[Music] Hi listeners, welcome back. Thank you
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for once again tuning in to join me for the next episode from the Lessons from
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the Playroom podcast. I have with me another amazing guest. She’s been on
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here before. She is a dear friend of mine. She is beloved in our play therapy
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community at large. Um, I have Claire Melantine with me today. If you have not
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listened already to the last, um, actually Claire, I think you and I have done more than one episode in here
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because we did one on attachment center play therapy and then we also did one on parents. Uh, also, uh, maybe we did
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another one. So, I’ll say listeners, go back and listen to the past episodes
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with Claire. And uh before I say hello hello directly to Claire for those of
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you that are not familiar with Claire, let me tell you a little bit about her and then uh dive into why I’ve invited
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her on and what we’re going to be talking about. So um Claire Melantine, she is a uh an RPTs. She’s an
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international speaker, award-winning author, registered um play therapy supervisor. She’s the creator of
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attachment centered play therapy. Um throughout her career she has specialized in providing play therapy to
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children, teens, and their families. She frequently presents professional play therapy and family therapy nationally
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and internationally. She’s the past president of the Utah Association for Play Therapy. She’s the author of
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several books including Attachment Center Play Therapy, Play Therapy Engaging and Powerful Techniques for the
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Treatment of Childhood Disorders, the My Many Color My Many Colors of Me Workbook. I know you got other ones out
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there as well, Claire. Those are just a couple. Um, she’s also authored several chapters and articles. She frequently
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appears on local and national television and radio as an expert on children and family issues and is soon to well soon
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to be starting a new position. Claire, will you let us know where you’re going to be starting?
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Yes. So, part of my journey these last couple years um co did lots of funny things to all of us and I thought it was
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a great time to do a doctoral program. So, Dr. Claire now these days, but um
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I’m going to be accepted a position as a full-time professor
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um at Utah Valley University. So, I’ll be starting that in August of 2025 in
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their master work program. Yeah. So, amazing. and your doctorate is precisely
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why we are having this conversation because we’re going to talk about your
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um your dissertation and the topic of your dissertation. So uh was this is
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this your first interview as Dr. Claire Melantine?
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That is such a good question. Maybe maybe not. But maybe maybe uh so
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go with it. Yeah, it is. We’re gonna go with it. So here’s uh here’s here’s our topic everyone and and um Claire I just
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want to say even before I announce the topic thank you for doing research on this topic because this topic is so
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important for all of us um in the field. Uh but everyone, Claire did her research
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on our attachment history, the attachment history of the play therapist and how our own attachment history
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influences uh the the way we show up in our interactions and our ability to to be in
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relationship and and and all of that. So we are going to unpack that topic today in this conversation. So Claire, hi. Hi.
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Hi. Thanks so much for having me on. It’s always fun to be together. Yeah, absolutely. Um, I’m curious what
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inspired you to choose this as your topic for your dissertation.
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So, being in the film, I’m I’m in this weird milestone. Um, I think you and I
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have talked about this, kind of laughed about this before. Middle age is kind of a weird place to be. just put it out
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there for many reasons, but I’ve been doing this longer in my life now than I
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haven’t been, which is kind of an interesting way to be thinking about the work that we do and like how how all
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of a sudden you can be in the field for 25 years and it’s like you started yesterday. But with being in the field
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for 25 years, um, you know, a lot of my supervision work,
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a lot of my clinical work, a lot of my clinical training, you know, this this idea of how our attachment histories
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show up in our transference and our counter transference with our work with clients. You know, as a supervisor, I
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see this every single day. Um, and it’s been something that, you know, I I tend to practice from a more psychonamic
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perspective because that’s where my home is, my theoretical orientation, and it’s also where my training, you know, took
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place in graduate school. My my program was very psychonamic. And, um, so talking about, you know, in
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supervision more than just what’s happening, you know, in the case, but really looking at like what’s coming up
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for you in this. Um, that’s some of my favorite work to do as as a supervisor.
