Welcome back to the Lessons from the Playroom podcast. I have a bit of a special treat here for you today. We’re doing something a little bit different.
I have three important people in my life that have joined me. All certified Synergetic Play Therapists students that have been on the journey out there doing amazing things in the world. I’m going to introduce them to you here in a minute.
But I have invited them to have a conversation with me about what’s the challenges that we experience being a play therapist. I think this is an important question, important conversation. Inevitably we’re going to talk about stuff that hopefully gives us pause and time to reflect and normalize and appreciate that being a play therapist isn’t easy.
It takes a lot out of us. There’s a lot of learning curves and growth edges for us as we develop ourselves. So I am glad you are listening, glad you’ve tuned in.
And I want to introduce you to these amazing people. So the first person I have with me is Joanna Simmons. She is in Vancouver, British Columbia.
She’s a registered clinical counselor and a registered play therapist. She does all kinds of cool things, from private practice to teaching child development and counseling at the university level. She facilitates all kinds of workshops, loves working with parents in addition to kids.
She is also a certified Synergetic play therapy supervisor. And super cool everyone, if you have not seen this, if you’ve not checked it out, she has been published in the Canadian Journal of Counseling and Psychotherapy where she wrote an article about the efficacy of using Synergetic Play Therapy with child centered play therapy. So listeners, check it out.
Super amazing article. So Joanna, thank you so much for being here. We also have with us Andrea Davison.
So, Andrea lives near me. She is in Denver, Colorado. She is got a really unique background in that.
She’s also a Board Certified Behavior Analysis, a BCBA specialist for those of you that recognize those credentials. So she really brings a unique lens of working with kids, kids who struggle in unique ways. And she’s been able to combine that with Spt.
Super excited, Andrea, that you are here and bringing your knowledge and expertise to the table. And then last but not least, we have Rachel Freeberg, who’s a licensed clinical social worker, registered play therapist. She is joining us from salem, Oregon in the US.
And cool thing about you is you found Spt while struggling to heal from a health crisis. And I know Spt has been really instrumental for you in your own development through your own health crisis. So thank you for bringing that personal aspect of yourself to SBT and the work you do with your clients.
So amazing individuals. Thank you so much for being here and for joining me for this conversation. Hi.
Thank you, Lisa. Yeah, thanks. Hello.
Thank you. Yes, thank you for having me. So let’s just jump right in because this is the question.
What is challenging about being a play therapist? What are some of the challenges that we find ourselves facing in the playroom that maybe are really unique to us in play therapy, working with children and I don’t know. Andrea, I’m going to pick you. What comes up for you? What’s a struggle or a challenge that you really see that we have to work through? Sure.
So the struggle that’s been coming up for me often is also looking through the SP lens and not just the play therapy lens. So how do I show up authentically in the playroom, however, within the role of being a character of the play, right. And noticing when kids kind of stop the play because they’re concerned about the therapist me or the human me and not the character me.
And so while I recognize that’s a piece of titration for them, it’s also that piece of they are stepping out of being deep in the moment and so trying to navigate what I can switch up to allow them to kind of really dive deep. I think what I’m hearing you say is those tricky moments when we’re seemingly in character, but the client thinks that it’s real, they forget that we’re in character in those moments. And how do we navigate that? And what I’m hearing in there is the question that sometimes comes up, which is, okay, if I’m embodied in an authentic response.
And even though I’m in the character role, I’m still embodied in an authentic way through my reflections being in the character. What do we do if the child feels like it’s really real and then they start worrying about us? I think that’s a yes. And it’s the piece of part of it’s beautiful because it’s that titration of, like, they’re checking in on me, but also part of it is like, I’m getting curious about if I’m not allowing them to dive deeper because they’re busy checking in on me.
So let’s explore this in a deeper way, really, this piece of what do we do when the child’s checking in on us? Because I think that is just a fear that comes up. What do we do now? I also want to name that the child checking in on therapist happens in every single play therapy model, whether or not we are naming something authentically or not. You could, for example, have a moment when you are simply making tracking statements, but you’re not tracking in an attuned way.
And the client’s attention now is on the therapist worried about the therapist. Or it could be that the therapist seems distracted and the client is worried now about the therapist because the therapist seems distracted. Or it can also be that we’re embodying a character.
So let’s say we just got handcuffed and we’re thrown in a corner and we’re like, oh my gosh, I’m scared. Ouch. And in those moments, the client’s like, oh my gosh, are you really hurt? So all these moments when it might feel like the client needs to take care of us, this is a beautiful moment in the therapeutic process.
