337 | Art of the Session: Narrative 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,

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I'm Dr. Brenna Hicks,

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The Kid Counselor.

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This is the Play Therapy Podcast where you get

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a master class in child-centered 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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All right y'all,

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we are officially less than one month away from the conference in Houston.

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And if you are going to be there,

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if you have not decided whether or not you're going to be there,

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but now I'm convincing you to come,

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or

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all the CCPTs that live in Texas that can drive to Houston.

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I now have details about the meet up and I wanted to share them with you.

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So in the show notes there will be a podcast RSVP

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meet up link.

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So you're going to need to go through Eventbrite.

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Let me know that you're coming.

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It's free.

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I just need to know so I can prepare for numbers.

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We are going to meet on Saturday night,

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October 11th at 7 p.m.

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Houston time.

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And the location is literally a few blocks away from the conference hotel.

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So even if you do not have a vehicle,

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you can walk to the meetup.

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If you live locally,

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you could certainly meet us there.

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There's a parking garage

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tied to where we're going to be.

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And so 7 p.m. Houston time on October 11th,

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that Saturday night.

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We're going to hang out,

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have fun,

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get to know each other,

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spend time together.

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I've got some things planned.

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It's gonna be so much fun.

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So please let me know that you're coming.

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Please RSVP

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in the show note link below for the Eventbrite meet up.

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And then there will be details to follow as we get closer to the event.

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I'll give you all the details that you need so that you know what you need to do.

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All right,

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so very much looking forward to that.

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I cannot wait to see all of you there.

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In today's episode,

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we are continuing with our Art of the Session

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series and we are diving into narrative commentary.

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So one of our skills that we are using in CCPT sessions.

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And narrative commentary is a phrase that I created

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to describe

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what happens

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as we converse with kids

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when it doesn't really fit into one of the reflective responses,

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but it is aligned with the tracking of behavior.

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So I know that probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

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I promise it will as I dive into this,

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but

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I kept trying to figure out a way to.

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Label what it is

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when we talk about what is happening in session,

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and I thought,

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well,

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it's kind of like narration,

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and it's kind of like providing commentary

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and so narrative commentary is kind of how that came to be.

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And essentially what this is,

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this is a tool

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so that you are not stuck with tracking behavior

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if that's the only option in any given moment in a session.

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So let me paint a picture so that you can understand

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what this looks like.

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We know we have 3 reflective responses,

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so we can reflect content if the child is saying something to us,

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we can reflect feelings if the child is expressing emotion,

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and we can track behavior

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depending on what they're doing.

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Well,

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tracking behavior is the one that we can always do.

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The child is always doing something that we can track,

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even when,

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quote,

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the child's just sitting there.

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That's always the thing.

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Well,

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what do I,

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I can't do anything if the child doesn't say anything.

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I can't do anything if the child just sits there.

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I can't do anything if the child doesn't play.

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Choosing to sit there is a behavior.

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Choosing not to talk is a behavior.

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So we absolutely can always track behavior.

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That is the one that is the standard given at any moment.

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But

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if a child is not speaking

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and is not expressing emotion.

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We have tracking behavior

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of the 3.

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And that can become very tedious,

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can be very repetitive,

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can feel a little bit boring,

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and it can be

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irritating for both you and the child

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because essentially what happens is

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the child is quietly,

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calmly

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with his or her back to you.

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Stacking Lego bricks.

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So they grab the red

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cube

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and then they grab the yellow cube and then they grab a blue 6

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and then they grab two white singles

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and that and that's the nature of the play

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and if that's for 30 or so seconds,

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I think we,

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we feel pretty comfortable with that,

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but when it's 30 minutes,

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things change a little bit.

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So we're going,

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oh,

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you picked that one up.

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Now you grabbed that one.

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You put that one on there.

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Oh,

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you added that one.

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All right,

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well,

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there's only so many variations of you put that there or you picked that up

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that

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that one can come up with for 30 minutes,

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and this is where it becomes difficult

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because you need something else because at some point the kid's gonna be like,

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will you stop?

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Or at least they think it because if they,

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if they're not talking to you,

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they may not actually verbalize it.

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But you're saying,

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oh my gosh,

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I wish I could stop.

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The kid's saying,

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oh my gosh,

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will you please stop?

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And then you're kind of at this impasse because it's like,

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well,

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you're not saying anything,

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I can't reflect content.

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You're not

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expressing emotion overtly,

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so I can't reflect feelings.

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I have to track behavior,

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that's all that's left.

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But that becomes very monotonous very quickly.

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So the narrative commentary approach

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is that you can discuss what you're observing,

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but it's bigger picture.

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In other words,

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It's not just

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you're picking that individual piece up.

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What is going on bigger picture?

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The child's creating something.

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The child is working on a project.

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The child is using strategy,

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the child is using problem solving.

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We can see that there are other things going on

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than just the individual behavior at any given moment,

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so the narrative commentary serves the purpose of kind of giving

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observation.

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Of

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what's going on at a higher level.

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It feels more conversational #1,

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2,

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it gives you a variety instead of

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just saying the same thing over and over.

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This is especially true

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when a child is painting or coloring.

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So we're not supposed to label the colors.

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We're not supposed to identify anything that the child hasn't.

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So they're quietly sitting there coloring and you say,

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oh,

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you picked that one up now.

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You colored that part

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You put that one down.

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Oh,

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you chose a new color.

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You colored that one right there.

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Oh my gosh,

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I mean you can do it,

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but

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gosh,

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you'd like a little bit more of an option.