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And and this is where you start seeing this a lot, right, of like, oh, I I don’t
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want to work with parents, like, or this mom reminds me of my mom, and I all of a sudden feel like a 5-year-old again,
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like, what the heck is happening here, you know? And these conversations over the years, it was something that I
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really wanted to bring attention to and it’s never been looked at. Um, my study
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was the very first study that has addressed any any of this stuff in the
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field of play therapy and really in the last few years the person of the
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therapist work just generally looking at how clinicians attachment histories influences us. This is brand new stuff
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that we’re finally talking about in research that we’re finally looking at in academics and academia. And this is
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something that for those of us who have been clinical supervisors, we know this stuff happens all the time.
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Um, but it’s kind of like we don’t talk about Bruno. We don’t like talking about this stuff. Uh, because it’s vulnerable.
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Yeah. And and so this is something that it truly like is like my heart’s work.
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Um, and it just was so cool to to have like
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colleagues and people like I know and those who were new to me as well,
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but sharing their most vulnerable stories with me um through the research is just it was such an a humbling honor
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um for me to hold that space with them too and to trust me to share their stories. Yeah. Well, I mean, I know a
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little bit about where we’re where we’re headed in this conversation since you and I have chatted a little bit about
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already. And I I am feeling already grateful because I know what this
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conversation is going to do is it’s going to normalize a lot of things for therapists because I think that
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therapists carry a lot of shame and also an unreal unrealist expectation that somehow they should be totally put
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together before they enter the playroom or before they’re ever a play therapist.
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But but we all have histories and there’s a reason why we became play therapists in the first place. So let’s
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can we just start going down the rabbit hole a little bit and we’ll what I’ll just you you can go wherever you want to
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go with this but let’s start with what do you feel like is one of the most significant findings
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even related to what I just shared. Yeah. So I’m like so excited to nerd
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out. I love talking about this stuff. Um so some of the most significant findings
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um that came from this. So it I did what’s called a feminological study. And
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so that’s a study where you’re interviewing people and you’re listening to what their stories are and what their
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experiences have been, how they see the world. And you truly are supposed to and
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you try to set aside your own stuff, right? And this is where I had a lot of
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humbling moments um with my dissertation chair of like, all right, Claire, you’re looking at this from the lens of a
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supervisor. Where’s your researcher hat? It’s like, oh yeah, all right. You know, like let’s keep looking through this and
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and shifting through the data points. But I think that, you know, to kind of normalize
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things, everybody is human. Like there’s no such thing as a perfect family. And I
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think speaking to what you said, like there is a reason that you feel called to do this work. Like I don’t know
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anybody that was kind of like, well, I’ll just try it out. Like there’s a reason that you want to work with kids
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and usually it stems from your own experiences, positive or negative. You
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know, like some of the most beautiful stories that came from the research was,
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you know, talking about how, you know, being a child who’d been going through
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pretty horrific trauma um and relational trauma and just all the
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things, right? that having a therapist who saw her
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and in that therapeutic relationship experienced safety with an adult for the very first time.
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And through this experience like for one of the participants like that changed her whole trajectory of like I want to
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do this and be able to give this to another little kid like me. And it changed everything in her life to
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have a safe grown-up who was in the form of her therapist who could help her navigate all the stuff right that kids
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have to go through unfortunately. Um
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you know another place you know like I came from a healthy home. I have parents
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who were safe. I work with kids who never got this. so I can give this like a a taste of what this could be like a
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different perspective of how grown-ups can be, you know, and I think all of our stories
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shape us. Um there’s reasons that we come. I mean, you and I have had years
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of friendship and talking about, you know, how did we how did we end up here? you know, doing the things that we do
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and and all of our stories shape us and kind of guide us in this path of of finding this place where we want to to
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be where it feels home. Um, and then finding your clinical home and having to
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kind of redefine what this looks like, you know, so that we’re practicing in in healthy adaptive ways while we’re also
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experiencing simultaneously healing throughout the parallel process of the therapeutic relationship. Yeah. Thank
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you for just Yeah, we’re going to go down that little rabbit hole here in a second. The the term that we often hear
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is the wounded healer. And so again, I’m just hearing you normalize for many play
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therapists, I don’t know, Claire if you would even say most play therapists, I don’t know if you’d go that far or not.
