About The Therapist

My Journey as a Play Therapist

My name is Jeanie So and I am a certified play therapist based in Singapore. I am also a trained counsellor and have been working in a local family service centre since 2006. I provided school counselling in different secondary schools for the first few years of my work which helped me understand the challenges of the youth in our education system and society. I see children, youth, young adults and parents. My work is systemic and I work closely with parents, teachers, other agencies.

My journey of play therapy started in 2014 when I found that many children were not coping with their education and their well-being was suffering because of family issues. They were unable to express their negative feelings and resorted to self-harm or other negative behaviors. I also came to realize that many of the usual counselling techniques did not work with these children. They did not respond well to consequences or affirmation of their parents. However, I knew there must be a way to reach these children which motivated me to explore creative arts and play therapy. It was here that my journey into play therapy began.

I started to use play therapy on children with different issues, like trauma, witnessing family violence, child abuse, divorced parents, poor self-esteem, medical issues, aggressive behavior, ADHD, depression and suicidal…etc. The power of play therapy is like a magic and frees the children from their unwanted behaviors. Many children simply do not have the verbal language to put their emotions and traumas into words. They feel unheard and unloved. Through creative arts and play therapy, children start to express their emotions in a non-verbal way in a safe and non-judgmental environment. The therapy can also help children access their unconscious mind and allow it to begin to surface so they can become aware of their thoughts and feelings and who they truly are. I saw many of these children transform into children, who could now begin to love themselves and develop loving relationship with others. Some can even do better in their study because their negative energy trapped in their bodies was gone.

I work with parents in the journey so that they know how to support their children at home. Come and try a new way of understanding and journey with me!