide individual psychotherapy, or take over the role of the child’s existing treatment providers. Instead, the consultant observes, collaborates, offers developmental and mental health perspectives, and helps the adults surrounding the child better understand what may be contributing to challenging behavior or emotional distress. When direct mental health treatment is needed, a therapist may separately assess, diagnose, and provide treatment. This distinction allows consultation to focus on prevention, early identification, strengthening caregivers, and improving the systems supporting the child.

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Looking Beyond Behavior

Young children often communicate stress, developmental needs, sensory challenges, trauma, attachment needs, or difficulty regulating through their behavior. IECMH consultation helps caregivers move beyond asking, “How do we stop this behavior?” toward understanding what the child may be communicating and what support may be needed. Consultants consider child development, attachment, family relationships, trauma and resilience, social-emotional functioning, and the child’s broader environment. This developmental and relationship-based perspective can help adults respond with greater confidence, consistency, and empathy.

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Supporting Parents, Teachers, and Early Childhood Programs

IECMH consultation can include classroom observation, consultation with caregivers and teachers, staff training, support with social-emotional screening, developing individualized strategies, and helping connect families with additional services when needed. Consultants may also help early childhood programs strengthen classroom practices, caregiver communication, trauma-informed care, and staff wellness. The process is collaborative rather than prescriptive; caregivers and educators are valued partners who already hold valuable knowledge about the child. Together, the consultant and team identify strengths, concerns, and practical goals to support across the child’s daily environments.

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Why Early Consultation Matters

Early consultation strengthens the adults and systems around the child before concerns become more severe. The model has been associated with improved social-emotional skills, attachment, resilience, school readiness, caregiver confidence, and adults’ ability to respond to challenging behavior. It may also reduce preschool suspensions or expulsions and support educators experiencing stress or burnout. By strengthening relationships among children, caregivers, educators, and community providers, IECMHC helps create more consistent and supportive environments during some of the most important years of development.

An Attachment-Based Parent Course for Inner Healing and Deeper Connection

Course Overview

“From Within to With Them” is an 8–12 session psychoeducational and experiential course designed for caregivers who want to build secure, attuned, and emotionally safe relationships with their children—starting by healing and understanding themselves. Grounded in attachment theory, interpersonal neurobiology, and play therapy principles, this course supports parents in becoming the safe base they may have never had—so they can be that for their child.

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Core Concept

Children thrive in connection. But to truly connect with our children, we must first reconnect within ourselves. Many parenting struggles stem not from a lack of love, but from unresolved relational patterns we unknowingly carry. This course gently guides parents to explore how their own early attachment experiences shape their present-day parenting—especially during moments of emotional overwhelm, disconnection, or reactivity.

What Makes This Course Unique:

• Child’s Lens, Parent’s Inner Work: Sessions are anchored in understanding children’s behaviors as attachment communications, while also tracing those responses to the caregiver’s own developmental wiring. 
• Trauma- and Neuroscience-Informed: Using concepts from Dan Siegel’s “window of tolerance,” brain-based education, and ACEs research, we normalize dysregulation and reframe it as an opportunity for repair. 
• Therapeutic & Tailored: Though psychoeducational in structure, the course adapts to each parent’s pace, readiness, and personal attachment style, making it highly individualized and relational. 
• Playful and Reflective: Through experiential tools drawn from play therapy, mindfulness, and storytelling, parents learn to attune not just to their child’s needs—but to the younger parts of themselves that also need care. 

Course Themes May Include:

• Understanding attachment and co-regulation 
• The neuroscience of dysregulation (“flipping the lid”) 
• Reparenting your inner child 
• Reflective functioning and attunement 
• Repair after rupture 
• Responding vs. reacting 
• Mindful discipline and emotional scaffolding 
• Building a secure base at home 

Format & Delivery:

• Typically delivered over 8 to 12 sessions
• Sessions may be offered 1:1 or in small groups 
• Can be adapted for virtual or in-person formats 

Includes handouts, multimedia resources (e.g., brain hand model, videos), and between-session reflection practices

What is Sandtray Therapy?