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So you’re shaking your head. Yes. Most play therapists, the part of the call is from the wound. And so we really have
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the wounded healer that is that is showing up. And uh I want to I want to
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go I want to talk more about the implications of that, right? And the and the impact of that. But there is a
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there’s something just beautiful in recognizing that the wound created the calling and and that’s and that’s
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beautiful. Yeah. And the research correlates with that, right? So 20%
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or maybe only 20%, can I frame that? of participants in my research study
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self-reported secure attachment. 80% of participants
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reported the opposite where they grew up in homes that were not safe, that were not
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protected, that were not nurtured, that were not given the tools that they needed and wanted so desperately, let
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alone the safety and security of attachment within that. And so I think our data also shows that there’s
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correlation to this. And you know, I mean, I think that that’s
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one of the most unfortunate myths that we’ve created in our field that you’re
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supposed to have your together. And I probably shouldn’t say that word online, but you’re supposed to,
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you know, like you’re helping people, so that must mean that you’re a superhuman and you have it all figured out. Yeah.
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You shouldn’t have an attachment history, right? You know, on like your own problems happening.
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Yeah. But none of us are exempt from being human, you know. And I think, you know, one of the things that I found
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over the years, u not just through my research, but just, you know, just collo colloqually, if I can say that word,
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through the years is we’ve all had stuff happen. None of us are exempt from
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trauma. None of us are exempt from hurt. None of us are exempt from messing up.
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None of us are exempt from being human. And yet, we’ve set this expectation that
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you’re not supposed to have marital problems. You’re not supposed to, you know, you’re not supposed to struggle in parenting if you’re a child therapist.
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Your kids are supposed to be perfect, right? And of course, ours are, right? Um,
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you and I are the exception to this conversation. Absolutely. Right. Absolutely. Yes.
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Listeners, not true. Not true. No. Very, very human homes happening. very human.
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But I think what what makes a difference though is doing your own work. First of
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all, like everyone knows that that’s like my soap box of like we’ve got to buy what we sell, right? I cannot begin
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to tell you how grateful I am for the therapists I’ve had in my adult life. And you know, I’ll just be candid and
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sharing. One of the reasons I decided I wanted to work with kids is because I didn’t have a good experience in
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adolescent with a therapist. That was me, too. Yeah. And I was like, I don’t want another kid to have to go through
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this, so I’m gonna fix the system. That was mine. That was mine. I remember sitting in front of my therapist
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thinking, you’ve got to be kidding me. Yes. Great. Y and you know, not to like
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for somebody listening, I’m like, “Oh, great. But I think it’s it’s we have the
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ethical mandate and responsibility to make sure that we are buying what we sell that we do work through our stuff
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as they come up, you know, and I think that like that’s where that relationship
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with a supervisor and with a mentor like man like it doesn’t matter how long
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you’ve been in the field, we still need that. Um, like I’m so grateful for the people that
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I can call be like, “Can I dump and sort with you?” Because I am stuck. I’m lost. I’m so triggered. Right. Like I mean all
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of us experience this. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been doing the work. Like you’re still going to be human in
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it. Yeah. The the thing that you before we got on here that you talked about
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that really caught my attention too was even beyond or in addition to a mentor
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or supervisor but that community also came up strongly in the research that
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the the feeling of community. Will you talk about that too that that that how significant that is? Yes. So some of the
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most beautiful themes came up in the research as we’re talking about you know exploring like the different and so
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everybody that was in my study as a registered play therapist with varying degrees of experience varying degrees of
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you know practice life all that kind of stuff right but you needed to be a
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registered play therapist and you needed to be practicing family therapy to as the qualifiers
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and and that was interesting talking and about people’s perspective of what is
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family therapy and there’s a big shift in perspectives of what that looks
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like first of all which is okay so much of this depends on what your training is
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but through all the stories the core theme of the research that came out was
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the importance of earn security throughout the lifespan so what earn
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security is is finding someone like I love how Bulby phrase is this but
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finding someone better able to take on the world first of all like that’s like the core of an attachment figure but
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insecurity is when you find this in relationship outside of the parent child
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diad and we need this for our own healing
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across the lifespan and so finding someone better able to cope with the
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world you know it I often oftenimes talk about
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like we need our little birthday candles and we go through life collecting our birthday candles and this is what earned
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security is. And so each of the participants in the study shared one how
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important the role of the supervisor and mentor was in creating healing for so many like story after story after
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story. This is the first time I felt safe. This is the first time I felt seen. This is the first time I had
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somebody like I knew somebody had my back. And it was the role of the mentor and
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the supervisor. And the second theme that came from earn security came from
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building community within the play therapy community which I
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I don’t know why but I was surprised and not surprised at all all at the same
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time. But each person talked about how healing
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and how important the play therapy community in their little neck of the woods, wherever that was, has been. And
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how healing these relationships have been. And it’s been another source of earned security where there’s been that
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parallel process of healing that happens in relationship.
