Welcome to the latest episode from the Lesson from the Playroom podcast. To say that I am excited for today’s conversation is a little bit of an understatement because it is probably in the top three most requested topics since the inception of this podcast. And I have been waiting and waiting and waiting for the perfect person at the perfect time to educate us on the topic.
And so if you don’t know what the topic is already, we’re going to be talking about sexualized play and how to understand it and how to make sense of it. And I have with me the amazing Dr. Jodi Mullen.
For those of you that are not familiar with Jodi, I want to share a little bit about her with you and then I’m going to invite her to say a little hello and then we are off in our conversation. So she’s a professor at SUNY Oswego. That is in New York.
For those of you that are not familiar with that particular university, she’s in the Counseling and Psychological Services Department, where you’ve been a counseling educator for nearly 30 years. Amen. She’s the director of integrative counseling services with offices in central New York.
You are very much an international speaker, author, credential, play therapist, and play Therapy supervisor. I’ll just add in play therapy supervisor extraordinaire. You provide training, consultation, supervision to professionals all over the world.
You’ve authored books in our field on so many topics ranging from grief to parenting to just working with children and teens. And you are also the 2008 recipient of the key award for professional training education through the association for Play Therapy. And my favorite thing on your bio is that you’re the proud mama of two.
Very lucky, lucky. Thank you. So, Jodi, thank you, first of all, for tackling this topic many run away from and for being willing to be a guest on here and educate us.
Oh, no, I’m delighted. And I think that this is one of those weird topics in that I’m excited to talk about it, but I also wish that it was something we didn’t have to talk about at all because we’re not seeing children who have been sexually traumatized and show sexual play in the playroom. So it’s like this weird dynamic that happens when you talk about things that you wish this wasn’t the situation, but it’s the situation.
So thank you for the opportunity. Yeah, absolutely. So, listeners, I invite you to take notes.
I invite you to become curious. We’re going to touch on this today. And Jody also has some additional trainings and resources.
So I just want to go ahead and orient you to that, that as we’re going through this, just know that we’re going to let you know at the end of this that there’s more opportunity to continue to educate yourself in this. Just where do you want to start with this, Jodi? Well, I’m glad you asked because one of the things that I think is really important and I say to so my students at the university where I teach are graduate students in school psychology, school counseling, and mental health counseling. And one of the things that I say to my students is like, so turns out you’re going to have to be a trauma specialist.
You don’t get a choice in that because those are the children who you are going to see. Whether you’re doing school based work or agency based work or private practice or hospital, wherever you are, those are going to be the children who come to see you. More specifically, you are going to have to be a specialist in working with sexually traumatized children because that’s who shows up at our doorstep.
So in the 30 or so years that I have been doing this, I’ve definitely had conversations with child mental health professionals and play therapists who say, like, I just don’t want to work with sexually traumatized kids. There’s just no way around it. I think that that really is important for people to know, whether you’re new to the field, a student in the field, or even a seasoned professional, is that you have to, no matter what, they’re going to show up and they’re not necessarily going to show up with you knowing that.
And that’s part of the process as well. Yeah, that’s part of my excitement for our conversation today because I definitely experienced that where the child has come in for a reason that has nothing to do, literally nothing been identified as ability in their history, and their play all of a sudden shows indicators or has me at least questioning and becoming curious. And the system seems to know nothing or doesn’t seem to want to talk about, if that’s even a possibility.
So my guess is that there are many therapists who might say, well, that isn’t on my caseload, and it is, and they don’t know that it is. Yeah. And that’s alarming.
Yeah, I think that’s like alarming to me as a supervisor. But I think that’s just alarming too, is because we don’t want to see it, and of course we don’t want to see it, but even if we don’t want to, it’s still there. And so then what is then what’s that child’s experience? And and I know this is part of our shared work, and emphasis in the work is, you know it at some level, and the child knows you know it at some level.