Sandtray therapy is an expressive, projective form of psychotherapy that uses sand, miniature figures, symbols, and scenes as a nonverbal way to communicate and process experiences. Clients may create a world, scene, or representation of an issue and then explore its meaning with the therapist. The process can be client-led or therapist-guided depending on the treatment goals and therapeutic approach. Sandtray can be used with children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families.

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How is Sandtray Different From Traditional CBT?

Traditional CBT often begins by identifying thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, then working to change unhelpful patterns through discussion and structured exercises. Sandtray lets clients begin with images, symbols, relationships, and metaphor when experiences are difficult to describe directly. The primary focus is often on processing the experience first, either verbally or nonverbally, rather than immediately emphasizing insight or cognitive restructuring. CBT principles can still be incorporated into sandtray work when appropriate, making sandtray flexible enough to complement cognitive, child-centered, Adlerian, trauma-informed, and other therapeutic approaches.

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What happens during a Sandtray Session?

The therapist may invite the client to create a world freely or offer a more specific prompt related to the client’s therapeutic goals. Clients choose miniature figures and arrange them in the sand while the therapist observes the process, including themes, relationships, movement, symbols, and changes in the scene. Afterward, the therapist may invite the client to describe the world, tell its story, explain what different figures mean, or explore what happened before or after the scene. The therapist generally follows the client’s meaning rather than imposing an interpretation on the tray.

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Symbols, Metaphor, and Emotional Expression

Sandtray can be especially helpful when emotions or experiences feel too complicated, overwhelming, or difficult to put into words. Miniatures and symbolic scenes allow clients to create distance from difficult material while still expressing important parts of their internal experience. The therapist can gently explore relationships, themes, patterns, and metaphors that emerge while remaining attentive to regulation and the client’s Window of Tolerance. Clients may also change, remove, or add elements to the scene, allowing them to experiment symbolically with new possibilities and solutions.

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Sandtray with Children and Families

Sandtray can also help clarify family relationships and patterns that may be difficult to explain through conversation alone. Family members may create a shared world, represent how they experience their family, or observe one another’s creations. The therapist can explore themes such as connection, belonging, boundaries, problem-solving, roles, and different perspectives within the family. This makes sandtray useful not only for individual emotional processing but also for helping families see relationships and challenges in a new way.

What is Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP)?

Child-Parent Psychotherapy, or CPP, is a relationship-based, trauma-informed treatment for young children and their caregivers. Rather than treating the child separately, CPP works with the caregiver-child relationship as a primary pathway for healing. The therapist helps the caregiver understand how trauma, loss, separation, developmental experiences, and family history may be affecting the child’s emotions, behavior, sense of safety, and relationships. Treatment also considers the caregiver’s experiences and how they may influence parenting and responses to the child.

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How is CPP Different From Traditional CBT?

Traditional CBT often focuses on helping the individual identify thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and then practice new ways of thinking or responding. CPP is more relational and developmental, with the caregiver actively involved in treatment rather than serving only as a support person outside sessions. The therapist helps the caregiver and child understand each other’s reactions, strengthen their emotional connection, and place current behavior in the context of trauma and development. For young children, play, interaction, body-based responses, and the caregiver-child relationship may carry more information than verbal discussion alone.

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Building Safety, Regulation, and Connection

CPP strongly emphasizes helping both caregiver and child feel safer and more regulated. Therapists support caregivers in responding more soothingly when children are upset and help children increasingly use the caregiver as a secure base. Treatment may also include body-based regulation strategies, understanding trauma reminders, strengthening safe boundaries, and helping caregivers respond to challenging behavior with a developmental and trauma-informed perspective. The goal is not simply to stop difficult behavior, but to strengthen the child’s capacity for regulation within a supportive relationship.