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and and having that connection to one another
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has been one of the most beautiful parts of their practice and a place where they knew that they could go to for support,
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a place that they could feel home. You know, when sometimes you go to other conferences and they’re like, “Oh, you
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work with kids. What’s wrong with you? Why would you do that?” Um,
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but but creating a home, right? which I think is so beautiful when we’re
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thinking about our friendships and how important it is. And I,
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you know, like I think about my life and like how rich my life is because of my
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friendships that have happened because of play therapy and like the community that has been developed in in that
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regard. And I’m so grateful for it. And and I love that this is a common
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experience, you know, and like we seek out these
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connections with one another. I’m curious and maybe this came up in the research um or not. I don’t know if you
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went down this this this path, but how does so so we have we have the wounded
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healer that is now the play therapist that has a mentor supervisor has
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community. What is the effect of that then for their ability then to be able to go and
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do the play with the child? like what’s the and and if you didn’t go down that path, I’d love to hear just your
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thinking like what’s the how how does that impact then the
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therapist’s own ability to be in relationship with the child knowing
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inevitably that their own attachment patterns are going to come into play space because how can it not? But how
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does how is that a buffer? How is that a support? How is that I don’t know. You know what I’m trying to ask? I know
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exactly. Yes, I’m right there with you. Mhm. So through these relationships, through developing earned security, it
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heals those wounded parts of you. It doesn’t take them away, right? It’s like, you know, like where you have the
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scar on your arm and you broke your arm and you know exactly what happened. But your skin healed, your bone healed, like
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your body heals, right? And and in our hearts and in our souls, I mean, none of us would do this work if we didn’t know
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healing can and does happen. But through relationship, through a secure
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attachment, through a secure enough relationship, parts of you and your story are healed,
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giving you permission to then be a model of security in your playroom with your
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client. And going back to that piece that you said,
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finding someone that can um what was the language used about the world that can do do or do better able to to take on
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the world or cope? Yeah. Better able to take on the world. So you can become a person that’s better on better able to take on the world.
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And where that has that trickle out effect then is your ability to show up
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and be a secure attachment for the parents as well as with the child. And this is where, you know, in our field,
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so many people are called to work with kids and they’re like, “Yeah, no thanks. I don’t want to work with their
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grown-ups, right?” And if we want lasting change to happen,
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we have to work with the people who have the ability to make change happen. So from this lens, Claire, do you think
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that part of the hesitation is because consciously or unconsciously the
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attachment wound has a has a possibility of being activated because now you are
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actively in relationship with a parent or a caregiver. Yeah, absolutely. So
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part of it has to do with training and access to training. Um, and a big part
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of it is it’s really vulnerable and and in that moment, right, if you’re
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getting activated, so let’s say that you come from a home where chaos is the norm
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or there’s no permission for feelings or, you know, like there’s no boundaries anywhere, so you never learned how to
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make a boundary, you know, yourself. like all of that kind of stuff is what
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we’re doing in therapy and especially when we’re working with family systems, right? So, being able to lean into the
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vulnerability and the intimacy of family work, if you tend to be, you know, more
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anxious yourself, that’s going to really trigger your own anxiety, right? Because it’s not comfortable, it’s not easy. um
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when you’re holding multiple affects in the room and they’re not necessarily happy with each other, right? It’s it’s
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hard work. There’s a reason why a lot of people don’t like doing family therapy. Yeah. And there’s some interesting
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research that’s a little bit older, but um Hlam and Harris in 2011
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did like a survey of of play therapists and their view on family therapy and the
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importance of family therapy. And the majority of play therapists were like, “Oh yeah, family therapy is really
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important and it should be done. Just somebody else should do it, not me.” Right? And we have that tendency. And I
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think kind of historically, like we’ve been so child- centered, like that’s kind of where that the the root of play
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therapy, especially in America, has come from is that child- centered lens. And
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so having access not only to trains trains to training of how to work with
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parents of how to do family systems work tends to be pretty limited depending on where you are but I think it’s also been
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and and this is not to poo poo on any theoretical model any practice model but
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I think that you know when brief therapy came online
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like in the 80s right and systems therapy originally came on, all of us were taught if one person changes, the
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whole system changes, right? Do you guys remember that? Learning that in grad school and your like snippet of systems theory.