Right. And so if it is not honored during the therapeutic work, then is the therapeutic work really helping? And I think I actually think of all the children clients that I work with as teachers, but also I work with adolescents and adults as well. And one of the things that my adolescent and adult clients have taught me is that not being believed as a child is the worst part of it.
Right. It’s the worst part of having any kind of traumatic experience is that the people that you love and care about don’t believe you. And that’s what they talk about as adults, really, in their sessions, is like, my mom didn’t believe me.
I went to my teacher and she said, stop making up stories. And I had a counselor, which is so painful to hear, that didn’t believe me. So I think when we say, like, I mean, it could be, but they were referred for perfectionism.
So I’m just going to lean into that, is that we might not be saying the words I don’t believe you, but we’re conveying it. And that, to me, is like, the most heartbreaking parts and the most alarming parts of this that there are. Yeah.
So, Jody, can we jump in as the play therapist is in the play? What are we looking for? What are some of the flags? Yeah, so I think there’s the ones that certainly that the children bring in that are directly things that they’re playing. So I’m going to speak about this in multiple levels. I also think there are the thematic ones that show up across different play modalities that they’re doing and using.
And then I would say the other is how you feel. Right. So just how you feel.
And I’m a story person, so I’m going to share a couple of stories. I will say that they may kind of border on graphic, but I do think that’s important right, to the work. Okay.
So one is just the feeling that we have I’m going to work backwards. So the feeling that we have as a clinician of being creeped out, like, why would they be playing with it this way? What is it that they’re doing with their face, their body, that alarms our system, where we go like, this is not right. So let me give you an example.
So I was working with this, and of course, I’m going to change enough of the identifying characteristics. So I was working with this child who was older, so 1112, but intellectually disabled. And so one of the reasons why the child was referred was all of a sudden, which is right there, red flag.
All of a sudden, she had a huge change in the way that she was interacting with her mom. She was becoming physically aggressive. She wouldn’t let her mom help her with things that she needed help with.
She was using language that her mom was like, that’s not usually the way she is. And her mom was alert to, something is up. I’m not sure what it is, but something is up.
Well, we were in play therapy session together, and I very much come from a nondirective humanistic way of doing play therapy. That’s what informs my work. So we were playing puppies, and she engaged me in her play.
So now we’re both puppies. We’re on all fours, running around the playroom, playing fetch, eating our kibble and whatnot. And she says, okay, time to take a break, to have some water and eat our food.
So we go over and we’re doing that, and all of a sudden I got this wave of nausea that came over me, like, huge. I literally thought I was going to get sick. And then it kind of went away.
And after session, I walk out into the hall, and one of my esteemed colleagues says, what’s with you? And I said, I don’t know. I just had this really weird experience where I felt ill, like, really ill, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. And she said, well, what were you doing? Like, what was happening in the session? And I said, you know what? We were pretending to eat dog food and totally grossed out by dog food.
That was what it was. And my very wise colleague goes, no, like, there’s lots of grosser things that happen. So she’s like, do you want to show me? So I imitated what the child had done, and she said, Jodi, it looks like you’re performing oral sex.
And I went and I didn’t want to see. I just but my body knew and my whole system knew that she was showing me something. And I went right to I’m grossed out by dog food.
That must be what it is. And so for me, that’s that feeling that we get, that one we shouldn’t ignore as parents either, right? But definitely we shouldn’t be ignoring that in the plate room. We need to actually lean into that and check out what was going on then.
What was that about? Yeah. Jody, I am, like, smiling inside. So big on so many levels because I know that you and I are aligned on this, but you just gave permission for clinicians to really trust what’s going on in their bodies.
And in our field, this transference countertransference piece just becomes so muddled. And what I’m hearing you say is actually, in these moments, we need to not try to just check something at the door. Actually, there’s potentially really important information here to give us clues about what might be going on with our client.
Because objectively, you’re two puppies, right? The play isn’t sexually explicit. Not at all. Right? That’s not happening at all.
