JOIN US ONLINE for a special scheduled class offering*
Play & Emotion
Course Starts: April 2, 2026
Thursdays 10:00 – 11:30AM PT
Runs for 8 weeks
Neufeld puts the puzzle pieces together to reveal true play as Nature's way of taking care of emotion. This realization makes sense of the trouble we are now in, as the culture that was meant to take care of play has largely been lost. These insights are distinct to this approach and key to supporting healthy development and emotional well-being in our children and ourselves.
* although students can take this course anytime on their own, this is a special opportunity to benefit from a guided learning experience with Neufeld Institute Faculty. Former and current registrants can enrol in this class for an addtional $50 CAD only.
Scheduled Class Details:
📌 Starts: April 2, 2026
⌛ Duration: 8 weeks
🗓️ Thursdays 10:00 – 11:30 AM PT
🏷️ Tuition: $250 CAD
We invite your participation in this Scheduled Class offering of "Play & Emotion," where you will gain further insight from Neufeld Institute Faculty member Tamara Strijack and Associate Faculty Jodi Bergman. They will offer a rich tapestry of unique perspectives, all within the attachment-based developmental approach.
Scheduled Classes combine Dr. Neufeld’s video lectures and supplementary course material with live faculty-facilitated support sessions. These interactive weekly classes are designed to deepen your understanding of Dr. Neufeld's teachings. It is a unique opportunity to join our experienced faculty and other students online to ask questions, discuss key insights, and explore practical applications.
All of the classes are recorded. If you miss a class, you can keep pace with the group by viewing the recordings at your own convenience during the week.
Please note: you will receive access to the course one week before the start date. There will be some material to review before the first class.
Meet our experienced faculty members, who will support you in this course
Academic Dean of the Neufeld Institute
Clinical Counsellor
Mayne Island, British Columbia
Tamara Strijack has worked with children and adolescents in various roles over the last 25 years and now primarily offers parenting consulting, workshops and teaches university courses for teachers and counsellors in training. She brings deep expertise in attachment, play, and emotional development into this class.
Counsellor, Educator and Parent Consultant
Nelson, BC, Canada
Jodi has long been an advocate of Neufeld's approach in the school system. She now applies the Neufeld approach in her work as a counsellor and learning consultant. A mother of seven grown children, she has had plenty of opportunity to integrate the attachment-based developmental concepts into family life as well.
COURSE SUMMARY
We now know there is good reason that play appears at the same time as emotion in our evolutionary history. Without the emotional playgrounds that culture has traditionally provided, our emotions soon become a troublesome and disturbing mess. This course takes these previously discarded elements of human nature and elevates them to their rightful place as essential to the unfolding of human potential, including healing and maturing. These revolutionary insights are at the cutting edge of developmental science and couldn't be more crucial at a time when the prevailing paradigms of the day still discount these vital elements as frivolous and irrelevant. Finding our own playfulness and matchmaking our children to the emotional playgrounds they need is absolutely imperative in today's society. Nothing could be more important to the unfolding of human potential, in children as well as adults.
We believe this course to be so important and timely that we removed its previous prerequisites to make it more accessible, instead providing a written Neufeld Play Primer that can be read beforehand to set the stage for this course.
SUITABILITY/APPLICABILITY
These are universal themes with universal applications. One can come for oneself, or as a parent, teacher, or therapist. One can use this course to re-find one's own playfulness or to matchmake children to the emotional playgrounds they need. No previous knowledge of the current psychological literature on play and emotion is required. What is helpful, however, is some previous exposure to Neufeld's attachment-based developmental approach. This course is not about becoming a play therapist but rather about putting ourselves and our children back into the therapeutic hands of true play.
SAMPLE TOPICS
- how to differentiate between "false play" and "true play"
- playfulness as a key indicator of emotional health and well-being
- how to recognize the kind of emotional play a child needs
- how troubling syndromes are rooted in unresolved emotion
- the role of culture in giving emotions free play
- the role of emotional replay in healing and recovery
- how play can tame aggression
- why emotional playgrounds are fast disappearing in today's society
- how to re-find one's own emotional playfulness
- how emotion requires play in order to optimize and fully develop
- how screen play interferes with the kind of play required for optimal functioning
- the various kinds of emotional playgrounds that can be accessed
- emotional play as natural therapy
Course Outline
The course is structured into eight sessions, with each session including approximately one hour of instructional video from Dr. Neufeld. Instead of requiring the prerequisite courses we did previously, a written Neufeld Play Primer is provided with this course that sets the stage for optimal learning.
- Session 1 — HOW play serves emotion: an overview
The course begins with an overview of the six ways play serves emotion. When emotion is deprived of the play it needs to function properly, emotional health and development suffer accordingly. - Session 2 — WHERE play serves emotion: the playgrounds
The focus on physical play has blinded us to the emotional play our children need and the equipping that may be necessary to enter these playgrounds. We survey some of the traditional playgrounds of emotion in this context. - Session 3 — How play serves FRUSTRATION and problem solving
Given how powerful and potentially destructive frustration can be, play is explored as both the personal and societal solution, from toddlers to teens to old-timers. Play is also presented as the catalyst for developing patience, constructive skills, and even creativity in problem-solving. - Session 4 — How play serves the ALARM system
The alarm system is one of the most complicated of all the emotional systems, and as such, requires the help of play to optimize and develop. Play is explored as a way of preventing and treating anxiety and other alarm-based problems. - Session 5 — How play serves SEEKING and identity formation
Some of the most common forms of spontaneous childhood play involve closing-the-gap play and altering-the-self play. The purpose of such forms of play is explored, both for how it serves well-being, development, and the formation of identity in particular. - Session 6 — How play serves RESILIENCE and adaptation
Play serves a profound role in our human capacities to bounce back from adversity and to be transformed for the better by that which we cannot change. Both resilience and adaptation are explored as the handiwork of emotion, and as such, require the service of play to be fully realized. - Session 7 — How play helps to FACE SEPARATION
Some of the most difficult realities to adapt to include our limitations, our finiteness, and our mortality. We explore how play provides an avenue for facing these realities and why this is important as preparation for real life. We look specifically at the role of fairy tales, stories, theatre, tragedy, poetry, and song. - Session 8 — How play serves SELF-REALIZATION
The prevailing views regarding self-improvement and transformation are basically all variations on the work motif. Play is presented as a natural alternative path to self-realization, in which we allow Nature to have its gentle yet transforming way with us and with our children.
Inquiries
If you have questions or require additional information that you cannot find on our website or FAQ page, you may contact our office on our Inquiries page.
Charity & Non-Profit Status
The Neufeld Institute is a registered Canadian charitable organization under the name Neufeld Institute Foundation and is also registered as a NPO in British Columbia. If you would like to make a contribution to us, please go to our donation page.
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