Donna Gates

Donna is a Certified Theraplay® Practitioner and Trainer, formerly in private practice at David L. Gates and Associates in Illinois, but now living in Bluffton, SC near Hilton Head Island. For 18 years she did individual, couples, and family therapy as well as domestic violence treatment, anger management treatment for adults and children, and parenting training and consultation. Since 2015, she has focused on doing training and supervision for The Theraplay Institute, as well as providing parenting workshops. In the past she has worked as a youth and family counselor with Warren Township Youth Commission, developed a children’s program for Families in Touch/Teen Moms in Waukegan, and supervised college students as they worked in that program. She also worked with the teen moms in the FIT program, teaching parenting skills, life skills, and issues of domestic violence. Donna obtained her BA in Theology from Berkshire Christian College in Massachusetts before working with Campus Life/Youth for Christ in New York City. She then went on to obtain her MA in Counseling Psychology from Trinity International University in Deerfield, IL. In the past, she has presented at the Theraplay International Conference and has written an article for the Theraplay Newsletter on the use of Theraplay in domestic violence treatment groups. More recently she authored a chapter on use of “Theraplay with Families Affected by Domestic Violence” in the book “Theraplay: Theory, Applications and Implementation” (ed. by Sandra Lindaman & Rana Hong). Donna is the mother of two daughters and has eight grandchildren, all of whom enjoy helping her practice Theraplay activities.