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And I think what we did is we took that little nugget and that became truth. And
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then when we’re like, “Oh, well, we’ll just work with the 5-year-old. Okay, I’m changing. If the 5-year-old’s shifting, then everything’s going to change.”
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But we we took it too literally or like too one note.
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Yes. Yeah. And we forget about power differentials.
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You know, when we’re doing that and when we have the idea because a 5-year-old has no power to make changes in their
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system, they don’t have any power over anything. They don’t have power over if they have some place to sleep. They
25:12
don’t have power over if they have clothes to wear. They don’t have power over if mom and partner are fighting. They don’t have power over us. Grandpa
25:19
disappear. Like they have no power over anything. And yet, you know, I think
25:24
we’ve unintentionally and maybe not even thinking about what an unrealistic burden of responsibility is that is to
25:30
give to a young child of like, okay, you be the change maker in here. And the practicality of it is they can’t,
25:39
right? Like they don’t they’re the least powerful, most vulnerable person.
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And and so when you know we begin to think about power differentials, let alone legacy burdens, let alone you know
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all these areas of intersectionality that impact families and impact relationships and impact attachment and
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impact a sense of even having the ability to make change like right or
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being totally helpless to whatever winds are blowing. I think that like that’s the part where training absolutely is so
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important and you know that was one of like the discouraging parts of some of
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the research that came up too is you know in marriage and family therapy programs
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you know family therapy is in the title there are 13
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programs that offer play therapy out of all of the accredited programs in
26:39
the us. There’s 13 programs that have a play therapy class and that’s a play therapy class.
26:48
um a class a class a class a class and we see the same in the rest of the
26:55
programs like statistically I don’t have it off the top of my head but when you think about family therapy you maybe had
27:01
a class or a unit of a course right but most programs don’t offer a
27:08
very thorough experience of how do you do family therapy effectively
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let alone understand why you’re doing what you’re doing in it let alone than bringing in the play therapy slant of like, oh, I’m supposed to do this with
27:20
little kids and adults, right? Like, well, you’re you’re almost describing like the both sides are missing. You
27:27
know, in family programs, they’re they’re missing a understanding of the
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play aspect and how to work therapeutically from a play-based perspective. But then if you go into
27:38
play therapy training, they’re missing also then the piece around hold on a second. There’s the systems work and how
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do you be a systems thinker versus a, you know, just the child. Uh and and how
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do we So both of them are are are missing a piece is what I’m hearing you say. Yeah, it’s a really unfortunate.
27:59
Yes, really unfortunate. Thank well so so let me tie some some different
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thoughts that are coming up from this conversation. one is you’re you’re
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speaking to okay so there is a a there so there is
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this understanding and this beautiful awareness that came up from the research that look um there are helpful things
28:22
that we can do the research shows it that can support us with healing through our own attachment injuries and that has
28:30
huge implication for us in the playroom like that’s number one the second thing I’m hearing you say is yes and there’s
28:36
still a part of us from our attachment wounds in history that’s reluctant to work with parents and the family system
28:44
and there’s a fear in there. But within that, not only is there a fear, but we’re also not trained well to be able
28:50
to even do it if we wanted to move in that direction. We wanted to move in that direction anyway. So the word that
28:56
keeps coming up is insecurity. So, so now you have a play therapist
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that has their own history that they feel vulnerable with that is is working
29:07
relationship with the child or the family or not. And then and then will
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you just speak to that? I’m just hearing vulnerable insecurity and will you speak to that? Yes. Because that is one thing
29:20
that showed up a lot too is all these things are true. Like there’s a lack of access to training, there’s a lack of
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access to resources, there’s a lack of Excuse me. You know, security in life.
