We’re getting into a really important and tender subject today as we have a conversation about the shoulds and the shouldn’ts that we all have as clinicians. They show up in the playroom. They show up when we’re working with parents and caregivers.
It’s our own judgment of ourself, our own brain noise that we all carry that does show up. And once again, I have invited two important people in my life to join me. I have with me Christina Dixon and Helen Ritchie, who are both certified Synergetic play therapists.
And this is a topic that we talk a lot about in Synergetic Play Therapy. And I’ve invited them into this discussion with me so that we can first and foremost normalize that this is the experience of a play therapist and all human beings walking the planet, for that matter, and just to help bring a little bit of insight and maybe some deep breaths into what can feel like a challenging experience. So for introductions, Christina, would you thank you so much for being a part of this.
Would you introduce yourself to our listeners? Sure. Thank you, Lisa. Yeah, I’m honored to be a part of so I’m Christina.
I reside in Vancouver, Canada, and I’m a certified Synergetic play therapist. I work with families and children together, and I have a play therapy attachment family assistance lens on my work. And I also supervise interns, which is also amazing, a place where the shoulds come up a lot, a lot.
And I also have Helen Ritchie with me. Helen, would you introduce yourself to our listeners? Sure. Thanks, Lisa.
I’m so happy to be here as well. I’m Helen Ritchie. I am an elementary school counselor, and I have a private practice in play therapy in Vancouver, Canada.
I give workshops for school staff and parents, and I’m a Synergetic Play Therapy supervisor and consultant. And I’ve also lived in the UK. And Canada.
And Japan. And France. So I have a multicultural lens from which I work wonderful.
Okay, I feel like, all right, let’s just jump into the should soup. I talk a lot about the should listeners. For those of you that have listened to these episodes.
You’ve heard me elude and talk about the threats of the brain before. And you’ve heard me mention that the shoulds and the unmet expectations actually registers inside for us as a threat. And so before we jump into what are some of the most common ones and what do we do with it, I just want to explain for a second why do these feel so tender and raw and hard sometimes inside of us? And it’s because in a moment when we are expecting ourselves to be someone that we’re not, we’re shooting ourselves.
We’re placing expectations that are not realistic because it’s not who we are in the moment. We actually create an internal battle between our authentic self and our fantasy self. Because our shoulds are really related to our fantasy version of who we think that we should be in those moments.
And I know you both have heard me talk a lot about how we are sensitive to incongruence in our external environment. But what should do is actually create incongruence in our internal environment so we could think of it that way, right? We set ourselves up for a battle of incongruency between authenticity and fantasy inside of ourselves. And our systems are like, hey, wait.
What? Am I not good enough as I am? Why do I need to be different? Am I not lovable? Am I not amazing as I am in all expressions of myself, even the so called negative expressions? Is there a part of me that’s not worthy of being loved? And we go to battle against these messages. We go into a fight or flight response within ourselves. We start to shut down and immobilize as well.
So let’s talk about the shoulds as it relates to being a clinician or a play therapist. Because my experience is that we all have them. We don’t want to talk about them.
And it seems like we don’t want to talk about them because I don’t know, they’re shameful. Maybe maybe we’re embarrassed. Maybe we’re worried about what other people are going to think.
Or gosh, if people really knew what I thought about myself or what I question, like, would people think that? Would they give me the referral I’d be an? Right? So can we just normalize can we just go back and forth and name some of the shoulds that we carry? One I carry is I should be okay with all types of play no matter how aggressive it is in the playroom. I should be getting results quicker, sooner, faster. Yeah.
How about I should be excited about every child and their family that’s on my caseload. I should have them. I can’t wait to see them at 02:00 p.m.
Kind of thoughts. Should be getting the self care thing down by now. Yeah.
A big one I have is I should look this is in school settings. I should look calm while I’m doing my work. Even if chairs are throwing scissors are coming at my head, kids are running out of the building.
That I should look calm even though I know that’s not correct, but I still have it. Listeners, as we’re going round and just naming some of these in an attempt to normalize, I want you to be thinking about what are the ones that you have in your head as well? How about I should be present the entire session. My mind shouldn’t wander, I shouldn’t feel bored, I shouldn’t look at the clock.
I should just be present the entire session. I should know the exact right thing to do, say, regulate at every moment. Yeah.