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So typically when you provide narrative commentary,

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you're giving

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observational thoughts from your perspective

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of what's happening.

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So let me give you a couple of examples.

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So instead of saying

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you picked that up.

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Child goes over and starts grabbing

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all the army stuff.

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They are the most soft,

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sweet,

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gentle,

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soft spoken.

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Just

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really,

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really even,

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gentle.

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Interaction

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So that for them might be like,

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you're gathering all the supplies that you need.

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That's their personality.

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I am much more emphatic.

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You should see me gesture while I record episodes.

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One of these days I'm gonna do a video,

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but you have no idea all the body movement

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is taking place when I record podcasts for y'all.

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Why?

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Because I'm a gesturer and I move and I'm expressive and my voice changes.

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That's my personality.

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So if I'm going to say that,

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it's,

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oh,

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you're gathering supplies,

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so you have everything you need.

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That's my personality coming out.

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It gives us more interaction.

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It gives us more options,

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so we're not just stuck with this one thing.

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And I was on a coaching call several weeks ago now,

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and one of my coaching participants,

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Sharon,

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in Egypt,

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she's an expat from the UK,

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but she's in Egypt,

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and she

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was really struggling to

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Engage verbally often enough,

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so she said,

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I'm just,

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I'm one that's going to wait longer like you said 5 or 6 seconds.

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That just seems crazy to me.

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So she was trying to increase the frequency of her comments,

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and she said,

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I finally decided that I needed to assume that the

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teddy bear in the corner of the room was blind.

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And everything that I say

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has to allow the blind teddy bear to have a sense of what's going on in the room.

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And that's exactly what narrative commentary kind of does.

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Because think about it,

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if,

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if there's someone who is blind

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in the room

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and you say,

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you put that there.

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It's real hard to have any idea of what's going on.

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But if you say

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you're gathering all the supplies,

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so you have everything you need,

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now there's so much more understanding of what's going on.

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We might not know what supplies,

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but we know that something along those lines is taking place.

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So the concept of the blind teddy bear might actually help you.

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Thank you,

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Sharon,

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because really what we're doing

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is we're kind of just providing this observational dialogue

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about what we notice.

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And it really does change things

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because kids don't get annoyed.

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We don't feel like we're just monotonously rotely

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saying the same thing over and over again.

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And it's special to see how the relationship

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is really at the heart of it,

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because the child's personality influences the session,

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our personality influences the session,

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and narrative commentary allows those two things to converge.

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And speaking of,

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I was watching

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a different

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coaching groups play session this week,

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and

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Nathan was

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It was his turn to submit the video.

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And at one point in the session,

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he says,

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you're brandishing the sword with ferocity.

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And we paused and we talked about that phrase,

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the kid's like newly 5.

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And he said,

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you're brandishing the sword with ferocity.

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And I told him that he was born in the wrong era and

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he really was meant to live in a castle a long time ago.

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But

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that is truly Nathan.

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It is his personality,

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it is the way that he talks,

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it's the way that he thinks.

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I told him he deserves to be like the king's hand,

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that,

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that's the ideal role for him in my opinion.

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But you're brandishing the sword with ferocity.

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That is

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narrative commentary

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and it's

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personal and it's relational and it's observational

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and it makes the session feel more genuine it makes the session feel more real

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when kids complain

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about our reflective responses it's because they feel contrived to them.

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And let's go back.

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We know

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that it is not the words that we use and it is not the skills.

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You could have

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the skills in a playroom,

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and that is not enough.

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It is about relationship

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and it is about

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the connection that's made.

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So just because you rotely say,

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you picked that up.

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That is not at the heart of CCPT.

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The heart of CCPT is I'm trying to operationalize what's going on for the child.

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I'm trying to see this through the child's eyes.

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So

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if it makes sense for you to say

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you're brandishing the sword with ferocity because that's

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your personality and that's what's going on with

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the kid and that's your way of connecting,

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that's what narrative commentary does.

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It adds some flavor.

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It does not derail the session.

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You don't get to go rogue,

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you don't get to talk about whatever you want to talk about.

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You don't get to

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narrate and give commentary on the weather or

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school or anything else outside of the session.

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That is not what it is for.

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But if you are on target and you are saying something that

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is 100% attuned and engaged with what that child is doing.

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It gives you an alternative to the simple tracking behavior.

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So I hope that that is something that you can

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either challenge yourself to work on or you can tweak and

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make a little bit of adjustments if you have been

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doing it and maybe you notice there's something you can change

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or maybe you're really on track with,

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with your narrative commentary,

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that's really the goal.

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It's to a point where our skills are so ingrained.

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And it's such muscle memory

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that it feels more fluid,

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it feels more free,

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it feels more conversational.

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A session is not meant to seem robotic and

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and just skill to skill to skill.

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That's very cognitive

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and kids are not.

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It needs to be emotional and experiential,

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and narrative commentary will help with that.

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So I hope that that encourages y'all.

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I love you if you are interested in a coaching program.

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I do have one starting in November,

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November 3rd,

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and you can click in the show notes for

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to book a discovery call or go to playtherapypro.com.

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And we have a few spots left in that group

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if you want to get some really in-depth CCPT training,

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check that out.

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Love you all.

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Have a great week.

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We'll talk again soon.

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Bye.

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Thank you for listening to the Play Therapy Podcast with Dr.

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Brenna Hicks.

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For more episodes and resources,

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please go to www.playtherapypodcast.com.