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And one of the things that, you know, story after story also showed is when
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you feel powerless, it’s easy to go into helpless mode. We all know that and all of us as humans do
29:49
go into that, right? But then if you want to stop feeling helpless, you finally figure out a way
29:55
to do something about it. And so each of them also talked about
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some are kind of forced into family therapy training, right? Because it’s part of the job and so you have to go to
30:06
this training and face your fears. And a majority of them also talked about
30:12
wanting wanting healing themselves, but also recognizing like if I’m going to do this
30:19
job, I need to seekout training and making that a priority and figuring out
30:25
how to do it. And and as that happened,
30:31
your confidence increases, your competency definitely increases. So
30:37
you understand why you’re doing what you’re doing. But there’s also healing that happens in that, you know, when
30:43
it’s like I think all of us have those moments of despair and those moments of
30:48
vulnerability, those moments of helplessness of like, I don’t know what to do right now. I don’t know where my
30:54
lifelines are. I feel like I’m drowning. I’m so overwhelmed with my case load. Like what do I do? Right? And we hear
31:01
this in in supervision all the time. And
31:06
you know, it’s like kind of Fred Rogers, right? Like you look for the helpers. You look for your lifelines. Okay, where
31:12
do you have a spark, start with one thing at a time, one training at a time, one theory at a
31:18
time, and over time you add to your knowledge base. But I think like where
31:24
that that kind of frenzy like helplessness feeling can actually be enhanced is when people are doing like
31:29
whack-a-ole trainings and like taking like 20 different trainings in a month and not getting anything from them
31:35
because they’re so overwhelmed still. But it’s like slowing it down and giving yourself permission for it to be a
31:41
process just like with anything else. Well, there’s you have to integrate. Yes. It takes time to integrate whatever
31:48
a train whatever the training is, whatever whatever theory we’re we’re chewing on. I I I think sometimes moving
31:56
from one to one to one, like the next one to the next one, it really is. It’s just that I’m trying to I’m trying to
32:02
feel confident. I’m trying to scratch the edge. I’m I’m trying. Yet, it’s not
32:08
the answer is not finding another one. is to go deeper into the experience to integrate what we already are learning
32:15
and then when we feel called if we really do need to go find something else then we then we go and find something
32:21
else. Yeah. And when therapists gave theelves
32:26
permission to get consistent solid training in different models of family
32:31
work I mean people are doing all sorts of different kinds of family work. I think that that’s also where that
32:37
confidence and like comfort with working with chaos was simultaneously being
32:43
healed in their work with chaos and and helping families. Yeah. And one of the most beautiful stories one of the
32:49
participants shared that I just think is like this is why we do what we do my friends. But she talked about this
32:56
session that she had where she was doing a therapy session with a mom and a child and like the mom like you know had to
33:03
get out of her comfort zone and get on the floor and do like the play with the child and you know she shared that as a
33:10
session ended the mom just started crying and she’s like oh no what did I do at first you know but in processing
33:16
with the mom mom shared like I didn’t know parents could do this. Yeah. Nobody ever got on
33:23
the floor and played with me. Yeah. you know, and it’s like there’s all you just
33:29
never I can think of like with sharing that it’s like there’s so many legacy burdens that we hold and these
33:36
intergenerational transmission of trauma, of attachment, of expectations,
33:42
of, you know, all the things that each of us hold in our hearts, but I think that like
33:49
we miss them and we miss the chance to do some of this healing work if we’re avoiding it at all costs,
33:55
you There’s the assumption that the therapist should know. Yeah. And but the therapist is healing also. Yep. Yeah.
34:03
Absolutely. Um Claire, where where can people
34:09
actually read your dissertation? That’s just popping into my head. Is it out yet? It is. It’s out on ProQuest. Um
34:20
I’ll send you the link. Beautiful. Beautiful. Out on ProQuest. If you were going to do a search, what’s the actual
34:26
title of the of the dissertation? So, it is called Exploring Lived
34:32
Experiences, the role of attachment history and registered play therapist practice of family based play therapy.
