Thank you so much for joining me today for this next episode from the Lessons from the Playroom podcast. It is us today in our conversation and I want to share a little bit about what went into this particular topic. There’s really two things that have inspired today’s conversation.
The first is that it is our 15 year anniversary for Synergetic Play Therapy. And as such, it’s got me in a very reflective, very contemplative place as I just think back to where things were 15 years ago that even prompted the creation of Synergetic Play Therapy. And then in my own journey, I am almost at 25 years in the field working with kids.
And so that’s got me also reflecting back to what did I learn 25 years ago and where was the field at 25 years ago? So just personally in this really beautiful, reflective place around growth and just seeing and appreciating how things have shifted and evolved over the years. So that’s the first thing. The second thing, which has to do with a television show on Netflix, which I don’t normally talk about television shows on Netflix in this podcast, but if you have Netflix and if you have access to this particular television show, it is called Queen Charlote and it is a beautiful, beautiful story.
There’s a lot of beauty in it around her role with her husband, who’s the king, who struggles with some mental health issues. You’re probably going like, where are you going with this, Lisa? Where I’m going with this is that at the time, which was I’m going to guess? Actually don’t know. I’m going to guess it was either 17 hundreds or 18 hundreds.
When this story takes place, he was provided treatment, but the treatment that he was provided we would consider incredibly archaic at this point. So it was a lot of electric chair kind of interventions and torture type of interventions trying to cure him, so to speak. And that also got me really thinking about how much our understanding of mental health has changed over not just the last 1520 years, but hundreds of years, and how much we are able to really understand what’s happening inside of an individual at such a deeper level at this point.
So both of those are what bring me to this moment to share with you a little bit about my perception of where I see things are at now. This is just my vantage point. Someone else may be looking at the field from a completely different vantage point and might have a totally different conversation with you.
So this is just my observation. So when we’re talking about trends, I really want to talk about trends in mental health. Not so much just in the world of play therapy, although we know that the trends that happen in mental health obviously impact and trickle down to play therapy.
And we’re seeing that. So 20 years ago, the emphasis in mental health was really on behavior. It was really on understanding.
We’re not even understanding the behavior so much, but more on how do we get rid of the behaviors or change the behaviors or shift the behaviors in some way. From that perspective, what was so cool to see was that there was then this emergence of the brain. So it’s almost like the last decade plus, we’ve really delved into the brain and into understanding why behaviors are the way that they are and why children and individuals act the way that they do, what their symptoms mean.
And what I have personally noticed is that it has supported this movement from putting people in a box to a lot more empathy and a lot more openness and curiosity about who this unique individual is and really what’s driving them. As we’ve learned more about the brain, it’s really given us permission to understand each other at a deeper level. And what I’ve seen then correlate within play therapy is this movement around helping parents and caregivers really understand their child more, and not so much just what the behaviors might mean, but what’s actually driving the behavior, what’s going on in their brain, what’s going on inside of their bodies.
So starting to in the last decade, moving into this shift of more openness, more ability to begin to see the child from a more holistic vantage point, not just what their behaviors might say about the child. I’ve even seen a movement away from diagnosing, recognizing that in many ways a diagnosis is really a description of symptoms. And those symptoms are driven by perceptions that are happening in the brain and different activation in the autonomic nervous system.
When we then on top of that weave in the field of interpersonal neurobiology that really has exploded and we’ve taken that and moved that also into the play therapy world, there was then and there continues to be then this conversation about, okay, well, it’s not just about the kid, right? It’s about the kid in relationship to other and in particular in the therapy world, in relationship to the therapist and a deeper level of what does that mean and what is happening between the therapist and the child and what’s happening in the therapist and what needs to be developed within the therapist to be able to support a process with their client. And so we’re going down into nuances. So again, we’ve gone from just the behavior to into the brain and what’s going on in the brain and what’s going on in the body to understanding the behaviors and then what’s happening then in this interpersonal space with the person and another person.
And that’s actually my favorite place to talk about when I teach, is that place in between. It’s not just what’s happening in the child. It’s not just what’s happening in the therapist or in the parent, but what’s happening in that beautiful space right in between them.
