241 | Short on Time, Big on Impact: CCPT for Kids with Communication Barriers

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You're listening to the Play Therapy Podcast with Dr

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Brenna Hicks. Your source for centered and focused play therapy coaching.

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Hi, I'm Dr. 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. I am answering a question from Ailene in North Carolina

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and her question is about

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a client who is partially deaf

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and speaks a different language. So, really interesting scenario.

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And Ailene, thank you so much for

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sharing this and, and processing this with us. I'm really excited to dive into this.

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So I'm going to read parts of her email and then we'll dive in.

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Hi, Doctor Hicks. I'm a clinical counseling student, by the way, it's so funny.

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I'm going on a tangent here for a second.

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But it's so funny when people refer to me as Doctor Hicks because no

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one even at my practice calls me that like I'm Miss Brenna everywhere.

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And so I still find it so weird when like I hear Doctor Hicks,

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it doesn't really register that.

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That's to me. So anyway, you all please feel free to just say hi, Brenna.

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When you email me, I appreciate the respect that Doctor Hicks, you know, has, but

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I'm really ok with Brenna. Ok. I'm back on track.

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I'm a clinical counseling student who is doing my internship.

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I appreciate your podcast. I've learned a lot by listening to them in my

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internship. I was assigned the case of a partially deaf girl.

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I only have eight sessions to work with her.

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So far,

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the girl shows symptoms of anxiety caused by

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the frustration that people do not understand her.

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She's a girl who comes from central America and

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the little amounts of language she has is Spanish.

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My first language is Spanish, meaning Ailene's first language.

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However,

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my biggest concern is that my little experience working with play

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therapy and I will only have eight therapy sessions with her.

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I know it's a complicated case, but I appreciate any advice.

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All right. So Ailene, thank you for this.

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It's really interesting.

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I'm going to kind of give big picture thoughts

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and then I'll more specifically answer your question.

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It's very interesting to me that any time a child has

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a physiological

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or physical

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issue.

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In other words, they have congenital issues, they have developmental issues,

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they have medical issues,

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they have been diagnosed with

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illnesses, they've had surgeries, they have vision problems, hearing problems,

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speech problems,

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they were born prematurely and they're very small for their age.

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You name it. If there is something about their physical person

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that is different

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from their peers.

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It's almost always a ticket to behavioral

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and emotional and mental health struggles.

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And here's my hypothesis.

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This is just uh over 20 years of observing. I don't know that

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I can give you any details to back this up from data. But here are my thoughts.

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Kids know that they're different.

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Kids know that they struggle where other kids don't

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and kids know that their experiences are not universal

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and their natural instinct is to say

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I'm screwed up,

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I'm broken.

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There's something wrong with me.

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I'm a failure. I can't do things. I'm bad at that. I'm stupid.

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Fill in the blank, very negative critical self dialogue

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and therefore their identity, their worth, their confidence, their esteem.

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It's next to nothing.

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I would argue that her anxiety caused by

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the frustration that people do not understand her

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is very, very accurate there

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because

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she knows that not only is she partially deaf,

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but if you've ever interacted with someone who is deaf, their speech is different

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because they can't hear

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themselves

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and they can't hear others.

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So they learn language but it is a different form of speaking.

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So

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then you add on the layer that she comes

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from Central America and her native language is Spanish.

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She's now living in an English speaking country.

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It's just layer upon layer upon layer of I'm different

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and to a child different is bad,

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different is always bad.

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They're very black and white, they're very concrete thinkers.

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That's why they play out good versus bad so frequently in the playroom

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because they have to resolve the fact that you are good and bad as a human.

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You can't be one extreme or the other. There's always a blend of both.

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So I am capable and I'm incapable. I'm smart and I'm not smart.

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I'm needing power and I don't always need power. I'm good and I'm bad.

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This is what kids wrestle with in the playroom

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because the dichotomy of life is very confusing to kids

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that don't have abstract reasoning.

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So that's kind of big picture thoughts based on this specific child.

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And then now we'll talk through your specific question. Ailene,

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anxiety,

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really common presentation in a situation like this.

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And the best case scenario is that CCPT is really,

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really well suited for highly anxious kids.

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So even in eight sessions, there will likely be a reduction of anxiety to a degree

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which is going to be very helpful for her

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and then her,

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the small language she does have, she does have is Spanish but you speak Spanish.

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So there's the connection, although I've said this before,

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but I think it's helpful to point out

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there is a study coming out of UNT dissertation research

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that shows that the therapist and the child do not even have

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to speak the same language for CCPT to be effective.

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So even Ailene, if you didn't speak Spanish,

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that would not be a deal breaker here because the relationship trumps everything.

