Integrating art therapy tools into your practice doesn’t have to be complicated, nor does it require artistic skill from you or your client.

In this issue, we investigate how and why therapists around the country—and around the world—are reimagining their work. This rarely means starting from scratch; it’s more about conducting careful, creative experiments that push the edges of the ways they’ve been working, allowing them to discover more useful ways of helping clients.

Psychotherapy needs alternatives to the century-old approach of sit and talk. When you’re open to the spirit of adventure, you never feel stuck.

If play is so vital to our health and well-being, why isn’t it emphasized more in the adult therapy world? And for those who take the leap and inject some humor into sessions, what kinds of approaches seem to work best? Here, we look at therapists’ favorite tools for engendering high spirits, the hazards of certain brands of humor, and how—when used with care—playful moments can cement the therapeutic relationship and shift a client’s perspective on their suffering.

Shared laughter is an attachment language. Though therapists usually engage more knowingly with tears, the exchange of brighter affect is another kind of invitation to the dance of intimacy.

Many play therapists still find themselves having to explain what they do and why it works. But after more than a century, play therapy has finally come into its own.

In this collection, master therapists share how they’ve used humor in ways that both enliven and enrich the work of therapy.

A firsthand look at how a new virtual reality program is taking therapy to new places.

We’ve put together a video reel of therapists sharing some of the playful moments they’ve had with clients...