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430 | What's Wrong with Our Field? Supervision · Play Therapy Podcast: A Master-Class in Child-Centered Play Therapy

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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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Today's episode,
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we are continuing in the series,
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What's Wrong with Our Field,
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and we're gonna talk about supervision today.
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So,
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that's gonna hit home for so many of you,
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I'm aware.
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But before we dive into content,
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I just want to give a real quick synopsis of the Indiana event.
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Because
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I'm super excited about it,
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but also because of some of the really cool things that emerged from it.
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So,
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we were able to do a VIP event on Friday night.
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We had our conference all day Saturday,
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and then I was able,
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some of the local therapists organized a parent meetup for their families
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at their centers and their practices,
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and I was able to spend about an hour and a half or so with local parents.
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And just answer their questions and hang out and,
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you know,
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hope to help them understand how powerful the relationship is
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and the influence that they have over their children as a partner with us
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because their children are in play therapy.
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So,
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you know,
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we are partners with parents in this work and
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that was really incredible.
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And the event,
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the VIP,
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the parent meeting,
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all of it,
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I walked away
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and I watched connections
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form.
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And
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for parents that feel like they're the only ones going through it,
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for parents feel like they're struggling in isolation,
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for parents that feel like no one gets it.
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You have a whole room full of parents that are all in the same boat.
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It was really encouraging to watch them share with
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each other and talk with each other and,
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and communicate
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that they get it and they understand
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the exact same thing happened at the event and at the VIP
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dinner.
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I watched local therapists
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in Indiana.
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We had,
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we had one fly in from Illinois,
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but or a drive in from Illinois rather.
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But you know,
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the rest of them,
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all Hoosiers as they call themselves,
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and
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they were like,
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Oh my gosh,
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you're only 30 minutes away from me.
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Oh my gosh,
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I went to high school there.
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Oh my word,
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like I used to work in that town,
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and there were all of these relationships and connections
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and community
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that were established
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at that event,
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and
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it was so exciting to watch people exchange numbers and
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say they were going to get together for coffee and
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and feel like they're not doing this work
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on an island.
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And
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I actually had 3 of them say to me,
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there's like other CCPTs here.
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And I was like,
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yeah,
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you have an event and you can meet other ones.
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So,
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I just want to let y'all know one of the reasons I do these events,
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especially Jersey coming up in Tampa in January,
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it's so that you can make meaningful connections and,
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and friendships
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with other people that do this work and understand it
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and that can be part of your tribe.
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So,
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that was one of my favorite things about how the weekend shook out.
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It was watching people really excited and encouraged that
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there's other CCPTs that they can partner with
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and they're actually trying to
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unify
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as
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the Indiana play therapy community
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and
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can
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really provide
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resources and support for the community as a whole.
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And once they know each other,
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it's easier to coordinate and plan things.
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So,
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I was really,
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really excited.
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I'm so grateful for the opportunity.
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If y'all are thinking about Jersey,
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hey,
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guess what I just found out?
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One of my Canadians told me that she's gonna come to the event
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and
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it's less than an hour flight.
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To come to Jersey from Ontario.
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So all you northern folks up there,
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y'all need to hop on a plane less than an hour,
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come hang out with me in Jersey.
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I would really love to meet y'all.
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And honestly,
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I mean,
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wherever you are in the country,
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hop on a plane,
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invest in your practice,
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invest in yourself,
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invest in your mastery of CCPT.
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It was a really,
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really meaningful weekend.
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And so really looking forward to next couple of months
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being able to do that again in Jersey.
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So,
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thank you for those of you that came.
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Thank you for those of you that I got to meet in person and
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put a face with a name and know that
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you all are making huge differences up there in Indiana,
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so.
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Excited about the weekend for sure.
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Got home at like midnight last night.
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So,
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it was a very full weekend,
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4 days of fun.
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All right.
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So,
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let's talk through supervision now.
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I wanna briefly process.
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How supervision has,
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in my opinion,
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gone off the rails,
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especially for CCPTs.
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Quite a few considerations.
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I want to hit some highlights.
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You know,
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first and foremost,
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let's go back to Landreth.
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He talked extensively
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two decades ago
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about how important
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supervision is,
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and if you don't have the ability to have
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someone supervise you from a CCPT theoretical model,
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you have to supervise yourself.
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And the way that you do that
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is by video self-review.
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And I know how many of you have searched the world over
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and you can't find a CCPT supervisor.
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We're working on that.
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We're trying to
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get a list together of people that are willing and able to supervise that
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really do understand this model,
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and that's the only way that they would supervise clinicians.
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And that's in its infancy,
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so we're trying to build that.