And something you just said is what I really try to highlight with my students and my supervisors is that I think in graduate school, many of us heard, like, you have to trust the process. Trust the process, trust the process. That’s one part of the trinity, right? The other is trusting ourselves and trusting the child.
And I don’t think that we can really do this at the highest level possible without having that trifecta, without having those three pieces. And I think it’s actually when we don’t trust ourselves that we get into a lot of trouble within that. And then I also wanted to highlight something there that you said that I do think is an important component and you actually talk about it in your Aggression and Play therapy book as well, is that you don’t need.
And the child doesn’t need to be playing with something that is explicitly sexual in any way, shape or form for them to be showing us sexualized play. Just like with aggression, it can be a pool, noodle, it can be dog food. It doesn’t have to be that they’re playing and actually shouldn’t be in the playroom, that they have anatomically correct dolls.
I think that is an important component, too, that as play therapists, we can wind up talking ourselves out of something because what they’re playing with is not like a baby doll or something that is phallic or anything of that nature. Can I just also highlight one of the challenges that we have in the field? Because we’re talking about the child’s going to bring the felt sense and is going to bring into the room whatever, however they need to. And I just want to name because I know that there’s not necessarily something we all can do about this other than education, but how as play therapists, we’re often then put in systems that want us tell it, that prove it.
Yeah. So you’re telling me that you know that the child was potentially sexually abused because you were eating dog food as a dog in the playroom. Right.
A name for play therapists, that this is a hard part of being a play therapist. Maybe the hardest part, yeah, it may be the hardest part because we are part of a larger system that isn’t given any validity. Right.
And so, again, a part that I think we have to almost make peace with is that even though justice might not happen, healing can still happen. Right. In fact, we can almost count on that justice isn’t going to happen.
But even if justice does happen, that doesn’t mean healing happens, right? So healing can happen in the absence of justice, in the absence of fairness, in the absence of systems that really work for children. One of the things that I do when I call in a report is I always start off by saying, like, so are you familiar with play therapy? And whether or not they say yes or no doesn’t matter because I still explain it to them. And then in the cases where I’m like, what else could that be? So there are things that children have done or said in play therapy sessions where then when I go to enter the system and try and keep the child safe in that way, is the system pushes back and says, well, couldn’t that mean this or couldn’t that mean that? And I’ll say, like, no, from my perspective, but that’s now your job, right, to figure that out.
But I think that it can be very and I do think that’s part of why we hear our colleagues say, like, I don’t want to work with sexually traumatized kids. Or we don’t see it because we know that we know that we’re not going to be able to get very far in the system in terms of protecting the child or getting justice for the child. Yeah, thank you so much for naming that.
And it just takes me back to how you open this whole conversation. But if we believe them, so even if we’re advocating and the system doesn’t want to embrace that, there still can be so much healing that can happen just from how we’re relating to what’s going on with the child and that we’re willing to see them and hear them. Yeah.
I am really lucky because I have worked in the same community for the 30 years that I’ve been a clinician, and so I get people as clients, as adults, who I also add as clients as children. And I had this really amazing experience with this seven year old that I worked with many years ago who had a disclosure during a session. And what her disclosure was, was she on the Magna Doodle, drew a picture that very much looked like a penis, and then she said, It shoots love out.
It shoots love out. And then right on the magnetle, after I reflected that you want me to know that that’s really important, that I understand. This is as soon as I said that, she wrote on the Magna Doodle.
Just kidding. So she recanted right in the moment, which makes so much sense, because the vulnerability that came with what she I had, I still made a report, and they took it. Child Protective Services here in New York State took it, and then it was unfounded, of course.
And then I was lucky enough to work with her, like, ten years later as an older teenager, and she said, do you remember when I was little? Yes. So I said, of course I remember when you were little. And she said, do you know what happened to me? And I went and she said, you were the only person who believed me, not even my mom.