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Understanding Trauma Through the Caregiver-Child Relationship

CPP helps families connect a child’s current symptoms or behavior with past experiences when appropriate. Caregivers learn about trauma reminders and how both the child’s and caregiver’s histories may shape present-day reactions. The therapist may help the caregiver and child distinguish between “then” and “now,” so that past danger is not continually experienced as if it were happening in the present. Over time, this can help both caregiver and child develop a more coherent understanding of what happened and how they can respond differently now.

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Play and Developmentally Appropriate Trauma Processing

CPP recognizes that young children may process experience through play rather than through direct verbal discussion. Therapists may use carefully selected toys, symbolic play, and developmentally appropriate explanations to help children express and organize experiences while remaining connected to their caregiver. Caregivers are supported in understanding what the child may be communicating through play and in helping the child take regulation breaks when needed. The therapist also provides benevolent, developmentally informed explanations for behaviors that might otherwise be misunderstood as simply oppositional or aggressive.

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Caregivers are Active Partners in Treatment

CPP is intentionally dyadic, meaning the caregiver and child are usually treated together. Caregivers are involved in assessment, treatment planning, emotional regulation, trauma processing, and strengthening the relationship. The therapist may also meet individually with the caregiver when they need support, psychoeducation, or space to process their own reactions. Throughout treatment, the caregiver is helped to become a more confident source of safety, comfort, understanding, and protection for the child.

 For more information: https://childparentpsychotherapy.com/

What is Brainspotting?

Brainspotting is a relational, brain-body, mindfulness-based therapy developed by David Grand, PhD. It uses specific points in the visual field, called “Brainspots,” that may correspond with areas of emotional or body-based activation. Once a relevant eye position is identified, the client is supported in noticing emotions, memories, thoughts, and body sensations through focused mindfulness. Brainspotting helps clients process experiences that may be difficult to reach through words or conscious thinking alone.

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How is Brainspotting Different From Traditional CBT?

CBT often works from the “top down,” helping clients identify thoughts, evaluate beliefs, and practice new ways of thinking and behaving. Brainspotting takes a more experiential and body-focused approach, allowing the client to notice what emerges internally without needing to immediately explain, analyze, or change it. The therapist may track body activation, emotional responses, and eye position while letting the client’s processing unfold. Brainspotting can also be integrated with CBT, play therapy, attachment work, and other clinical approaches rather than replacing them.

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What happens during Brainspotting?

The therapist and client first identify an issue, emotion, memory, or body sensation to explore and notice the level and location of activation in the body. The therapist may then identify a Brainspot through the client’s felt sense, subtle reflexive responses observed by the therapist, or a gaze position that naturally emerges. The client maintains attention around that position while mindfully observing whatever thoughts, emotions, memories, or physical sensations arise. The therapist does not direct what the client should experience, but remains present, attuned, and responsive throughout the process.

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Regulation and the Resource Model

Brainspotting can focus not only on distress but also on places of calm, safety, or groundedness within the body. The Resource Model is designed to provide greater containment when direct activation may feel overwhelming. Therapists may help clients locate a body resource and corresponding visual position before or while approaching more difficult material. This flexibility allows therapists to adapt the intensity and pace of the work to the individual, rather than using the same process for every client.

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The Therapeutic Relationship Matters

Brainspotting emphasizes what the model calls “Dual Attunement,” combining attention to the client’s internal nervous-system experience with a strong therapeutic relationship. The therapist provides an attuned, mindful, compassionate presence while following rather than forcing the client’s process. Brainspotting is intentionally integrative and can be incorporated into a clinician’s existing therapeutic approach. This makes the relationship, felt safety, pacing, and the client’s readiness just as important as the Brainspotting technique itself. 

For more information: https://brainspotting.com/

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

What is TF-CBT?

Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) is an evidence-based treatment designed specifically for children and adolescents experiencing significant emotional or behavioral difficulties related to traumatic experiences. It combines cognitive and behavioral strategies with family therapy, skill building, and caregiver involvement. Treatment helps children develop coping skills, understand trauma-related reactions, safely address traumatic memories, and reduce symptoms such as anxiety, depression, fear, shame, guilt, and self-blame. TF-CBT is usually structured and time-limited, often completed in approximately 12–20 sessions.

