Applied Creative Play and Neuro-Dramatic Play

Applied Creative Play(C) was developed by Vasintha Pather and is an important experience in healing and growth in post-apartheid South Africa. Systemic trauma – like organisational trauma, racial trauma, and GBV – hurts everyone in some way; and one of the pathways essential to recovering lost or suppressed aspects of ourselves is through restoring our creative capacities leading to more expansive ways of being.

Neuro-Dramatic Play was developed by the UK’s Dr. Sue Jennings, and is a profound approach of applied playfulness grounded in developmental neuroscience, attachment theory and the innate human need for imagination and play. NDP helps restore empathy, connection and resilience. Vasintha is the only accredited NDP trainer in South Africa.

Together, these two models invite a profoundly meaningful, decolonised, and culturally resonant approach to understanding trauma and therapeutic play and creativity. Through the shared experience, we recognising that healing is relational, embodied and deeply shaped by collective history.

The course works by reawakening our imagination and embodied playfulness and creativity through: Sensory play, embodiment, rhythm, role and story, and so much more! Practitioners learn to meet clients where they are at, gently rebuilding attachment, belonging, expanding emotional range, and nurturing resilience.

This training is an invitation to reclaim the healing power of play, to work with trauma in ways that honour dignity and culture, and to support the restoration of what is essential in the human spirit.

• Healthy attachment
• Empathy and emotional expression
• Sensory integration
• Resilience and social engagement