Speaker, Author & Clinician

Paris Goodyear-Brown, LCSW, RPT-S, is the creator of the TraumaPlay™ model, the founder and Clinical Director of Nurture House, and the Executive Director of the TraumaPlay™ Institute. She is an internationally renowned speaker, a prolific author (Check out Paris's books here), and a master clinician. While she has spent the past 25 years specializing in treating trauma (sexual abuse, physical abuse, maltreatment and neglect) and attachment disturbances, as well as anxiety disorders, she often provides help for angry, dysregulated and depressed children and teens. She is an Adjunct Instructor of Psychiatric Mental Health at Vanderbilt University, guest lecturer for several universities in middle Tennessee, and travels around the world helping clinicians, parents, and teachers better serve children from hard places. She particularly enjoys integrating trauma-informed approaches and is an EMDRIA Certified EMDR therapist. She also finds great joy in helping other clinicians create safe spaces for children and families. She is a child development expert and frequently provides parent consultation, dyadic assessment and parent coaching to help parents manage and resolve their children’s behavior problems. With trainings in Morocco, Ireland, Australia, Sweden, Istanbul, South Africa, Nepal, Turkey, Taiwan and China as well as frequent domestic presentations, she is best known for developing clinically sound, played-based interventions that are used to treat a variety of childhood problems. She has received the APT award for Play Therapy Promotion and Education, serves on the Board of the Tennessee Association for Play Therapy, and served as the Executive Director of the Lipscomb Play Therapy and Expressive Arts Center. She provides play therapy and licensure supervision and consults with various school districts, agencies, and mental health organizations to help develop play therapy programs and create more developmentally sensitive programming.   Some of her most recent books include Polyvagal Power in the Playroom, Big Behaviors in Small Containers, Parents as Partners in Child Therapy: A Clinician’s Guide, Trauma and Play Therapy, Tackling Touchy Subjects, Play Therapy with Traumatized Children: A Prescriptive Approach and The Worry Wars: An Anxiety Workbook for Kids and their Helpful Adults. She delights in her husband, her three children, shifting paradigms, and holding hard stories for families in need.