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How is TF-CBT Different From Traditional CBT?

Traditional CBT generally focuses on identifying connections among thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and developing healthier ways to think and respond. TF-CBT uses those same cognitive principles but adds specific interventions for traumatic stress. Children learn regulation and coping skills before gradually working more directly with trauma-related thoughts, feelings, memories, and reminders. TF-CBT includes a structured trauma-processing component and gradual exposure rather than simply discussing problems or challenging negative thinking.

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A Structured Path Through Trauma Treatment

TF-CBT progresses through three broad phases: stabilization, trauma narration and processing, and integration. Early treatment focuses on psychoeducation, relaxation, emotional regulation, cognitive coping, and parenting support. Once sufficient coping skills are established, the child is gradually supported in processing traumatic experiences through developmentally appropriate methods such as writing, drawing, or other forms of narrative expression. The final phase strengthens safety, communication, confidence, and the child’s ability to manage trauma reminders in everyday life.

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Caregivers Are Part of the Treatment

TF-CBT is intentionally family-focused rather than being therapy for the child alone. Supportive caregivers learn about trauma reactions, parenting strategies, emotional regulation, and ways to respond more effectively to their child’s needs. Sessions commonly include individual work with the child, individual caregiver work, and opportunities for parent-child sessions together. Caregiver involvement can strengthen communication, reinforce skills outside therapy, and help the child feel more supported while recovering from trauma.

What is AutPlay® Therapy?

AutPlay® Therapy is an integrative family play therapy framework designed for neurodivergent children and adolescents. It combines neurodiversity-affirming principles with multiple play therapy approaches and adapts treatment to the individual child’s strengths, needs, interests, communication style, and level of support. The goal is not to “fix,” “cure,” or erase neurodivergence, but to support mental health, self-worth, regulation, empowerment, and self-advocacy. AutPlay may be used with children across a wide range of support needs, generally from ages 3–18.

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How is AutPlay Different From Traditional CBT?

Traditional CBT often relies on a child’s ability to identify thoughts, connect thoughts with emotions and behavior, and practice new cognitive or behavioral strategies. AutPlay can incorporate cognitive and behavioral techniques, but it does not require the child to fit a primarily verbal or cognitive model. Instead, the therapist may use play, movement, sensory experiences, interests, relationship, and structured or nondirective interventions depending on how the child naturally communicates and engages. The therapist adapts the therapy to the child rather than expecting the child to adapt to a single treatment style.

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Understanding Behavior and Regulation

AutPlay views many challenging behaviors through the lens of regulation and communication. A child who is overwhelmed by sensory input, anxiety, unexpected change, emotional demands, or social confusion may communicate that distress through behavior rather than words. Therapy therefore looks beyond simply stopping the behavior and asks what the child’s nervous system or environment may be communicating. Treatment can include play-based regulation strategies, movement, sensory activities, emotional awareness, and opportunities for the child to develop greater self-advocacy. The goal is to help children understand themselves and find strategies that work with their neurotype rather than teaching them simply to appear more neurotypical.

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Individualized Play and the Follow Me Approach

AutPlay does not assume that all children should play, communicate, or relate in the same way. Treatment may combine structured and nondirective play depending on the child’s developmental and therapeutic needs. For children with higher support needs or those who struggle with structured interventions, AutPlay includes the Follow Me Approach, which begins with relationship development and child-led play before gradually introducing connection-based activities and, when appropriate, more directive interventions. Progress is based on the child’s readiness rather than requiring a predetermined level of participation.

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Parents and Caregivers as Partners

Parents and caregivers are considered partners and co-change agents in AutPlay Therapy. They may participate in assessment, treatment planning, family play sessions, consultation, and learning play-based strategies to use at home. Parent involvement is individualized rather than identical for every family, and treatment goals are developed collaboratively with the child and caregiver whenever possible. This helps therapeutic skills move beyond the therapy room while also strengthening understanding, connection, and the caregiver-child relationship.