And she goes, I think that’s why me and my mom aren’t getting along. And it was so cool to watch her make the connection of not being believed by my mom when I was seven gets in my way now at 17. It’s not just that I’m a teenager, right? It’s that she was able to connect that.
And she knew I believed her. Even though I have never said in a session, I believe you to a child, you just have to convey it. I think that that really speaks to who we are in connection to the children we’re working with.
And that that’s the most important part, right. Beautiful. So we’ve talked about how we show up and our willingness to believe and see the child in their story.
And then you brought in the example of yeah, so sometimes it’s not literal, but we have to trust our felt sense. Will you take us into some of the themes and some of those other pieces? So, in terms of themes, I think oftentimes they are very similar to the themes that you will see with other interpersonal kind of trauma. So you’ll see children who’ve witnessed domestic violence, children who have had experienced medical trauma.
In fact, I actually think that is the most difficult thing to discern is medical trauma and sexual trauma because it’s a similar body experience, right? But one of the things that you will see is in terms of themes is trickery. And so the trickery, deception, betrayal, all get kind of like intertwined. And so a child may do something like this.
They may say, like, in a role play or, Here, I made you a cupcake. And then if you follow their lead and go like, oh, cupcake, and you pretend to eat it or however you handle that situation, then they would say, like, actually not a cupcake, it’s full of poo. So now you’ve been tricked, right? They presented you with something that was something that like a cupcake.
Wow, that would be fabulous. And then you’ve been tricked. It’s not a cupcake, and it’s something disgusting that you had to put in your mouth.
So when you take that apart, those are the specifics, right? But the theme is that you were tricked, that you were deceived, that you were betrayed, that trust came into play. So you see all of those things arise. And when I do work, I actually do work with a colleague who’s a criminologist who studies child sex offenders.
That’s all connected to the way that they do what they do on their end. So you will actually see that in the themes in the playroom, because they won’t just show you what their experiences, their experience was. They kind of want you to know what it was like.
So they’ll want you to know what it was like to be surprised or snuck up on. So you’ll have that experience too, thematically. And it’s not like a surprise, like, surprise, it’s your birthday, right? It’s, oh, you were sleeping and now there’s a surprise and you’re terrified and you’re frozen.
So that’s the other thing you’ll see is you’ll see actual trauma responses show up thematically. You’ll see being frozen like children will. I remember this one little girl that I worked with who she had made a disclosure about being sexually traumatized by her grandfather, but no one believed her.
Like, no one. But now she was acting out aggressively. Surprise, surprise.
And I do want to talk. I have to write myself a little note because I want to say something about that. So she was showing up massively in this aggressive way, and so that was what brought her in.
And so one of the things that she showed in her play was she laid down on the floor and she went, I’m totally frozen and I cannot move any parts of my body. Like, she literally showed us her trauma response. And so I think being alert to that what that looks like in play therapy, those all pop up both somatically and then specifically in the play, so we can see them at the macro and micro level.
Yeah, as you’re talking, I had an experience with a child that just popped into my head, if I might share a little, too. So I worked with a young boy who was about six at the time when I saw him. And I knew that this was part of his history, so I knew this going in.
But in the play, there was a monster, and you could never tell if the monster was mean or nice. So this monster had both qualities to it, and you just never really knew how to trust when to trust. And in a particular moment of the play where it got really intense, my client froze and dissociated.
And when they froze and dissociated, he reached back with his hand and put his hand on his bottom. And that was another piece, too, of actually his body remembered and in that dissociative place, and he touched the part of his body where the trauma was. And so I think that’s part two.
I see that with kids is their body brings it to life, right. And their bodies start showing the clues also. So I just wanted to add that in there.
That’s not something that I’ve seen with my kids. Yeah, sure. And I think also to be looking for it, right.