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And then your concern is that your little experience working with play therapy?

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Well,

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if you

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express the be-with attitudes,

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if you say you can play with all the toys in most of the ways that you'd like

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in Spanish, of course,

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I was gonna say in Spanish and then I'm like,

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the rest of my audience will have no idea what I'm saying.

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So

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you, you can play with all the toys in most of the ways that you'd like.

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And

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then you give the permission

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and the freedom and the autonomy

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that the CCPT playroom affords,

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you provide the security and the safety and the

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unconditional acceptance that your relationship with the child affords

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and even in only eight sessions,

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that child will experience something that

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she likely has never experienced before,

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which is I'm completely at peace. I'm completely loved. I'm completely accepted.

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I can do what I need to do. I can become a better version of myself.

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That's the goal.

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And

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when we have a scenario like this, we know we only have eight sessions.

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We know it's not enough,

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but this is what I've settled on.

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And I was actually talking about this on one of my coaching calls a little while ago.

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It used to really bother me if I knew that

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I was going to have a very short amount of time with kids and or for whatever reason.

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I only got a short amount of time with them. Meaning going in, I didn't know. But,

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you know,

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we're eight weeks in and all of a sudden the family calls

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me and says my husband just took a job in California.

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We're gonna be moving in two weeks

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and I'm like, oh my gosh, I only get 10 weeks with this kid

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or, you know, sorry, we're,

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we're no longer able to continue because violin practice conflicts or whatever.

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So

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when you all of a sudden lose opportunity to work with a child that used to really,

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really get under my skin, not that I was angry just that I felt so bad

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that that child did not get to

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have the full amount of sessions that we know are usually needed.

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But here's an encouragement Ailene and to all of you,

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I have often reframed that for myself and said,

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even if I only had one hour with that child,

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it was a gift

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to me.

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It was a gift to the child

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and it was a gift that I hope that that child will carry with them,

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man. This one time

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I went to this playroom and I was with this lady

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and it was so much fun and I got to do whatever I wanted

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and she was so loving and she was so understanding and she understood

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how I felt and she gave me choices and she encouraged me.

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Now, is she gonna use those words no,

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but

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there is an experience

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of a child being in a child-centered

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playroom with a child-centered play therapist.

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And so even only eight sessions,

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that is a gift to her

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and it allows her to start to work on some of the things that she needs to work on.

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Will she address all of them to their

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end? No,

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but she'll address what she needs to, to a degree

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and she will be better for it.

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I might argue, I'm kind of now not answering your question anymore.

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I'm kind of just talking out loud.

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I might argue

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to your

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internship site to, I, I don't really know what the scenario is.

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I'm not sure if it's a private practice or an agency or an organization or I,

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I don't really know what the structure is,

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but

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I might argue for more sessions.

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I might see if mom or dad or caregiver is willing to continue to bring her to you

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and

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use insurance or pay out of pocket or I, I don't really know what the options are but

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it only,

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you know, you can only be told, no, never hurts to ask.

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So, in advocacy for her,

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you could probably present a case that she needs more than eight sessions and,

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you know, maybe you only get four more, but 12 is better than eight.

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So that's just my thought. I, I would advocate for more and see what can happen there.

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Maybe you could get a grant, maybe someone could sponsor her, maybe

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the local community.

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I, I think,

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I mean, I don't know what the acronym is but

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it's like the American

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Association for Deaf and hard of hearing or whatever.

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I don't know what the acronym is and what the association is called. But

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see if there's a local branch and someone could, you know,

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provide the funds to allow her to continue to have services.

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You can think outside the box and see what you can make,

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happen to give her some more sessions.

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And that is true for all of us. I, I'm, I'm kind of,

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I guess pep talking right now, but

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don't ever take no for an answer at first

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go.

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So someone says you can only do this or you're not allowed to do this or, you know,

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this is not gonna be OK and you're gonna have to do this

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while we respect authority. And we understand that there's a hierarchy

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where we are unless we run our own business.

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I think that our job requires us to advocate even if it goes against

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what we've been told.

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And if the answer is still no. And you've tried everything that you can think of,

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then you go home and you go to bed and you know that you've

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done everything you could and it didn't work out how you wanted it.

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But if you do nothing, you'll never know.

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So don't let

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bureaucracy or politics or the the hierarchy or you being an intern or you not

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being licensed or you being new to the field or whatever our hang ups are.

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Don't let those get in the way

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because

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we are there and we have one reason

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which is to make sure that that child has what she needs.

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So sometimes we advocate

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on her behalf and sometimes that opens doors

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and then we're really excited about the possibilities.

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So

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there was your pep talk for the day.

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All right, I love you all. Ailene. Thank you so much for the question.

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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.