It’s a scary moment potentially for the play therapist, but it’s actually a really beautiful moment for the client because the clients that are going to all of a sudden feel worried or try to become confluent back or start to caretake back, oftentimes that’s exactly what the client is struggling with. They don’t know how to navigate the emotions that are coming up, or they maybe are parentified, or they don’t know what to do with the emotions that they’re seeing. And this is such a deeply beautiful therapeutic moment where the play therapist gets to model back to the client.
I’m okay, yes, I’m over here and I’m handcuffed and I’m scared and I’m okay. Yeah, it’s that 1ft in, 1ft out metaphor. It’s the sense of can I experience the realness of the play? Because that’s true for the client and that’s what they need and at the same time hold something a little bit separate that allows them to feel where they are in relationship to us.
So that place of I know the play feels real. Yes, a part of me feels scared. Yes, a part of me feels sad.
Yes, part of me is overwhelmed and I’m okay. For these children, I keep saying, like, deeply therapeutic moment, but truly deeply therapeutic moment because it’s an opportunity for the child to pause and to have some space to orient back towards themselves rather than feeling like they have to orient outside of themselves and caretake someone outside of themselves, which may be a pattern that we’re trying to work with. And those moments, just to name listeners, these are tricky moments to navigate because we have in our mind that’s like, the client should not be taking care of me right now.
This feels very too close. And if it comes up, how can we recognize there’s a reason why it’s coming up? And how can we hold both the realness and the emotions that are there and not deny that that’s the experience while simultaneously holding a sense of and I’m OK, it’s OK to feel sad. It’s okay to feel scared.
It’s okay to feel overwhelmed, which is deeply regulatory. That’s an awesome question, Andrea. Thank you so much.
Thank you. I’m curious. Yeah.
Does anyone have a reflection or something you want to add to that? I have a question either for Andrea or Lisa. The idea of the setup at this A, I get feelings of guilty. I should be taken care of if they’re taking care of me.
I think it’s a little bit of guilt. I don’t know what it is for you, though, Andrea, and I’m curious sort of like, is there a setup in that moment, too? There can be, and some of our listeners may not know what the setup is. So let me define that for so our when we’re in relationship with our clients in the play, they’re offering us a felt sense of what it feels like to be them.
And when we’re really attuned and we’re present with ourselves and our own activation, we can get glimmers. We can catch glimmers and a sense of what’s going on right there that is a possibility of what the child might also be exploring or experiencing. And so, Rachel, to your know, when this happens, if there’s an experience of guilt or, oh, my gosh, they just tried to take care of me or I did something wrong or something like that, it’s just a place again to pause.
It’s a pause to notice. It might be the setup. It absolutely might be the setup.
It also might be some of our own history coming in in the moment. And for us to just pause and be with likely it’s both. It’s the setup and our own associations with people trying to take care of us or setting someone up to take care of us or whatever it is our own experience of that all of that’s likely present in the moment.
And play therapist, please hear this and that’s. Okay. We try so hard to avoid the human experience that naturally arises.
We can’t prevent that from happening. What we can do is just work with it as it shows up. So, Rachel yes, we get curious about that.
Is this part of what the child’s experiencing? How much of this do I also resonate in my own history? And how do I connect to myself and still experience the realness of it while simultaneously offering an experience back to the child, letting them know, and I’m okay in this, too, so take a breath on that. Beautiful. I just want to name really quick, from what I’m hearing is I was expressing a concern of feeling like I’m preventing the children from diving deeper.
And from what I’m hearing is that there’s a possibility of them checking in and knowing that I’m okay. And then us diving back into the play allows them to go even deeper because they have this knowing that I am okay. So we can explore even further.
You got it. You got it. And the deeper diving them, diving deeper might actually be the tension that they’re sitting in while they’re realizing, oh, my goodness, in this moment, I don’t have to take care of Andrea.
That that in and of itself might be the deeper. Yeah. Beautiful.
So, Joanna, I’m curious what has come up for you? I know you’re a supervisor. I know you hear about challenges, maybe your own experience in the playroom, but what’s a challenge that you notice comes up for play therapists? Well, currently, as I say, I am working virtually still. I’m not in the playroom.
And so current challenge is working with teens who show up ready to do the work. They’re there, they’re present, they want to get down to it, and then they don’t come on screen. So I’m faced with a blank screen, nothing else.
It’s challenging to be able to really read this person. All I can rely on is their voice. Right.
