Honoring Dr. Garry Landreth: It Begins with Relationship

The play therapy world lost a giant last week.

Dr. Garry Landreth, founder of the Center for Play Therapy at the University of North Texas and author of Play Therapy: The Art of the Relationship, leaves behind a legacy that has shaped generations of therapists, parents, and children around the world.

His famous words,

“Toys are children’s words and play is their language.”

changed the way many of us understand children. He reminded us that beneath behavior is communication, beneath resistance is meaning, and beneath many struggles is a child longing to be understood.

What always stood out to me about Dr. Landreth’s work was his unwavering respect for children. He taught us that children are not problems to solve. They are people to know.

I completed Child-Parent Relationship Therapy (CPRT) training with Dr. Sue Bratton, one of his longtime colleagues and collaborators. Later, as I trained parents in CPRT and Filial Therapy, I often used a video of Dr. Landreth working with a child in the playroom.

There is one brief moment in that video that has stayed with me for years.

The child looks up.

Dr. Landreth meets the child’s gaze.

Nothing dramatic happens. No profound insight is shared. No technique is demonstrated.

And yet, in those few seconds, you see everything he spent his career teaching.

You can see connection.

You can see attunement.

You can see a child who feels seen.

That moment captured something I have spent my career trying to help parents and therapists understand. Healing often begins not with fixing, teaching, or correcting.

It begins with relationship.

As I reflect on Dr. Landreth’s passing, I find myself thinking about how his influence continues to ripple through my own work.

Many people know me for the Owl, Fire Tiger, Ice Tiger, Together Tiger, and Hippo metaphors that have become part of my work with children, families, and therapists.

Those characters did not begin as a curriculum or a training model.

They began with a child.

A child who struggled with regulation.

A child who felt lost.

A child who was beginning to believe that something was wrong with them.

Like many children, they lacked words to describe what was happening inside. What they did have was a growing sense of shame.

I wanted a way to help children understand themselves differently.

A way to explore their experiences without feeling broken.

A way to talk about difficult emotions, behaviors, and nervous system responses with curiosity instead of judgment.

The Owl and Tigers became that language.

Over time, they evolved into a framework that helps children, parents, and therapists understand regulation, connection, and healing through stories, symbols, play, and exploration.

When I look back now, I can see the influence of Dr. Landreth’s work woven throughout that process.

Not because he created the framework.

But because he helped create the lens through which I viewed children.

Child-centered play therapy taught me to trust children’s capacity for growth and self-discovery. It taught me to enter their world rather than demanding they enter mine. It taught me that understanding must come before change.

The framework itself did not come from Dr. Landreth.

But the philosophy that made it possible—the belief that children deserve to be understood rather than judged—certainly did.

Years later, as I studied neuroscience and Polyvagal Theory, I found myself returning to many of those same truths.

Today, I might describe that moment of eye contact in terms of attunement, co-regulation, neuroception, and nervous system safety.

But Dr. Landreth was helping us understand those principles long before many of us had those words.

The Owl returns when safety is present.

The Fire Tiger settles through connection.

The Ice Tiger begins to emerge when someone stays with us.

The Together Tiger grows in relationship.

Modern neuroscience has given us new language, but the heart of the work remains remarkably similar to what Dr. Landreth demonstrated throughout his career: healing happens in the context of safe, attuned relationships.

Dr. Landreth’s legacy extends far beyond the books he wrote, the trainings he offered, or the profession he helped shape.

His legacy lives in every playroom where a child feels accepted.

In every parent who learns to listen differently.

In every therapist who chooses presence over performance.

And in every child who discovers that they are not broken, but simply trying to understand themselves.

That may be one of the greatest gifts Dr. Landreth gave our profession. He taught us to look beyond behavior and see the child. To approach children with curiosity instead of judgment. To trust relationship. To trust play.

For that, I am profoundly grateful.

Thank you, Dr. Landreth, for helping us understand the language of children.

Thank you for teaching us that relationship comes first.

Thank you for showing us that healing begins when a child feels seen, safe, and understood.

Your influence continues to live on—in playrooms, in families, in classrooms, in training rooms, and in the countless lives touched by those who learned from you.

Your work mattered.

And it will continue to matter for generations to come.

Amy Reamer, LMFT, RPT-S

Heart & Mind Therapy