Thanks so much for tuning in for another episode from the Lessons from the Playroom podcast. As you are listening to this episode, if it has just been released, we are just now launching into the beginning of 2023. My goodness.
So we are going to begin this year’s podcast Conversations with a conversation about our relationship with the parents and the caregivers that we work with to help us out. I am going to draw from an understanding of three different kinds of relationship. And these three types of relationships I first learned way back in the day from one of my mentors, Dr. John Demartini. Now of course, there’s many ways of conceptualizing different relationship dynamics, but I’m going to offer you three that I have found to be incredibly useful over the years. So hopefully you can find it useful as well in your work.
So, to understand these three relationship dynamics, let me first remind us that all of us inherent within us have things that are important to us. We all have our own unique stamp, our own unique blueprint, if you will, our own way of looking at the world. We all have our own interests.
How we express ourselves in the world is so unique to everyone. And so I really like the idea that we all have our own unique blueprint inside. And so we’re going to keep that as a foundation as I begin to talk about these different relationships.
So the first type of relationship we’re going to call a careless relationship. And in this dynamic, it kind of looks like this me, if I’m the individual telling someone or talking to someone or expecting someone to have a similar level of interest or way of doing things in the world, or way of seeing things in the world as me. And what ends up happening is in this dynamic language starts to sound like you should or you shouldn’t.
So this is where the individual so in the example, if it’s me talking to someone, where I am placing my expectations about who I think that person should be onto them, where I am believing that if that person did things differently. Was more like me. Saw things more through my lens.
Had a similar set of interests and values as me. That somehow things would be better. And in that mindset I’m imposing my belief system and my expectations on the other person.
And the reason why we’re going to call this dynamic a care less relationship is because in this moment, if I’m doing this, I’m actually caring less about what’s important to you and I’m caring more about what’s important to me. So I’m in a sense saying that the way I do things, my value system, my belief system is somehow better than your belief system. So in a sense change, do it my way.
So I care less about what’s true for you. I care less about your way of doing things and what feels true for you. And I care more about what’s true for me.
And the way I’m seeing these now, this dynamic that I’m talking about is very much, we’ll call it like a top dog underdog dynamic where top dog is pointing down at the underdog. And again, language sounds like you should, you shouldn’t, you have to, you need to. It’s a very finger pointing type of an energy.
Now as I’m saying this, we’ve all participated in this and let me go ahead and actually plant this seed. None of the dynamics I’m talking about are wrong. There is a time and a place for every one of these dynamics.
So let’s just name that up front. I’m just talking about the dynamics first and then we’ll put them into context in this larger conversation. So in this dynamic that I’m talking about, this is actually one of the most celebrated relationship dynamics that exists in parenting, in a hierarchy, for example, within an organization, in a business, and also with teaching.
So a relationship between the teacher and the student, there’s this like, I know best, right? I know best type of, type of a feeling. Okay? So we’re going to pause there and I’m going to go on to the next one. And again, I’m going to put this all together for you.
I’m just outlining right now the different types of relationships. The next one we’re going to call careful. Now, if we can imagine being on the receiving end of that care less relationship dynamic, we could imagine that in these moments that if someone is shooting us or we’re getting messages that tell us that we need to be different or we should be different, that one of the things that can happen is that we can then start to become careful.
So we can start to only show parts of ourself that we’re hoping that person will like or that we’re hoping that will be acceptable to that individual. In a sense, our own beliefs and our own value system starts to go a little dormant, starts to go a little quiet. In this dynamic we actually start to inject or ingest the value systems and those messages from the people around us, which is different in the care less one where we’re projecting this one we’re ingesting.
So we’re trying to be like or we’re trying to fit in. And thus we start to become a little careful inside. Walk on eggshells is kind of the flavor of this one.
And we’ve all done this. Every one of us has also engaged in a careful type of a relationship dynamic. Now, the last one that I’m going to talk about is called caring.
Caring is actually the hardest of all three of them because it takes the most amount of awareness and it takes the most amount of effort. So in order for me to engage in a caring relationship, I first need to know what’s important to me, but I also need to become curious about what’s important to you. So in a sense, in this one, the caring is about I care about both of us.
I care about me, but I also care about you. And I’m going to engage in a way where we both have the opportunity here to feel heard, to feel like our values are honored, our beliefs are honored, the way we see the world is honored. There’s a place for difference, there’s a place for perspective, and there’s an understanding that different is actually more than okay.
In fact, it’s even necessary at times because no two people on the planet can be the same. So let me go through those again. Careless, careful and caring.