So for you, what’s the challenge in that? The challenge is really feeling true attunement and true connection to that client. We have words. The words are there.
The words are connecting us, but there’s just a deeper connection missing. So I love this question because and by the way, listeners, these questions were not planned. This is just organic conversation that’s happening here.
What you’re offering a discussion on is attunement, and how does attunement really happen, and what does attunement really mean and what is really necessary for attunement? We are so accustomed to using visual cues to attune to someone because so much of our information that we take in typically is visually, and we take in so many nonverbal cues. And so we orient and we adjust, and we read the facial expression, and we read the shoulder dropping or we read the head lifting or the eyes opening or whatever it is. And we are so often accustomed to relying on the visual sense as our main way that we attune to someone.
And we forget that we have this entire sensory system, this whole other sensory system that doesn’t rely on visual cues. We can even look at this through the lens of, what if someone was visually impaired? Does that mean that they are less attuned or have the ability, their capacity for attunement is less than I actually would argue in a different direction, that there’s other senses, there’s other aspects that are forced to wake up and to heighten. Right.
We start to heighten our sensory bodies. So as challenging as it is, maybe one of the reasons why it’s challenging is because of our dependency on the visual cues, and that maybe there really is this beautiful opportunity for really embodying attunement on a whole other level. And what we know from research and from science is that attunement actually starts with our own connection to ourselves, not to somebody else.
So isn’t this an interesting practice? What if we actually started with tuning in? And what does it feel like right now in the moment as I’m listening to their voice? What does it even feel listening to the silence? What other parts of myself can I tune into? Because we have this thought that somehow because you’re on a screen and you’re not next to me, that somehow I can’t feel you through the computer. But the reality is that we can absolutely feel each other through the computer listeners. Right now you’re simply listening to my voice.
You don’t have any visual cues. So maybe even in this moment, pause, take a breath, see if you can feel me as I’m talking to you. Can you feel Rachel and Andrea and Drana and I in conversation? What does that feel like inside because you can’t see us right now? Draena, there’s this interesting experience that I had that when COVID hit last year, I don’t know if you remember, when I did a webinar called Regulating Through the Coronavirus.
And in that webinar we used a platform that did not allow me to see the audience. And we had over 2000 people that were logged on to this webinar. And I had no visual cues other than the little number that said how many people were online.
And it was an extraordinary lesson for me in attunement and the possibilities of attunement because it forced me to get deeply present inside of myself. And what I found was that the more I got present in myself, the more I could actually feel the people through the computer. It was extraordinary.
So they’ll offer that up. Maybe the reason why it feels like a challenge is because of our dependency. And maybe it’s actually an opportunity to practice real attunement, which is first to ourselves and then from our own attunement to ourselves, an extension outward to pick up on the resonance of the people that we’re in contact with, even if it’s through the computer.
I’m curious, Johanna, how does that land for you? As I say that I’m so excited to hear of this as an opportunity for me to really develop some other senses in this experience and to really find different ways of connecting with my client. Actually, it really excites me to think, okay, I’m going to develop some other senses here. Senses that I’ve ignored.
Right. But you’re right. They have to become more acute when you’re missing one of the senses.
Right. So, yeah. Thank you.
You’re welcome. And we know that the brain adapts. Someone all of a sudden midlife loses hearing.
Their other sensory parts of their sensory system compensate. Other parts get heightened. If for some reason something has happened and we can no longer walk, for example, other parts of our body step in to try to help out.
If I can’t move an arm, another part of my body takes over. If I can only see in one eye, other parts of the system try to try to take over. Our brains and our bodies are amazing like that.
We’re constantly attempting to adapt and take in as much information as we can, which heightens new areas and new possibilities. So cool. Yay.
Brain else have anything you want to add in there as we’re exploring this? So I have a curiosity around it and I know that the setup is unique to synergetic play therapy. So I’m just curious if we could unpack also the setup behind presenting a blank screen and what that might possibly imply for what’s going on. Yeah, it totally depends, right? It depends on how it’s done.
It depends on there’s other cues. We’ve got the voice, so there are things that are being said that we can hear. Depends on what we know about the client.
It depends. There’s so many that’s what I love so much about the setup is that the meaning is so specific to the moment and it’s so specific to the context of the moment. But I could imagine feeling, like, wanting to connect and not totally knowing how.
I could imagine a feeling of distance or separateness. I could imagine maybe even a little feeling of lost. I could imagine.
And actually, let’s ask Joanna since she’s in it. What’s that felt sense that arises for you? I imagine there’s a client that’s in your head. I actually have two and teens being the most misunderstood population of society with these two.