To be aware of it as saying, how is that child holding themselves during this play? And then, how am I feeling in connection to the way they’re holding their body? So all of those things are there’s so much right. And in what you were saying, too, I think this is another theme that absolutely shows up in the play of children who have been sexually abused, is that good versus evil is totally like, we all know this. It shows up in every kid’s play.
Right. But good versus evil is different in interpersonally traumatized kids because it flip flops. The good person turns evil, the evil person turns good back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
That doesn’t happen with kids who haven’t been interpersonally traumatized because it’s clear there are good guys and there are bad guys. Right? But not for kids who have been hurt this way. It’s unclear and that’s, again, part of how perpetrators are able to do what it is that they do in harming children and so it becomes like this fuzzy thing like they’re trying to figure it out.
They’re grappling with that in play therapy and that’s why it’s so important to allow that process to happen. The other thing I wanted to say about aggression is that I think one of the things that we are mistakes that we often make as people, myself included, not just as play therapists, is we jump so quickly and I know you speak and write extensively about this, but we jump so quickly to seeing certain behaviors as aggressive, but we don’t take the time to look at it through other lenses. And one of the most important things, I think, because aggression will show up as a theme as well with kids who have been traumatized sexually is is it aggression or is it protection? Really? Both.
Right? Wow. Yes. Again, a child taught well, sort of a child taught me this.
So there’s an example play therapy session I show all the time. It’s one where the play therapy gods opened up the universe and made this near perfect play therapy session with the cutest kid on the planet who guardian gave me permission to share it, right? So it was like everything clicked. Well in this session the child takes the pool noodle and he’s sword fighting with me but his sword fight is like this he is not trying in any way, shape or form to harm me at all.
So I was showing this and at a presentation and somebody had a question about that portion of the session and they referred to it as when the child was playing aggressively and in a very authentic moment I was like when was that? I had no idea what they were talking about because his play was not aggressive, it was protective. He had put on a helmet, he had grabbed a shield, he had grabbed the pool noodle? And so he was protecting himself, he was trying that on for size. There was no intent around that and I think that that is something that we have to practice is that lens of this is protection, not aggression.
And so in the play of children who’ve been interpersonally traumatized you’ll see that piece too is like wait, if I just look a little bit differently as this oh, that’s protection, that’s not aggression. I know for me, Jodi, in those moments it comes back to that piece also you said at the beginning, which is what’s the felt sense of it because if I’m really attuned and present in the moment, I’m not going to be scared. Likely there’s a different quality about it which informs me about the potential meaning of this for the child or what’s going on for the child.
And that for me, is so right brain versus the left brain. Oh, well, the pool noodles in swinging like a sword must mean this. Yeah, it goes into that interpersonal space rather than in the well, this means this and this means this.
And if a child does this, then it means this, which is so left brain. And we know trauma is not a left brain process. Right.
So it doesn’t work that way. And I think that’s why, for me, the specifics are as helpful as they can be. I think the language I would just use, it’s like the micro and macro of that.
Right. If a child tricks you as part of a play therapy session and makes you put something in your mouth that’s disgusting, so oftentimes those are like either poo or pee or vomit or bugs or even hot lava. Something that burns the insides is like, for me, that’s a red flag.
But if that’s it, if that’s the only thing that’s not enough, where I go like, uhoh, it’s the constellation of behaviors, but it’s the constellation of behaviors in the context of also what’s going on for me. Right? Like, if this feels like, silly, then or what if you had a kid? I love that you’re saying the isolation piece, because what if you have a kid that has a sensory experience in the mouth and that’s what that feels like right in the mouth? I love that you’re saying that we’re not going to take something in just a one piece, that we’re really going to look at it in the larger context of all their play about the child. Exactly.
You can’t isolate it out. And I do think that sometimes, certainly that would make it simpler and easier. But I guess I really do believe in myself is that this is a place where you have to especially embrace the complexity of it all.