And so we’re just going into these deeper, deeper layers and these nuances. And then comes along this explosion of polyvagal theory which is giving us even more understanding and nuance of the autonomic nervous system and what happens between two people and how this felt. Sense of safety is an integral part of integration and an integral part of how we make sense of the world and how our brain is even determining whether or not there’s a threat or a challenge in the environment.
So I hope that as I’m describing this, you can just hear we’re just going deeper, right? Deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper. And one of the things that I’ve seen really emerge then in the last couple of years is as we go deeper, there is this parallel of simultaneously opening up new possibility and widening our lens on being able to hold a deeper level of individuality and uniqueness about each other and about our clients. So all of a sudden, understanding a client’s cultural background is really significant.
Understanding their unique profile is really significant. Understanding our clients identities is really significant. And again, helping us move away from seeing an individual and just treating an individual through their behaviors and really understanding who is this individual that’s in front of me.
And in so many ways, what makes them be who they are and what is driving them on many levels, what’s driving them in their brain, in their nervous system, what’s driving them from their perceptions of what’s happening in their environment, the messages that they’ve received about who they can be, who they’re not allowed to be. Understanding through their body that not everyone’s bodies work the same. And regulation for 1 may not look like regulation for another.
And what one client needs may not be what the other client needs. And really in the field of play therapy. What I’m seeing is a larger trend towards a more prescriptive approach and therapists that are giving themselves permission to learn multiple modalities and learn multiple ways of viewing a child so that they can really meet the child.
Where? The child is recognizing that not every intervention works for every single child and that we need to be able to be more flexible and open and adaptive and curious about who our client is. In many ways, the field is asking a lot more of us as clinicians. It’s asking us now if we’re going to meet our clients at a much deeper nuanced level.
Well, it’s also asking us to do the same within ourselves. So how do we know ourselves at a deeper level? How do we go deeper into our understanding of what drives us and when we show up, what is showing up with us, what’s in our own history, what’s in our own belief system, what’s part of our mindset? And how do we begin to hold that in deeper ways so that we can hold ourselves in ways that the client may need. As again, we continue to go deeper and deeper and deeper.
Another trend that I’m seeing is this movement towards a more mindful approach. So more contemplative practices, more introspective processes, more this is all still in line with the development of the therapist. How mindful can the therapist be? We are moving into more conversation around what presence actually means and the importance of the therapist’s presence.
And that means a more embodied approach where we’re also seeing trends, moving from more cognitive, analytical ways of working with our clients to more somatic ways, so a more deeper appreciation of the body and recognizing that trauma is stored in the body. And therefore, when we are facilitating part of why it’s so necessary for us to be embodied ourselves and to understand ourselves at a deeper level is because as we’re moving our client into their bodies to help them be, able to come in contact a bit more with themselves, to be able to feel into the parts of their inner worlds that are challenging at deeper levels, that it really requires a certain level of holding that we weren’t talking about 20 years ago. So we’re just going deeper, deeper into mindfulness, deeper into presence, deeper into what’s happening in any given moment, deeper into uniqueness, deeper into individuality.
It’s really such an exciting time for us clinically in so many ways. I’m going to say a couple more things that I’m noticing too before I talk about where I see we’re also headed and what we’re on the cusp of, which to me is just so exciting. Also in the last couple of years, with COVID and with the field and the world asking so much of us, I’m simultaneously as exciting as all this is, the burnout rates are kicking in pretty well and we’re seeing a lot more exhaustion in our field and we’re seeing a lot more need for self care.
We’re seeing as the trauma caseloads are increasing and we are being asked to hold more, we’re being asked to attend to ourselves more as well. So we’re really at this kind of crux in our field around how are we going to it’s kind of a question for us as a field. How are we going to continue to do this really deep work with our clients if we’re not really doing that deep work within ourselves? And how are we going to continue to be able to be of service in ways that are so demanding if we ourselves are not embodying the very things that we are asking our clients to do? And what does self care really mean and really look like? It’s one of my favorite topics also, in addition to what’s happening in between ourselves and our clients, it’s one of my favorite topics to explore and to discuss.