Now let’s take these and translate these on over to the dynamic that we have when we’re working with parents and caregivers. It is really common when a parent or a caregiver comes to see us that they come in already engaging in a careful relationship dynamic. So that one, again, is the one where they’re minimizing themselves.
So it can sound like this, and maybe this isn’t what’s said out loud, but this can be some of the internal thinking for that parent or caregiver. This other person I e, the therapist knows best. They know more than I do.
I have to bring my child to this individual and this individual is going to tell me what needs to happen. And in this dynamic, you can even hear it in the way I’m describing it. The therapist becomes a little careful and begins to minimize themselves.
In doing so, they elevate the therapist and put the therapist up on a pedestal. Now this is a super tricky dynamic because from the therapist’s perspective, it can be a little I’m going to use the word seductive because it’s actually an appropriate word for it. Because doesn’t it feel good to be put on a pedestal sometimes it feels really good when people look up to us.
But here’s the thing. The more we stay on that pedestal, the more we disempower the parent and the caregiver because they start to inject our belief system and values rather than discovering their own inner truth and empowering themselves from within. Which ultimately is what’s needed in the dynamic with their own child is for the parent to tap into who they are and their own inner knowing and understanding of who they are.
The other thing that makes this dynamic a little tricky is and I tell my students, I joke about this in the Introduction to Synergetic Play Therapy course, is I say, you know what? There’s this law in physics that says what goes up must come down. So part of what happens if we stay in this careful dynamic, what happens is at some point the client’s going to want to get us off the pedestal and we’re going to get slammed in the pit. So this can look like at some point as the parent is trying to claim their own inner empowerment, all of a sudden the therapist starts getting messages about therapy isn’t working.
They start to get questioned. Maybe the parent just starts disengaging in some way, but they start to do something to throw off the dynamic as a way to empower themselves. That’s just important to know anyway, by the way, in that dynamic.
Okay, now let’s flip this over to the care less dynamic. Now this can also happen when the therapist is engaging in I’m going to tell you what to do. I am going to really project onto you what I think you need to do as the parent.
Thereby, I’m going to use the word exacerbating, that sense of careful on the part of the therapist. So the more as the therapist that we are engaging back. So not just that we’re on a pedestal, but it’s the sense of I’m the expert, you’re not.
I’m going to tell you what to do. I’m going to tell you how you need to do it. I’m going to give you feedback about right or wrong, that that type of careless dynamic further polarizes the parent or caregiver into disempowerment.
As I’m saying this, are you beginning to hear that careful and careless is actually a polarity and two sides of the same coin? Hopefully you’re hearing that as I am explaining that. So in order for someone to go careful, someone else potentially is in the position of care less. If someone’s going to care less, it puts the person potentially in the position of going careful, that they’re a dynamic that plays off of each other.
And then sometimes we have the parent or caregiver that comes in and they’re the ones that are in the careless dynamic. This is the one that tells the therapist how to do their job or says, hey, I need you to talk to my kid about this, this, and this, and I need you to do it this way, and I need you to read this book so that you can become familiar with blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it comes from the energy of demands.
You should. You have to. You need to.
And then sometimes it’s the therapist, then that goes careful. So I want you to think about this in your own caseload. If you’ve ever been in this dynamic where all of a sudden you start to have your own truth or your own voice start to go a little quiet and you start to walk on eggshells around the parent or caregiver, or you start to minimizing what you know.
Maybe you start an avoidance dynamic with them because it’s uncomfortable, because you’ve lost your footing, right? You’ve lost your ability to position yourself with the parent or caregiver and you feel like they’re in charge or they’re trying to run the show. So let’s pause and breathe together for a moment as we let this information about careful and care less set in. I’m going to switch over to caring here in a minute.
I know that I’m choosing to focus this conversation on the relationship with parents and caregivers, but everything that I’m saying here, as I already said, is also part of any relationship dynamic. And so you can get curious about this through the lens of the parent child dynamic, through the lens of the teacher child dynamic, even through the lens of dynamics you have with other individuals in your life as well. And then we arrive at the caring dynamic, which, again, I said is the hardest one because it takes time.
So if we were to consider engaging in a caring dynamic with a parent or caregiver, we have to really want to we have to want to get to know the parent. We have to want to become curious about who they are and why they are the way that they are and get curious about what’s meaningful for them in their lives and what do they love to do and what do they love to think about and talk about and what feels really important to them. Because if we don’t take the time to know the parent or caregiver, then how are we going to help them feel cared for? And how are we going to help develop or create a space that allows them to be able to feel like it’s okay for them to show up as themselves and it’s okay for them to explore who they are with us? I also shared that part of that caring equation is it’s not just knowing the parent or caregiver, but we have to know ourselves too.