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But,
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you know,
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every day,
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one of y'all tells me
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a horror story about your supervisory experience.
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And here's the struggle
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There's
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a hierarchy in supervision.
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So when you have a supervisor,
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they have authority
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and the supervisee
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is supposed to
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Acquiesce to what
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the supervisor recommends or suggests or thinks.
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You know,
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you don't have a supervisor if you don't need to be supervised.
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So,
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the implication is you don't know as much as the
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supervisor and you need to defer to the supervisor's experience
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and knowledge and training
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and all of those things.
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Well,
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in theory,
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I agree.
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Practically speaking,
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For a child-centered play therapist
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to not be able to find a CCPT supervisor
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and you end up with a supervisor that does a completely different theoretical model
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and or doesn't even work with children,
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which is
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so commonplace,
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it's frightening.
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You know how many CCPTs are being supervised by
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a supervisor that doesn't even work with children?
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And they certainly aren't
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child-centered,
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if they do.
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So what happens is,
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we come in with our theoretical lens.
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We understand the 11 categories of responses we're going to give in a playroom.
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We understand the philosophy
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and the architecture of the model.
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We understand that relationship is the most important thing.
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We understand that self-actualization happens
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when children are allowed to govern their own process.
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All the tenets,
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all the things that we've learned and committed to
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and really prioritize in our work,
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we bring that into supervision.
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So we bring up a case
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And the supervisor says,
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Well,
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I mean,
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have you just like directly brought up the anger?
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That puts us in a very uncomfortable position.
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Because
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as a supervisee.
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We would obviously say no if we're telling the truth.
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Of course,
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hard no.
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You don't say that to your supervisors.
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Have you brought up anger with your kid?
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Hard
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No.
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What are you?
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OK,
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no,
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that's probably not the most helpful response,
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but
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that's what we're thinking inside.
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Like,
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of course not.
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So,
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being truthful,
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we would say,
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no,
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I haven't.
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And the implication would be,
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well,
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you should.
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That's what I'm suggesting.
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That's what I'm recommending.
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That's what I think will help.
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So you should listen to me because you're going to get.
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Helpful outcomes if you do what I'm telling you to do as your supervisor.
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And we can't
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And y'all,
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the word rigid,
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man,
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that
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for the longest time,
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eclectic was my buzzword and then integrative was my buzzword.
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Right now,
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rigid is my buzzword.
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If I hear that word
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17 times this week,
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like I have every other week for the last 3 months,
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that,
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that's the accusation
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flying off the pages everywhere these days.
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You're so rigid.
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Well,
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you just have a lot of rigidity in the way that you practice.
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Well,
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you just very rigidly follow a specific model.
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That's kind of the point
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of being
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faithful to a model.
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You're faithful to the model.
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There are certain parameters.
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There are certain
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methods.
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There are certain philosophical underpinnings.
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There are ways that we do and don't do things.
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That's not rigidity,
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that's adherence.
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But that's the accusation that we get all the time.
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You're just so rigid.
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So because of our
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air quoted rigidity,
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when someone says,
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have you just brought up anger with the child?
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No,
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well,
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you should.
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No.
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And therefore,
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we're in this
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really difficult state of impasse.
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Because
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as a supervisee,
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I'm not going to bring up anger to that child,
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but as a supervisor,
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you are expecting me to.
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Listen to you
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and value what you have to say.
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And
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to a degree.
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It's not even necessarily a supervisor's fault.
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That they're suggesting something directive
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because they're not child-centered.
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How do we expect child-centered suggestions and
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recommendations from someone who's not child-centered?
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We can't.
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That's impossible to expect that of them.
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So what can they bring to the table
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other than what they know,
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which is directive activity.
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So we can't even really be upset because
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they are in fact trying to supervise us.
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They are in fact trying to offer suggestions from their theoretical lens.
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But it doesn't help,
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it doesn't support,
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and quite frankly,
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often it causes a lot of friction and resentment and bitterness and tension
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and all kinds of other things that we don't want in supervision.
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So,
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this is the
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really tricky scenario in which we find ourselves.
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There are not enough CCPT supervisors,
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and we have to get supervised.
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So you have all of those things in combination.
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I have no choice but to be in supervision,
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yet
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I am forced to work with someone that does not understand CCPT to get my hours
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and to check the box of,
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yes,
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I've had supervised hours,
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and then we end up going.
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This isn't helping.
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This isn't working.
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This is doing nothing for me.
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I'm not
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more clinically sound.
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I'm not more confident.
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I'm none of those things.
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Supervisors don't like it.
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We don't like it,
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yet here we are.