On that note, I’m just going to throw this out here because it’s a free resource. There is a free webinar that I did not too long ago on understanding secondary traumatization. For us as therapists, it is free.
You can access it at Learn Synergeticplaytherapy.com if that is of interest to you. It’s a free 1 hour webinar.
Feel free to use it, share it, whatever. I put it together for you in case that is a meaningful topic for you to also explore. So, lots of different trends, lots of different things happening for us.
We really are at a very exciting time, but a time that’s also having us make some really important decisions within ourselves about what we are able to do, what we’re not able to do, and how deep within ourselves we’re willing to go. So where do I see things headed? Well, we’ve gone from behavior, brain, nervous system, polyvagal theory into the mind. So as we’re looking more at these contemplative practices and mindfulness, we’re headed more towards the mind.
And the mind opens up an incredible possibility for what’s starting to be talked about, which is quantum physics. Yes, I just said quantum physics in this podcast. So we’re starting to see conversation.
Dan Siegel is having the conversation. He’s very much at the forefront of this. Dr. John Demartini has been having the conversation for years. There are other prominent figures in the field that are having the conversation. But what we’re starting to move into is understanding the mind at deeper levels.
What’s happening in the mind, the physics. There is a place, everyone, for physics and psychology to coexist. In fact, this topic of quantum physics and what’s happening in the mind and in the body is a topic I’ve personally been studying for the last 15 plus years.
And I can tell you it is a beautiful, beautiful topic. It’s a complex topic, but we’re at the point of beginning to welcome in conversation about how we perceive, why we perceive what we perceive. We’re starting to have larger conversation about you’re hearing words like the quantum field and words like entanglement theory and words like synchronicity, which, by the way, even though this is a new topic, carl Jung was, and Wolfgang Polly talked about it way back in the day.
So did William James. Some of the big thought leaders in psychology had their finger on the pulse of where we are headed in the field. So, yeah, we’re moving back into the mind and beginning to get curious about what’s happening in the mind and from a more science based perspective and really looking at the interplay between quantum physics and psychology.
So, lots to be revealed. It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the next decade as all of that information continues to unfold. If you’re curious, go grab Dan Siegel’s new books.
He’s definitely the one that’s leading the charge right now in the world of psychology around this. And it’s super exciting to see that we are about to enter a new decade of learning and growth and understanding. As I’m saying that, I’m going to put another little plug that’s important.
Even though we’re moving forward into the mind, we continue to learn more about the brain itself and the nervous system. And I know that there often is this feeling of if I take another class about the nervous system, if I take another class about the brain, but please keep learning about the brain and the nervous system. We are learning new things year after year and it is forever changing.
I’m a firm believer that just at the point that you get bored with a topic is right at the time when there’s a possibility of actually understanding the topic. So if you’re not feeling bored yet, keep going. If you are feeling bored, find the nuances.
Look for the next thing that you don’t understand. Don’t assume that you understand and know it already. There’s always new nuances to learn.
And I think I’m going to end this conversation on a larger piece here, which is that, and I think it’s one of the more exciting pieces in the trends is that each person gets to be their own unique self, including the therapist. And can we continue to look at our biases and continue to look at our beliefs and continue to look at really what makes us who we are and give space for others to be who they are and to look at where we hold privilege in our thinking and in the ways we’re able to move through the world as well as how do we get curious about other. I think that’s the piece that I’m going to leave us on.
It’s really important that we keep opening up our perspective and moving beyond our biases and moving beyond questioning our beliefs and questioning why we think the way that we do so that we can be of service to others in greater and greater ways. Okay, beautiful individuals, thanks so much for being on this journey with me. Again, this is just my perspective.
You may have a totally different perspective. I invite you to have conversation. I think that this is an important conversation to have, but if you have group meetings with other clinicians, have this conversation.
Ask, where do you think we are now in the field? Where were you when you first started to learn? Where do you think we’re going? Let’s talk about this. Let’s orient us into the present moment and appreciate the gifts from the past and appreciate the learnings from our history. And then also get excited about our trajectory and where we are headed.
Until next time, everyone. Thank you so much for being a part of my world and the journey for me over the last 15 years. And be well.
Take care of yourself. You are the most important toy in the playroom.