I think what’s so challenging about these is that they are so unattainable and yet some part of us wants to believe that they are attainable. Right. So like Helen, this idea that, yeah, you’re supposed to stay composed while you have a chair coming at your head, the body doesn’t work that way.
The idea that you’re going to be present the entire session, the mind doesn’t work. That right. The idea that we’re supposed to know exactly what to do in every moment and have that perfect intervention and gosh, healing is supposed to happen magically overnight and whatever.
It’s like that’s not how healing happens. So we place so much expectation on ourselves to do things that are actually impossible to do, and then we beat ourselves up in the process, thinking that somehow there’s something fundamentally wrong with us rather than embracing our humanity and embracing the reality of the situation, which is that, you know what? You know, in the moment, the system might have just gotten activated, and therefore the mind needed to wander for a minute because that was actually a regulatory experience. So you became sort of checked out.
Not checked out, but disconnected from full presence for a second because that was actually self care. Oh gosh, what a concept. Right.
Or whatever else. Right. We’re doing what we’re designed to do in the moment.
I was also going to say I also have one that I shouldn’t ever get flooded. For me, getting flooded by checking out is what can happen when it’s very intense in the playroom. And I often should myself about that one, which again, just to normalize, our systems are designed to emotionally flood.
We’re supposed to emotionally flood when things become a lot. That’s self care, that’s healthy in that respect. And this idea that somehow we’re going to avoid emotional flooding or the child’s never going to be emotionally flooded.
You both have heard me say this in courses before. So I’ll ask again and listeners, I want you to reflect on this. Think about a time in the last even just choose a week where you on some level emotionally flooded.
And emotionally flooded simply means it was too much. So you either got really overwhelmed or maybe you lost it or maybe you had to shut down or check out for a little bit. And I bet everybody can think of a time in the last week, and I think that is so important for us to recognize, because we studied this stuff, we study this stuff, we practice regulation.
This is what we’ve invested our time to learn about. And yet we all emotionally flooded. I emotionally flooded this morning, taking my kid to school in the car.
There was so much tension and getting to school on time, he was like, Hi. And my system is too much for my system. I was just driving my kid to school. It’s normal.
Just thinking about normalizing. Just the other piece. That the world, right? Just we talk a lot about this, but we’re coming through and I where we live, where Helen and I live, there’s floods happening for people and people displaced.
And so thinking about how the shoulds around, how do we as therapists, this is collectively a stress that’s happening in the world. And the flooding can happen so daily because there’s just this impact so acute every day. If you watch the news all the time, it’s there, it’s there, it’s there.
So it’s a hard one to I should be able to manage the collective nervous system of the world. Should we be doing that? I don’t know. But we’re human, right? So, yeah, it’s just to acknowledge this moment in time, too, in the world.
I think one of the important questions is we’re establishing here that this is normal. Then the second question is, okay, and what do we do when it happens? What do we do? Let’s go right into the playroom. We’re in the experience of the play, and all of a sudden we hear really loudly some voice in our head that says, my gosh, you should know what this child is trying to tell you right now, and you shouldn’t feel lost and confused in the play.
What’s wrong with you? Some version of that. What do we do? What do you both do in those moments? I often say I’m confused. I’m really confused.
I’m not sure trying to fall. I’m not sure what happened. And one kid looked at me and he said, of course you’re confused.
This story is really confusing. My confusion is what’s happening for this child. And I’m actually getting what’s going on for them.
That was an important learning for me that if I’m confused, it might be what the child is living and what they’re trying to show me through their play to name that. So you’re alluding to this idea that sometimes the should isn’t just ours per se, that there’s potentially a part of the should or a part of the message or part of the experience that may actually be about the play or the relationship or the story. And for us to hold space and room and curiosity about that.
Why am I having this particular should in this particular moment? It’s an interesting curiosity to hold. How is this relevant to this child’s therapy and what the child’s working on? Yeah, I tend to move and I shake out my arms quite a bit and said, oh, it’s too much. Like feeling too much.
So like naming it but also doing a movement because it feels like personally for movement is really regulating for me. And also, just as you said, Lisa, it’s like that’s a little nugget to work on later. I like visualize taking it out of my brain and saying, oh, that’s there.
And then the too much is sort of where I go. And it’s interesting to see the kid’s reaction or the child’s reaction or like Helen’s saying, like, yeah, it’s confusing. And then some kids will be like, yeah, it’s way too much.
