228 | Session Savvy: Staying Neutral and Avoiding "Body" Commentary in CCPT

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You're listening to the Play Therapy Podcast with Dr. Brenna Hicks.

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Your source for centered and focused play therapy coaching.

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Hi, I'm Doctor Brenna Hicks, The Kid Counselor.

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This is the Play Therapy Podcast where you get a master class in child-centered,

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play therapy

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and practical support and application for your

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work with children and their families.

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In today's episode, we are doing another Session Savvy series

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and this is specifically about

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commenting on the child's body

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as commentary about their play.

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And I know that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, but as soon as we get into it,

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I promise it will.

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I've noticed that a lot of

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sessions that I've watched with play therapists

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and even in some of the posts in the Collective,

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as people have mentioned things that have been said in sessions

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and I find this more common with people that have been in the education world.

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So I think this might come more from being a former teacher,

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a former guidance counselor, school counselor.

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If you have an educational arena background,

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I find that it's more common

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in those types of therapists.

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But what will often happen is

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the child is

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playing a little bit frantically

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or playing aggressively

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or there's some chaotic kind of frenetic movement going on

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and the therapist will say something like

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you have so much energy in your body

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or

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your body is really letting you know that it needs to move

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or you know your body. So you know

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that you wanna hit something.

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All right. So,

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inherently,

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I understand what is trying to be conveyed there. I think we all probably do

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that.

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There is a mind body connection

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that there are somatic symptoms when a child is feeling big emotions.

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And I think

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lately in recent years, anyway,

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that the school environment has really started embracing this idea of mindfulness

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and you know,

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being present with your breathing and your body

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and the connections there in et cetera,

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et cetera.

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So I understand the rationale behind it.

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But our goal

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in the playroom as CCPT

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is to not interpret what's going on.

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We have a very finite

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number of options

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and skills to use at our disposal.

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We're going to use one of the reflective responses,

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we're going to use one of the pillars.

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So when a child is hitting Bobo,

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we want to say what we see the child doing,

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you're hitting Bobo really fast.

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But if we say

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your body's telling you, it needs to get energy out. So you're hitting Bobo,

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that's our interpretation

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and that's not neutral

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and it's agenda driven

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because really what we're

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with good intentions I recognize,

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but what we're trying to do is help the

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child make the mind body connection in that moment.

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That's not CCPT adherent.

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So we want to remain really neutral

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and just acknowledge what's happening.

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Now, of course, we can reflect feelings,

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but we already talked about that in an earlier sessions,

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in a Session Savvy episode.

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Remember that we don't want to assume content is emotionally connected.

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So a lot of times what will happen is a therapist will say

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you're punching Bobo because you're angry,

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not usually.

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And sometimes a kid is punching Bobo frantically and quickly

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and we talk about their energy and their body telling them something and they,

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you know your body and you sense in your body and your body is letting you know,

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no, they just wanna punch something.

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So the goal is always neutrality

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and the goal is to stay adherent with one of our options,

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which is to track behavior, reflect content, reflect feeling.

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Now, of course, we can

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use some other skills that kind of are more nuanced, right?

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So we can personify the fight,

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you're hitting him so hard.

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That's a strategy that's adherent to CCPT.

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We can use an esteem building response.

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You're not giving up until you knock him over.

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So there are options to what we say,

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but we need to be very careful

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of making implied analysis

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of what's going on.

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And actually in one of the Collective posts, a therapist posted that she said

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something about the child's body and you,

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you know that you need to get energy out. So you're punching it

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and he got mad at her and he actually yelled at her and said, no, I just wanna punch it

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and that's the danger

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because when we make assumptions

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and when we connect things and when we interpret,

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we usually aren't on target.

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And that's why CCPT has a very structured

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and intentional set of responses

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because then we're not kind of grasping at something

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and then it doesn't come around to bite us.

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So please, especially if you're, if you're a school background person,

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but all of us, we need to remember

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that

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we

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always are aiming

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for being neutral

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in what we say.

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My husband and I were Eric and I were just talking about this earlier today.

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As a matter of fact, he was like,

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you've really been hammering this neutrality thing.

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It's so important.

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That's a much higher developed skill

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in CCPT.

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But once you master the basic skills,

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the next levels are, are harder and they're more nuanced,

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but they're just as important.

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So we can't let our own stuff get in the way.

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And so that's why I wanted to bring up the comments

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on the body and the child's awareness of their body.

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Just something to keep in mind to make sure that we

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are adherent and that we are sticking with the skills,

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making sure that what we say is most helpful to kids and most effective.

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That's always what our goals are.

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All right, y'all love you. Thanks so much for hanging out with me each week.

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Thank you for your emails.

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If you'd like me to answer one of your questions, shoot me an email,

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brenna@thekidcounselor.com

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also, just please say hello. I'd love to hear from you.

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I'd love to hear your stories from the playroom.

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I haven't done a stories from the playroom episode in a while.

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So if you have a story of transformation or

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anything that has happened since you've started on this CCPT journey,

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I would love to hear from you.

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And then if you give me permission, I'll share it on an episode. So

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anyway, great to be with you all. We'll talk again soon. Bye.

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Thank you for listening to the Play Therapy Podcast with Dr

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Brenna Hicks. For more episodes and resources.

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Please go to www.playtherapypodcast.com.