34:40
Awesome. Cool. Because I I I could imagine listeners would love to go and
34:45
read more of the details. And this is such great knowledge for supervisors.
34:51
Yeah. supervisors to impart to their supervises um for other trainers in the field to be
34:58
able to pull some research and data from to be able to um you know speak to some
35:05
of these processes. So uh thank you for making that well just back to his head thank you for being thank you for having
35:11
the vision to even research this and for being the first one to look at this
35:17
really important topic. It’s so significant. Thanks. Yeah, it’s it’s been fun. It’s
35:25
like the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’m not going to lie. Doing just work. But this part of it, like it’s fun. And
35:34
I think that, you know, for supervisors, like our lived experiences shape how we
35:39
supervise. Totally. Like that’s kind of like my next what’s your next one? Next little nugget that I think I’ll be doing
35:45
some work on in the university uh thing. But you know like that that part of as a
35:51
supervisor being aware of like not only how important it is to help mold and train the next generation you know like
35:57
we love to do that’s why we do supervision work but how our own attachment styles show up in our ability
36:04
to connect too. I mean it’s everywhere. It’s everywhere. It’s everywhere.
36:10
the uh the big big overarching message through this and it’s almost like the
36:15
call to action that I’m hearing is if if we do not so listeners I’m speaking to
36:23
us here if if we do not have um someone where we have the ability to
36:31
have earned security with we don’t have an ongoing relationship with someone that that is crucial find that person go
36:38
find the mentor go find go find the supervisor, start the start the journey of of um of creating that earned
36:45
security. I’m hearing that as a significant call to action. U and I’m also hearing create community. Create
36:51
community. Find find your fellow play therapists that um can uh can support
36:58
you can also uh I mean even just community cla it that’s also family. So
37:06
it’s just another redo of a group, right? Of a sense of what happens to be in group, what happens to me in a
37:12
relationship with multiple people. So I’m just even appreciating that that that too of how much community can heal
37:19
family the family wounds um that that also that also occur in our in our
37:24
lives. Absolutely. I mean, you know, I always say this, but I believe it so
37:29
wholeheartedly like the work that we do is too big to do all by ourselves. Like we need each other. And I think when you
37:37
are with likeminded in a sense people right like who get who
37:43
get the work that you do it’s just a different level of connection then you
37:48
have with other professional communities um because I think the work that we do
37:53
is is unique and it’s there is like a sacredness to it you know of like
38:01
entering into that child’s world and and allowing that to be the driver like no
38:06
other type of work does what we do. Yeah. It’s so significant.
38:13
Claire, any last message before I I give you a message? Any last message for our
38:19
listeners? Yeah. It’s never too late to do your own healing. Uh-huh. And you know, and it’s
38:28
never too late to to to find you in the work, you know, and I think everybody
38:33
has a different spark and different part that lights them up and what we do and why we do it. And I think just honoring
38:40
like what that is for you is so important because that’s going to help you show up authentically,
38:46
which that’s a big part of being able to build attachment is showing up as your authentic self in the moment in the
38:53
relationship in the room. And you know, and I think that there’s just
38:59
always just that huge beacon of hope that is lit like healing can and does
39:04
happen. Yeah. you know, and and remembering that that’s true for us just
39:10
as much as it’s true for the people that you work with, I think is such a gift to give to yourself.
39:18
Takes one. Yep. Takes that one. So, thank you, Claire, uh very much uh for
39:24
your for this conversation. And my message to you was thank you for being
39:30
part of my earned security network. That means so much to me. Right back at
39:38
you. I can’t imagine doing this without you. Yeah, we’ve had some phone calls.
39:46
Lots of phone calls. Lots of phone calls. Yes. Beautiful. So, listeners,
39:53
um, sending you a big hug. uh whatever your history is, you know,
39:59
it’s a part of you and there’s a responsibility we have to to look at it
40:05
and to do our work with it so that we can be that that uh that earned security
40:11
person for our clients. Take care of yourselves. You’re the most
40:16
important toy in the playroom. Until next time, everyone.