I believe the setup is really this is what it’s like to not be seen. People don’t get me. They don’t see me.
This is what it feels like. What a beautiful curiosity. And then how brilliant on their part to not turn the camera on for you.
Absolutely. Yeah. And even as you’re saying that, there’s a parallel with what we just discussed around how attunement really is around connecting within.
And isn’t that so much the journey also of the teen, which is that, all right, if I’m not seen externally, how am I going to see myself? Yeah. How am I going to offer that up to myself? I got a little goosey bump there. Even got a little emotional.
Yeah. Amazing. There’s always so much going on that it’s not always just what it seems on the surface.
Right. There’s so many layers of things that are going on. Rachel, for you, what comes up for you as a challenge? Well, I was thinking about it and I think I’ll start broad with maybe anxiety in the playroom and then more specifically that being played out.
I have one in particular moment I’ve been thinking about where I have done the again, the spt countdown for when it’s going to be time to go. And that usually works like clockwork. And I just feel like a magician when I’m able to use it.
And then the moment when it doesn’t go well and my little person in the room with me says, no, we’re going to pretend that’s not happening. And then the play. I think that’s where the anxiety is.
The play starts to really disorganize as we come closer and closer to the end. And that’s where I’m talking about the anxiety. So that’s a challenge that I’ve run into.
I am guessing you are not alone on that one. And then add other layers. Like, you know, your next client’s already in the waiting room and you’re seeing things really unravel, like literally things on the floor, and you’re wondering, oh my gosh, do I have time to clean up? How are we going to do this? Yes, there’s other pieces I can contribute to that.
So my question for you is what feels like the most challenging part of that? The literal, like, how do I help this person transition out of here? Or dealing with the tension and the anxiety that comes up because they’re struggling to transition out of there. It’s hard to watch the play become more and more frantic, and that’s probably harder. I’m assuming eventually they’ll leave.
But sitting with that play as it just becomes more frantic, that’s the hard part. Yeah, that is the hard part. And I think coupled with that and what do we do with that in those moments? How do we work with that? So I think we can just start with normalizing.
Yes, that’s a challenging part of the play therapy process. Yes, that is a moment that can create everything from anxiety to feelings of inadequacy, to feelings of overwhelm, to feelings of I’m not being respected. Why aren’t you listening to me? Those are challenging moments to navigate.
I think that since you brought up this concept of the setup, I think there’s a real opportunity here to really notice your own system and recognize the level of chaos and activation that has come up for you in those moments and to get curious about. Is that what it feels like for the child to have to transition? Does it feel that overwhelming? Does it feel that anxiety provoking producing? And who knows why? It could be because they don’t want to leave. Could be that and they don’t want to go and be with whatever situation they’re going to have to encounter.
It could also be that they’re just really in the middle of a process and they just don’t feel like they’ve arrived at a stopping point in their process. And it feels hard to come out of the process. It feels dysregulating to come out of the process.
Sometimes that can be it’s like that I’m not done right. Sometimes that can come up. But I think the sitting in the wow, these transition moments, this is really hard for this child.
For some reason, transitions aren’t going well. Maybe even get curious about the significance of transitions in the child’s life. And where has the child in a transition become overwhelmed, disjointed, disorganized? Where is that relevant for what the child is working on? So I think we can get curious.
I get curious about that. The other thing, too, is working with our own window of tolerance and working with our own activation. In those moments, there is often an impulse to control the situation, especially since there’s a time piece on it.
So for us to notice that, for us to become external regulators in the moment, to really name, oh yeah, this is hard, this is big. You don’t want to go, gosh, yes, things are escalating. Yes, you want me to know.
Everything’s coming off the shelves right now. You want me to know and it’s time to go. It’s the acknowledge and redirect.
This is big and it’s time to go and it’s time to open the door and it’s time to walk into the hallway, depending on what you’re observing. I get it. You’re mad at me that I’m saying it’s time to go.
I’m going to take a breath. So I think there’s those pieces. Another piece that’s also just helpful is oftentimes these kids that you’re describing, this is their pattern.
It’s not just a one time, oh, that one time to leave was hard. Oftentimes these kids, this is an ongoing pattern, and since we know it’s a pattern, we can work with it knowing that the transition is part of the therapy versus we have the session and then it’s this thing that we do at the end, which means starting it even earlier. So maybe the transition actually starts 20 minutes early because time, there needs to be time in the unraveling and in the feelings and in the whatever, because that’s part of where the work is.
