Integrating Play Therapy, Nervous System Regulation, and Creative Curiosity for Emotional Safety, and Relational Safety Across the Lifespan
Curiosity as Medicine™ is a trauma-informed, neuro-affirming training that integrates play therapy principles, nervous system regulation, creative inquiry, and experiential practices to support emotional safety, communication, and resilience across the lifespan.
Grounded in the Therapeutic Powers of Play, this training demonstrates how curiosity-based play therapy experiences activate emotional expression, self-regulation, relational attunement, meaning-making, and behavioral flexibility.
Participants will engage in playful, embodied learning using imagery, metaphor, sensory awareness, guided reflection, and creative exploration to directly experience how play therapy supports nervous system stabilization and emotional integration.
This training introduces a practical framework clinicians can immediately integrate into play therapy sessions with children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families — particularly those navigating trauma, grief, neurodivergence, transitions, and relational stress. Participants also learn how to facilitate playful curiosity safely, ethically, and accessibly within therapeutic and educational environments.
Pop culture metaphors and visual storytelling are intentionally woven throughout the training to enhance engagement, accessibility, and cultural relevance while supporting cognitive integration and emotional safety.
Learning Objectives
1. Identify how the Therapeutic Powers of Play supports nervous system regulation, emotional expression, and relational safety in play therapy practice.
2. Demonstrate at least three curiosity-based play therapy techniques that support emotional regulation and client agency.
3. Apply playful imagery, metaphor, and sensory awareness to increase emotional literacy and nervous system stabilization in clients in play therapy.
4. Recognize signs of resistance vs spaciousness and self-abandonment vs agency within play therapy interactions.
5. Integrate trauma-informed, neuro-affirming facilitation strategies that support grief processing, transitions, and emotional safety in play therapy.
Presenter
Janet Caliri
Janet Caliri is devoted to liberating human potential through curiosity, creativity, and nervous-system safety. A radiant creative idealist at heart, she believes that when people feel safe enough to wonder again, transformation happens naturally ~ not through force, fixing, or hustle, but through presence, play, and meaningful connection.
Her work blends intuitive photography, relational neuroscience, metaphysics, and lived experience into a gentle yet powerful methodology known as Visible Transitions™. Using simple image-based practices, clients learn to slow down, listen inwardly, regulate their nervous systems, and reconnect with their innate wisdom. What emerges is greater ease, emotional clarity, and a renewed sense of agency in life’s transitions.
Following a traumatic brain injury in 2020, Janet’s own nervous system demanded a kinder way forward. That lived initiation gave rise to Curiosity as Medicine™ ~ an experiential framework that invites people back into safety, imagination, and embodied intelligence as a pathway to healing and wholeness.
"What if we were curious rather than reactive, towards those who are reactive, rather than curious?" ~ Janet Caliri
Details & Registration
Date: May 29, 2026
Time: 9:00 AM - 4:30 PM Mountain Time (See how this translates into your timezone).
Location: A New Hope Therapy Center
715 E Idaho Ste 2B, Las Cruces, NM 88001
Pricing:
$175 Full Professional Rate
$130 Mid-Level Professional Rate
$85 Student / Accessible Professional Rate
*Pricing includes CE Certificate
Schedule:
8:45
Check In/Sign in
9:00
Presentation Begins
10:30
15 Minute Break
11:30-1:00
Lunch Break
2:30
15 Minute Break
4:30
Presentation Ends
Of Note: This is an in person training. Please dress comfortable, layers are suggested as our room can be chilly in the morning. You are welcome to bring your refillable water bottle or coffee cup - we have a water station and a Keurig for your use! We will have light refreshments available, however if you have food sensitivities, please feel free to bring your own!
This training will provide 6 CE Credits. A New Hope Therapy Center, our sister organization and partner for trainings and workshops, is an Approved Provider for the Association for Play Therapy (APT) - Approved Provider 20-631. A New Hope Academy has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7816. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. A New Hope Academy is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.