And then here’s a sword or here’s something. Right. It’s kind of an interesting it brings you back sometimes just to do well.
Dan Siegel says name it to tame. You know, if we are starting to get even flooded related to the should, or we’re starting to get really dysregulated because the shoulds dysregulate us, so we’re starting to get really dysregulated. How do we come back to ourselves? And one of the ways is naming it, naming what’s going on does have that centering type of an experience.
I know for me, I try to go into my body. So recognizing that the should is a heady thought. It’s a thought.
There are sensations that are attached to it, but it’s a thought. And so noticing that, I’m shitting myself. And then how do I take a deep breath and come back into my body so that I am attuning back into my authenticity, not getting caught up in the part that’s getting attached to the should, if that makes sense.
So how do I come back into my center? How do I take a deep breath, feel into my belly, look around, reorient to the space, reorient to the play, orient back in. Okay. And now what’s in my awareness now what’s true for me now and allowing myself to then move from that place.
I find that’s helpful to orient back in. Yeah, good. I’m just reflecting on the Play.
It’s so somatic so I like the body is, as you say, we’re the most important toy in the Playroom. And our body there, how we mirror that, how we role model, like we can move our bodies when things are coming up for us. We can do all sorts of things around that.
I think that’s just a valuable nugget that you set there. Sometimes I name that if I spaced out, I say, oh, jeez, I just spaced out for a minute and I’m going to feel my feet on the ground so I can come back into the room. So I’m kind of naming what I’m doing with my body.
I want to name some of the shoulds around new play therapists. So, Christina, you’re talking about supervising your interns, and Helen, I know that you also supervise new Play therapists. And even though I’m saying new play therapists, what I’m about to say is not just limited to new play therapists, but I find that this particular should is often louder.
New Play therapists, which is the shoulds of my supervisor told me to do this and not this. Or I just took this training, and the training says to do this and not this. Or I just read that chapter in that book, and that chapter says you’re supposed to do this and not do this.
And so it has to do with the knowledge or the information education that we have ingested from the learning process. And part of our play therapy journey is figuring out who we are within all of that and who we are relative to all of that knowledge. And I think that there can be a lot of shoulds that show up in that space and a lot of questioning.
Because what can happen is we show up in the Playroom and we have an instinct or we have an intuition about something or to have the Play move in a particular direction, or maybe we’ve been trained really nondirectively, but you have an intuition to go, to do a directive intervention. Or maybe we’ve been trained in a way where typically the parents aren’t in the room and we’re like, oh, wait a second, no, my intuition is saying I need the family. I need to do a family play therapy session.
Or maybe it’s the other way. Maybe we’ve been trained more directive, and we’re feeling like, gosh, what would it be like to go maybe nondirective for a couple of sessions or whatever it is. Right.
We’re having a sense because we’re the ones there, and our sense about where to go in the therapeutic process is a little different than what we’ve been told it should look like or what it’s supposed to look like, or golly, the sand seems like it wants to come out of the sandbox. You know what I’m saying? And yet we’re told the sand stays in the sandbox. But goodness gracious, the sand did not read that chapter in that book.
The sand doesn’t know it’s supposed to stay in the sandbox. And so how do we allow for the sand to come out of the box if that’s what’s needing to happen therapeutically? How do we shift and adapt? And the thing that I want to say is that it is so important as clinicians, we trust ourselves. It is so important that we recognize that yes, all this training, all the things we’ve read, all the education we receive, it’s invaluable and it is needed.
And we need a theoretical orientation and we need to get rooted in something. And then somewhere along the way, you got to trust yourself in the midst of all of that. And when we don’t, part of what I have experienced and what I see in my role as a supervisor is the shoulds get louder the more we try to adopt a philosophy or ingest knowledge that doesn’t feel congruent or try to practice in a way that doesn’t feel aligned.
The louder and louder and louder. Those shoulds, those shoulds get that’s been my experience. Either of you had that experience before, where the shoulds start to get much louder.
Can we speak to that for a minute? Yeah, I think when I am supervising interns, the shoulds get really loud, like really loud. And then they’re loud for the intern. So it’s like we’re in this sort of loud, shitty space, so to speak.