So if I don’t know who I am and I don’t know what I want, and I don’t have clarity about what feels important for me to talk to the parent about or the way that therapy if I don’t have clarity about my style of therapy or how I go about it or my understanding of it. How am I going to communicate this effectively to the parents? So when we’re talking about a caring relationship, we’re fundamentally asking this question how can I communicate with another human being about something that’s important for me? But how do I communicate it in a way that becomes meaningful for them? And how do I do it in a way where we both recognize that there’s opportunity in the conversation? And how can this conversation happen in a way that offers the possibility where we both can creatively come to the table and brainstorm and be seen and heard together? Really important question from an SPT perspective. We talk so much about becoming the external regulator and I think that inherent in this is this understanding of it’s not just your nervous system that I’m attuning to, it’s mine also.
And how do I create a caring relationship even at the level of a nervous system attunement? How can I tend to mine and yours? How can I be aware of my needs and your needs? How can I bring conversation that’s meaningful to both of us and honors both of our rhythms and honors what both of us need in any given moment? I planted the seed early on that not one is better than the other. So as I’m saying this, you’re probably like, yes, Lisa, caring. That’s what we should always go for.
Well, not necessarily because careful and careless have a time and a place. Is there a time when you may need to go a little quiet? Yeah. Is there a time when you may need to set down a boundary and it might feel like a careless dynamic for another person? Yeah, absolutely.
Is there a time when you may need to be really clear with a parent about something that’s really, really important, where you’re having to say, look, it does need to happen this way? Sure. I can imagine a time when that might occur. And then again, is there a time when you might choose to just be quiet? When a parent saying to you, hey, I need you to go.
Do I need to go read that book? Or I need you to talk to my kid today in session about blah blah blah blah and you may just choose to not say something or not speak up. Sure, I can imagine that there would be a time and a place for that. What I want you to understand about all of these is that the thing that matters the most is your conscious awareness about choice, about when you engage in any of them.
If we can consciously choose. You know what, I need to have a conversation. And I know it’s going to be challenging for the parent or caregiver, and I know it’s going to push against their belief system, and I know that it’s going to challenge their values, but I see the benefit in doing so, and I’m consciously choosing to do it.
Or I keep getting these messages from this parent. But you know what? I see the benefit in me just being quiet and me allowing what I want to have happen, just not be expressed and just to go into a little bit more of a careful type of an experience. But I’m going to choose it consciously or do I see that there’s the time and the space right now to do the work, to engage in a caring dynamic.
When we have conscious choice, it is that act of the conscious choice that allows us to still stay connected to ourself and allows us, in synergetic play therapy terminology, stay attached to ourself which creates a space for us to be able to regulate through the Dysregulation that is inevitable as part of the careless and careful dynamic. So let me make this a little more clear. Maybe I have decided that I need to say something very directly to a parent and I recognize it’s going to be challenging and I recognize there’s a high probability that the parent’s going to hear it as it should, thus putting me in the category of that careless relationship dynamic.
If I have a fantasy that I’m going to be able to say what I’m going to say and this parent is not going to get Dysregulated and instead they’re going to go, wow Lisa, thank you so much for challenging me so much. And thank you for asking me to do something that I don’t want to do or whatever it may be. If I have a fantasy about that, I’m going to get highly Dysregulated.
And when the parent becomes Dysregulated back, which is what their system is designed to do when they perceive a challenge, I have a higher probability of not being able to be an external regulator or co regulate in that moment for myself and for my parent in that challenging moment. Same thing is true with careful. If I don’t consciously choose it, I’m going to feel disempowered and I’m going to feel overpowered versus I’m choosing to go quiet right now which lets me stay connected and attached to myself so I can stay with that inevitable activation that’s going to occur inside and in the activation that the parent might also be carrying.
Because if they’re giving those messages about you should clearly there’s something going on in that moment that the parent is carrying so high probability that there’s some activation going on. So there you go listeners, this is about understanding relationship dynamic. I’ve given you three ways of thinking about it.
I want you more than anything to get curious about being able to identify when you’re engaging in these dynamics and more importantly, can you engage in them consciously? Thank you once again for tuning in, for listening, for being such an important part of this podcast series. You are so important to me. Thank you for the feedback that you email.
Thank you for the stories that you share. Thank you for the topics that you suggest. This podcast would truly not be able to be what it is without you.
So as we launch into 2023 here, I invite you to keep joining me. We have an amazing lineup of incredible speakers and guests this year for 2023, with lots more topics, lots more conversations to be had. So wherever you are in the world, be well.
Take care of yourself. Remember conscious choice in relationship dynamic. You are the most important toy in that playroom.