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The other
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major consideration that I have when I think
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about supervision and what I think is wrong.
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Supervisors
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rarely
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have
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architecture or framework
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for their supervisory process.
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I created the Summit Framework a couple of years ago
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to help CCPTs figure out where they are on the summit
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and figure out how to move up the summit.
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I actually turned that into a supervisory framework
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so that you can actually identify where the supervisee is
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and help them move up the summit.
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That
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is where I see most of our failure.
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There's no structure to supervision so much of the time.
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So the supervisee and the supervisor sit down and the supervisor says,
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OK,
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so
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what do you want to process today?
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And you bring up a random kid and a random session and like,
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man,
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it was really aggressive and it was really power and control hungry
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and they beat the crap out of Bobo for 50 minutes and,
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and the supervisor either goes,
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OK,
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well,
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it sounds like you were on track.
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Or
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they say,
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well,
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did you bring up with the child that they are angry and try to work on that with them?
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No,
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I did not.
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Do you see how there's no scaffolding there?
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And that's dangerous.
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Think about being trained to be
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a lineman.
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Think about being trained to be
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a welder.
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Think about being trained to work on an assembly line in a plant or a factory.
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Any process
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has to be supervised and taught.
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Do you think that
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at an assembly line factory,
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they hire you and they just go,
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well,
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do this,
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or seems like you've got it,
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and they walk away?
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No,
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there's obviously systems and standard operating procedures
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and you have to have checklists and you have to have things that you're graded on
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and you have to make sure that you're competent so that everyone can be safe.
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We have lost the intention behind supervision.
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And if there's no
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structure,
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if a supervisor doesn't sit down and say,
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OK,
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so here's how we're going to handle these next 2 years.
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This is what the next 2 years are going to look like.
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Every time we meet,
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I'm going to teach this or we're going to talk about this,
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and then we're going to look at
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skills,
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and then we're going to talk about a specific kid.
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I'm going to review your videos.
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If there's not a system in place,
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then it's haphazard and willy-nilly.
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And no one benefits from that.
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So,
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all of that to say,
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if you are not in a position
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for the,
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for the few of you,
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the faithful few of you that have found a CCPT supervisor,
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hang on to them with both hands and your hat
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and
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thank
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God that you have someone in your life that
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understands this model and can support you appropriately.
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For the rest of you,
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the vast majority of you that are like,
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oh my gosh,
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that's a pipe dream.
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Then
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you start
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supervising yourself
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by doing your own video reviews.
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Watch your own sessions,
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use a specific skill at a time.
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Evaluate yourself,
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grade yourself,
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rate yourself,
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go back and practice that skill until you have higher clinical competence.
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If you don't have someone that can come alongside you,
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you have to do it for yourself.
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Is it as ideal as having a supervisor?
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No,
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but it's going to have to do.
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That's why so many people coach with me.
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That's why so many people join the Collective,
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because
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they
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get me
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to watch their videos and they get me to talk cases with them
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and other CCPTs.
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I mean,
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that's the beauty of the tribe and the community.
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You,
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we learn from each other as well.
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So,
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when you put yourself in a position where you
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have other CCPTs around you on a regular basis,
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supervision does not seem as important.
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Because you're not getting all of your help from supervision anymore.
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And that's where I think we need to start shifting this.
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First of all,
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we need more CCPT supervisors,
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but
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beyond that,
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we need to be in community with each other.
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Because
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then,
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OK,
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I'm gonna hear what my supervisor has to say,
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but then I'm gonna hear what my CCPT community has to say,
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and then I can decide what's gonna be helpful for me in my play sessions.
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That's the goal.
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So,
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let's,
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let's conquer that y'all.
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Supervision is a necessary part of our work.
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So we have to make sure that
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it's
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the best that it can be.
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And right now,
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it's far from that.
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So,
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one tiny step at a time,
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one tiny conversation at a time,
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we start to shift things
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and it's so that we are ethical.
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It's so that we are competent.
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It's so that we're,
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that we're confident.
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These are the standards to which we're held.
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We don't just get to
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skate by those and say,
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well,
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I don't have a CCPT supervisor,
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so I have no idea what I'm doing,
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but,
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oh well,
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we don't get that luxury
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as a licensed profession.
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So we have to make sure that
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we feel that we know what we're we're doing and we have someone that can help.
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So find people that can help you even if it is not your supervisor.
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That's my
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call to action for y'all.
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All right,
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you know how much I love you.
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Thanks for hanging out with me.
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If you want to reach out,
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please do brenna@thekidcounselor.com
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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. Brenna Hicks.
16:33
For more episodes and resources,
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please go to www.playtherapypodcast.com.