But it is. I see that with interns. I’ve learned this whole new thing and I should be able to do this now and it’s like, well, who are you as a human? And sometimes I hear myself say that or supporting an intern and I think, who am I as a human? How do I bring myself? Because we bring all of our experience and yeah, we have a theoretical framework and we are rooted in that and we also bring all of our experiences and all of our humanness to the work because it’s a human field.
So I think that when we turn down the volume of what you should be and just who you are and what you bring, that really helps in that. And I have to say it’s amazing to supervise interns and it’s actually one of the highlights of my whole job. I love it and it’s so eye opening and heart opening around.
Okay, I might know this part of information like this theory, but my intern knows a whole bunch of stuff about this thing that I really like. How do we collaboratively? So it’s that kind of should around like, oh, I should know it all, I’m the expert or whatever, using quotations on that. But how do we work and help with honoring their knowledge? So there should turn down the volume too.
Yeah, it’s a great dance I think, for that. Yeah, I agree that it’s such an honor to watch therapists grow and become themselves, become the therapist they’re meant to be, based on what feels congruent and right for them. I think at the beginning, especially as I’m establishing a relationship with the intern, that’s when the shoulds are really high, they’re trying to feel me out and see what I think they should be doing instead of noticing what they and there’s that should word, right.
What they feel is a way that they want to go in that moment with that child and just making sure that I’m not contributing to the shoulds by pointing out all sorts of things that they’re not ready to take on yet. So building on skills one step at a time and honoring all the different things they bring to the table that I don’t know about at all, and incorporating all those things that make them them, I want to bridge this over even to seasoned therapists. And it’s a reminder for seasoned therapists anytime we learn anything new.
So I’m even thinking about we have people that are just starting their practice and people that have been in the play therapy world for 30 years that come and take, for example, synergetic play therapy courses. And there’s that clunky thing right at the very beginning, right? Whenever we’re learning something where the shoulds can start to get loud around, like, oh, yeah. So there can be that I should know what to do, but that can show up because I’ve been in the field for 30 years, or I should know what to do because I have really lofty expectations of myself and I’m just starting out right.
And that voice can show up at any stage. I think about for myself when I’m venturing on a new thing or I’m learning a new aspect of play therapy, or gosh even sometimes doing interviews or going through and putting together a podcast for lessons from the playroom, because I research. I research and I study before I have these conversations.
And sometimes I’m like, I should know this, right? How have I not learned this before? And it’s like, right, Lisa, because you’ve been focused on studying this and that’s okay, because that’s who you are, and now you get to learn this. And so, yes, I think there’s a normalization for all of us that the shoulds come in in any moment when we’re attempting to be someone that we’re not and we’re not really embracing and honoring who we are exactly as we are in those moments. And the same is true for the kids that we work with.
They come in our playrooms with a lot of shoulds and a lot of expectations on themselves. And so how do we support them in discovering who they actually are? Not who the world wants them to be, not who their parents want them to be, not who their teachers want them to be. Not who anybody else wants them to be, other than who are they really, and what a really beautiful privilege it is to help children discover that and tap into that within themselves.
So, ladies, as we are wrapping up, any advice either one of you want to share around the shoulds to our listeners? I always feel like I just want to laugh when I hear by shoulds, I’m worried. But I’m also like, oh, I’m just shitting myself. I just really want to use humor in it and recognize it, recognize that it’s so valuable to know I’m not alone in this.
And that’s like, okay, everybody gets here, everybody’s here. This happens. I find I kind of should myself for having shoulds.
It just gets a bit ridiculous, all the should. So sometimes I just have to stop and laugh at it all and just go, yeah, this is a human experience, like you’re saying, Christina. And we all have them, we can all move through them.
Absolutely. Well, thank you both so much for having this conversation so helpful for me, even just reminding of my own journey. Listeners, I hope you found something valuable in this conversation, reflecting on your shoulds, where you’re giving yourself permission to be who you are.
And that piece that Helen talked about and really stopping and questioning and maybe there’s some also wisdom to the should. And the should maybe is showing up because it’s actually giving you some information about what’s actually going on for the child or in the play. Don’t forget that one.
That’s an important thing to hold on to and question as well. So let’s all take a deep breath together. Listeners, thank you for tuning in.
Wherever you are in the world, I just so appreciate you. Take care of yourselves. You are the most important toy in the playroom.