And it’s so just ironic that to me, that that was your example because I work with a child who is neurodivergent, and just the other day was like, do you ever put chocolate in your mouth and it burn? And I was like, oh, it does not feel good to you. And they’re like, it burns you right. And so if I’m just jumping to this sort of checklist of, uhoh, hot stuff in the mouth that burns.
Oh, that’s sexual trauma, then I’ve missed the whole contextual piece of it. It’s just, again, our inclination to be able to simplify and make sense of that. But it has to be looked at through that complexity lens in order to appreciate that that’s what they’re showing me, that confusion over good versus evil and the ingestion part.
And they’re using. Sexual language, and they’re trying to another specific example would be trying to stick things inside, orifices not just the sexual orifices and things like that, but up your nose, in your ear, in the eye of the baby doll, of you, of themselves. So inserting objects to me, is there’s a red flag, but if it’s just inserting objects and it also doesn’t have that feel to it, then I have to just keep my red flag, keep it down for now, and think about this over time.
I also think, even as I’m saying that is, I do think when we see a red flag in isolation, is that our anxiety goes up about who is doing this to this child and that sometimes we then check out ourselves and are not attuned to what’s happening in the moment. Yeah. So, Jody, I have another question here.
I feel like I want to hang out with you and talk to you about this for like an entire day, if not days. And I know that there are listeners that feel the same way. So, listeners, in just a couple of minutes, I’m going to give you some info on where you can keep learning from Jodi.
So I want to ask you a question that my guests, many of the listeners have, and I know it’s a really complex question, it’s one of the big questions of this, which is, okay, so you suspect something. How do you talk to the parents and care about it at the hardest, right? You’re off the hook. If the parent is like, I suspect this, right? Or if the parent’s like, this happened, then you’re off the hook.
So that’s not what I’m talking about. So if the parent suspects it, I might just say, like, given what I’m seeing in their play therapy sessions, I’m like minded. I think something has happened to your child if you’re seeing them for a totally different reason, which I think happens just roughly in about 50%, I think it’s that much 50% of the children that I’ve seen over the years.
And again, I had to become so versed in this because that’s who was showing up is I will say things like, I think I’m going to tell you something you might suspect at some level. So I’m actually counting on that. The parent has felt that same thing that I’m feeling in the playroom, and then follow that quickly with, like, I want to be wrong about this, because I do.
I do want to be wrong about it. And then I talk to them about the themes, if they’re still available, like, if they are still present. Because you and I both know what oftentimes happens is they just shut right down.
And so now my client has switched, and I have to be paying attention to how are you and being attuned to what is going on for the parent. It’s interesting because I had a supervisor who was like brand new right out of graduate school. And the first kid that she was working with was a kid who was referred for running away from school.
He was fleeing. And as I’m watching this, because I do require my supervisors to show their work, so as I’m watching some of segments of her sessions with him, I’m like, oh, there is no way that this kid hasn’t been so I’m able to go through with her. I’m going to deconstruct this for you and tell you why I’m seeing what I’m seeing.
And then I said it got to the point after four sessions where I just said, one as a parent, and two as a responsible and professional play therapist, we can’t not say something to the mom. And she was like, I can’t do this. So I’m like, let’s do it together.
And we met virtually, and we did it together. And I’m super grateful to my supervisor for doing this. She took notes on what she felt worked with the mom and how the mom was able to hear it.
And I think the part that I didn’t even maybe realize I was doing is I kept checking in. So after everything I said, I kept checking in with like, what’s happening for you right now? I see you’re welling up. You must be terrified, heartbroken, guilty, like all the things.
So I think coming from a place, really coming from a place of compassion. And I do think that in general, when people bring their children to counseling, they feel a sense of shame around that. Like, I’ve screwed my kid up or I’ve done something wrong.
And our culture absolutely tells them that. So they come with that. And then when they feel like they haven’t protected their child, that’s a whole other level.