I think, again, sometimes as play therapists, we go, we have our session and it’s time to leave. And then the leaving part isn’t viewed so much as part of the session. It’s just this thing that we do because we’re done now, but for some kids, or we can do it the other way.
There’s some kids where it’s the entering the transition in that’s hard. Like, they don’t want to get out of the car. They want to sit in the waiting room, they’re hiding under the pillow.
Whatever it is, they don’t want to come in. It’s like in our minds, we’re like, well, we got to get them in so that we can do therapy versus, oh, no, the fact that they’re in the car, the therapy has started. So how do we work there and recognize that? If we have a, say, 45 minutes session, what if 40 of the 45 minutes is working with them on becoming more comfortable to begin to slowly move towards the playroom? I would say that’s a really great session.
If we didn’t understand that that was part of the process, it might be easy to say, gosh, it’s so hard, I can’t get them in. Like, when are we going to start doing our so, Lisa, I just love your process because that was the other aspect of anxiety was when child won’t leave parents side. You nailed.
Absolutely. Yeah. So if we can remind ourselves that whatever happens is the therapy and then knowing what we know about the child and what we’re working on in terms of the goals or whatever it is, how do we incorporate that in in terms of our time? Yes.
And as we’re feeling the anxiety and naming the anxiety, how do we become external regulators to stay connected to ourselves? And how do we also offer some regulation up to our clients as well? I’ll also throw in another piece here because sometimes those moments when they get really active, those can be moments where some flooding happens too. Some emotional flooding. Like the child who’s trying to come in and they’re so anxious that they actually go into a bit of a freeze response.
Or the child who gets so dysregulated at the end of the transition that it is like a tornado just went off in the room and there’s that emotional flooding that’s going on. So just to name that, that can also be part of why some of the anxiety comes up for us is because we know that those are potentially really activating moments and just a reminder that if that happens, the only thing at that point is what do we need to do just to create a sense of safety? How do we not force the issue? How do we not now that doesn’t mean at the end, like, oh sure, you can stay and play another hour. That’s not what I mean.
But maybe it is gently opening the door and then letting the child adjust to the fact that the door just gently opened. Maybe it is making sure that we are really acknowledging how hard it is that we’re not trying to rush things. Is there a way, if the child starts to escalate where we can orient back in and even just name like, wow, okay, everything is everywhere.
Now, what’s your favorite thing that you see on the middle of the floor and help them get into their prefrontal cortex? Whatever we can do to get them back up front and create a sense of safety so they can transition. So I discovered when I had those issues when I was still working in person, is that I would find that I would name it and I would say to the child, I’m really nervous that I have to tell you right now that it’s time something’s going to happen. I know.
I’m really nervous. What do I have to tell you right now? I’m going to take a deep breath before I do this. And I would breathe and and the transitions just flowed.
It was quite amazing. Now did this a few times and it seems to be yeah, it was successful every time. So just throwing it out there trial and error is great.
SBT works in all kinds of different ways. Well, and the. Beauty of that is you’re starting to work with the Dysregulation right.
From the very beginning versus waiting until the end, where then it’s like, oh, my gosh, I’ve got to transition. I’m thinking from the perspective of the child, and now I get Dysregulated. So, yeah, if the therapist takes a breath and names like, okay, the last couple of times when it’s been time to go, something has happened, and it’s been hard.
And so you’re basically saying, let’s go ahead and start to regulate through the reality that we both know it’s coming, so we start working with it earlier, because my anticipation of what’s coming up is also starting to stir me up. Right? Yeah. Beautiful.
One of the other kind of avenues that I’ve done for kids that I know have difficulty with transition is to introduce turn taking within the play, so they get to choose the first activity, and then I choose the next activity. And so we’re kind of practicing many transitions within the session, so that way I have more opportunities to practice transitioning with them rather than just that one opportunity at the closing of the session. Beautiful.
Well, beautiful individuals, I so appreciate this conversation. I have no doubt that this conversation on the questions that came out of it are questions that some of the listeners also have in their minds. So thank you for being a voice for individuals that aren’t able to ask the question directly.
So thank you three for your wisdom, your questions, your time. Thank you for being a part of the lessons from the playroom community and helping share some knowledge with play therapists. Wherever you are in the world, listening.
And I know that you three hear me say this to you all the time, so I’m saying it to you three again, as well as all of our listeners. Wherever you are, whatever is happening for you in your worlds right now, take care of yourselves. You are really important, and the world needs you, and you are the most important toy in that playroom.