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Psychological Testing at Summit Therapy Center

Summit Therapy Center provides comprehensive psychological testing and evaluation for children, adolescents, and young adults. Our goal is to help families better understand emotional, behavioral, developmental, cognitive, and learning concerns and provide practical recommendations to support functioning at home, school, and in the community.

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What to Expect from the Psychological Testing Process

Psychological evaluations typically involve 3–4 appointments:

1. Initial Appointment: You will meet with Dr. Angela Wagenaar for approximately one hour. This appointment is used to discuss current concerns, relevant history, and the specific questions the evaluation should help answer.
2. Testing Appointments: After the initial appointment and any required insurance authorization has been obtained, testing will be scheduled. Standardized testing may be administered by Dr. Wagenaar and/or Laura Johnson, MS, CSP. Testing is generally completed over 1–2 days, depending on the individual and the type of evaluation being completed.
3. Results Appointment: Once testing has been completed and Dr. Wagenaar has reviewed and interpreted the findings, a feedback appointment will be scheduled to discuss the results, recommendations, and next steps.

The feedback appointment and written report are separate steps. Results and recommendations may be discussed during the feedback appointment before the written report is finalized. The completed written report may follow the feedback appointment by several weeks.

From the initial appointment through completion of the evaluation and written report, the full evaluation process may take up to 12 weeks. The exact timeline varies depending on insurance authorization, the type and complexity of testing needed, and scheduling availability.

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Psychological Testing FAQ

What is Play Therapy?

Play therapy is a developmentally responsive form of psychotherapy that uses play as a primary way for children to communicate, explore experiences, and work through emotional or behavioral difficulties. The Association for Play Therapy describes it as the systematic use of a theoretical model in which trained play therapists use the therapeutic powers of play to support growth and resolve psychosocial challenges. For children, play can function much like conversation for adults because it lets them express experiences in ways that match their developmental level. Play therapy is commonly used with concerns such as anxiety, depression, grief, trauma, behavioral difficulties, ADHD, autism, family changes, and social or developmental challenges.

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How is Play Therapy Different From Traditional Talk Therapy or CBT?

Traditional talk therapy and CBT often rely more heavily on language, insight, and the ability to identify or change thoughts and behaviors. Play therapy allows children to communicate through toys, imagination, movement, art, stories, and relationships when words alone may not be enough. Rather than requiring a child to explain everything directly, the therapist observes themes, emotions, relationships, and patterns that emerge through play and responds therapeutically as they arise. Cognitive and behavioral strategies can still be incorporated when developmentally appropriate, but play remains an important pathway for expression and learning.

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What happens during Play Therapy?

Play therapy is more than providing toys and letting a child play. A trained therapist intentionally creates a therapeutic environment where play is used within an established clinical framework and treatment plan. Depending on the child’s needs, sessions may be more child-directed or may include therapist-guided activities, emotional-regulation skills, therapeutic games, storytelling, art, or other expressive interventions. Through this process, children can practice problem-solving, emotional expression, communication, coping, and new ways of relating to others. A safe therapeutic relationship is central because children can explore difficult experiences more fully when they feel accepted and understood.

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Parents and Caregivers Are Important

Play therapy does not view the child in isolation from the people and environments around them. Parent and caregiver participation may include consultation, family sessions, parenting support, or opportunities to strengthen the caregiver-child relationship. The Association for Play Therapy notes that play therapy is most effective when parents, family members, or caregivers are actively involved in the treatment process. The level of involvement varies by the child’s age, developmental needs, treatment goals, and family circumstances.

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Specialized Play Therapy Training

Play therapy is a specialized mental health service, not simply the use of games or toys during counseling. The Association for Play Therapy states that licensed clinical mental health professionals with graduate-level mental health education, specialized play therapy training, and supervised experience should provide it. APT also offers the Registered Play Therapist™ and Registered Play Therapist-Supervisor™ credentials for clinicians who meet specified education, clinical experience, play therapy training, supervision, and continuing-education requirements. 

For more information: https://www.a4pt.org/