And the last thing I’ll say about that is if they are a survivor themselves, is that I think our little parts or our little people parts make a promise that if I’m ever grown up, if I’m ever a parent, I’m never going to let this happen. And then it happens. And so it’s just managing so much.
The other part of that I’ll say is besides checking in during that process, is making sure that there’s support for them. Totally. I think one of the things we know as play therapists in general is the hardest part of this work can be just the interfacing with parents.
And so this is definitely one of those places where that shows up. Yeah, totally. And probably reason why many play therapists avoid because they know that they actually see it, that they’re going to have to have the conversation.
And if that feels really scary, then we’re just pretend like then we’re not seeing it. Yeah. Especially because it’s very infrequent that you know, who or when or like all the details that our legal and law enforcement systems create, that’s not going to happen.
And sometimes I think maybe the worst case scenario is where you’re like, I think it might be someone in their home, which is statistically also where that happens. So I think being able to come to that conversation prepared and my suggestion would be, even for seasoned professionals like myself and yourself is I practice those, I say them out loud, I listen to what I sound like or I do supervision to just make sure that my tone is right and the words that I’m using are compassionate. I would also say that if we have a child and we are suspecting that that’s a very important place to have supervision and get a second opinion and to just process and talk through it all so that we are able to move forward consciously and just jumping and reacting.
Jody, seriously. Wow. Thank you so much.
Like I said, this has been one of the most requested topics and I’ve just been waiting. I’ve been waiting for you, Jody. I’ve been waiting.
Really, I’m just like the perfect person is going to come along that’s going to be able to speak to this in such a beautiful way. And you’ve so done that for our community. So thank you.
So Jodi, will you tell our listeners who want to learn more where they can learn more? Because I know you’ve got some different courses and things. Yeah, absolutely. So I do have some self study courses that are recorded and then also we do some throughout the year that are live and you can access those on our website and that’s just WW integrativecounseling.
It’s one word, us. That’s probably the easiest way to access all of that information because the self study and the live presentations would be available through there. And I do try to engage in processes like this and opportunities like this so that we are talking about it, because if we’re not talking about it, it just goes underground.
One of the questions in the self study, because I know one of your courses you teach about the mindset or the mindset of the perpetrator, is that in the self study course or is that separate? Because I think that’s invaluable for play therapists to understand. Yeah, it’s really fascinating. So that is making sense of play in that one.
I collaborate with a criminologist who studies child sex offenders. And just a teeny bit of the backstory was that I went to a presentation that my colleague Dr. Hill did and I was like, I see this in play.
And so after I was like, do you know anything about play therapy? No. Okay, let me tell you about it. And let me tell you that the children in play therapy are playing out these dynamics that you’re talking about.
So that training really integrates that. And I think it is a missing part. I didn’t know I was seeing it until he gave words to that.
So that’s something that I think it’s not an easy one to listen to because of the reality of what it is, but that’s the reality of what we do, and we have to be able to have a place for that as well. And I know at the beginning, I mentioned you as a supervisor extraordinaire, which I very much believe, so you do offer supervision and you do offer courses and just all kinds of stuff. You’ve got so many things out there.
So, listeners, please follow up. Go to Jodie’s website, look at what she has, get some of these courses, educate yourself. It’s not an easy topic.
But Jodi, as you keep saying, it’s a really important topic because it’s part of being a play therapist. And we can pretend like it’s not, or we can recognize that it is, and we can inform ourselves and take the scary out of it so that we can show up and be with our kids on their journey. Oh, my gosh.
Thank you, Jody, so very much. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Welcome. You’re welcome.
You’re welcome. I’m very grateful to have the opportunity to speak with you about this too, so it was really meaningful to me. So thank you.
You’re so welcome. Okay, listeners, thank you again for tuning in. We know that you have sexualized play.
We know that you have kids that have gone through a lot of trauma on your caseloads. We know you’re seeing the big stuff. Take care of yourselves.
Do what you need to do to resource. Be resourced, get support. You are the most important toy in that playroom.
