Latest / Play Therapy Podcast: A Master-Class in Child-Centered Play Therapy / 428 | What's Wrong with Our Field? Novelty and "Innovation"

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428 | What's Wrong with Our Field? Novelty and "Innovation" · 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 with the What's Wrong with Our Field series,
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and we're gonna talk about novelty
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and innovation today.
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So that's gonna be fun.
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And
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I am actually really looking forward to this because
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I'm starting to see a shift,
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y'all,
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and we're gonna celebrate that together.
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So we'll talk about what's wrong,
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but we'll also talk about things that are improving.
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So,
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very encouraged by that.
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Hey,
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Indiana registration is officially closed because I leave
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in like 3 days for that event.
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And if you missed it,
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you can get the same exact content in New Jersey.
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So,
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be mindful,
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we have an October event in Jersey and early bird pricing is on for
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the New Jersey event.
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So,
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if you want to get exactly what I'm talking about
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an indie in Jersey in a couple of months,
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you have that opportunity
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and you can find that at iamccpt.live.
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OK,
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so,
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let's talk through.
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How novelty and innovation has taken over the field first,
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and then we're gonna shift to how we need to remove that from our way of thinking.
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And then we're gonna celebrate some things because
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we're definitely seeing a little bit of,
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of change there.
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So I'm excited about that.
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All right,
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so here's what has been fascinating to me.
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We
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are constantly seeing.
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The words novelty
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and
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innovation and innovating.
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And how to innovate this.
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And so here's what's
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kind of an interesting non-therapist perspective.
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Mya asks me a couple of weeks ago,
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oh,
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sorry,
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for those of you that don't know,
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I mean,
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gosh,
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I feel like everyone knows Mya,
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but I realized that's not true.
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So Mya's been with us for 5 years and she is
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all things to The Hicks Group here.
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So,
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literally the glue that holds all of us together and she tackles so much,
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the,
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the coaching and the events and the
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social media stuff and the,
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oh my gosh,
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all of it.
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So
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anyway,
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for those of you that don't know Mya,
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Mya's my right-hand lady,
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and I can't do this without her.
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Can't do without Eric either,
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but he
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is just kind of stuck with me.
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She chooses to be here.
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So,
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anyway,
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that's The Hicks Group team.
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As a general overview,
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we've got Mya,
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Eric,
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and myself.
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So,
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she asked me a couple of days ago,
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well,
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maybe a week ago now,
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I don't know.
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Recently,
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she says,
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I have noticed,
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you know,
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she's around our world all the time too,
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and so she has some pretty astute
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perspectives and some thoughts because she's not really a therapist,
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but she understands it
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and she understands CCPT and she interacts with therapists a lot.
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So she says
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therapists
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present over and over and over again
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as people that really do not like change.
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They
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struggle
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to embrace new things and they like things to stay static and consistent.
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And once they get in a rhythm,
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they really just want to kind of live there.
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And she goes,
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so why is it that the whole field keeps talking about novelty and innovation
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when that's not really how therapists are wired?
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And I thought that was such an interesting question that was posed.
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And then,
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of course,
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you know,
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I love to ponder things and I love to figure out the why.
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So,
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I sat with that for a minute and my response,
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which I'm not saying this is a comprehensive response or it's the whole answer,
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but what I shared with her was my opinion that
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therapists most of the time are
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floundering
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and they're frustrated.
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And they have a lot of self-doubt
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and they don't really feel like they know what they're doing.
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Half the time I think they're guessing.
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And when you live in that constant state of unknown
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and frustration and defeat,
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and is this even helping and is this even what I should be doing,
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and this is so hard.
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I see 60 clients and I get paid $30,000 a year and
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I just don't even know that this is worth it,
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and you have all of this swirling around.
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You're willing to try anything and cling to anything as
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it might be the savior that you've been waiting for.
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So,
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maybe
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this new innovation of fill in the blank is going to make me feel more confident.
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Maybe this new novel thing that they're throwing out
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there is going to solve all of my woes.
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Maybe if I get trained in this new fandangled thing,
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like it's going to help me
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feel like I know what I'm doing.
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And so it's a grasp at straws,
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in my opinion,
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of
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the novel and the,
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the innovative and all of this stuff.
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It's because we don't feel settled
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and we don't feel confident and competent.
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Because
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if we did,
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which I mean,
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my audience does,
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thank you,
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Jesus,
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but
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I think that if we don't feel confident and competent and settled,
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and if we start to self-doubt,
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if we start to doubt the process,
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if we start to question everything,
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the natural response is,
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maybe that's what I need.
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Maybe that's what I've been waiting for.
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Oh,
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maybe that's going to solve my problems.
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Oh,
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maybe if after I do that training,
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then.
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And
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as a child-centered play therapist that deeply understands this model
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and is faithful and adherent to it and lives it out
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and has seen it work and trusts the process.
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Nothing novel is even worth your attention.
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Nothing innovative is even worth talking about
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because you don't change something that works.
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You don't need to fix something that isn't broken.
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You don't need to grasp at something if you already have everything that you need.
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So this whole trend right now of novelty and innovation.
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What
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the storyline that we're given is,
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that's progress.
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We have to have innovation because that's progress.
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We have to bring these new novel things into the field because that's progress.
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It's not progress.
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It's diluting effective theory.
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And it's adding one more thing to an already very muddy puddle
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and expecting someone to come out with clarity.
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And it's confounding the problem,
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I would argue,
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because we already have a problem of lack of confidence and lack of adherence
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and lack of understanding of model and lack of execution
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and lack of training in one specific orientation,
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and so on and so on.
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So we have all this already swirling around in the pot,
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and then we're like,
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oh,
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let's add in these new things to it and see what happens.
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And it just makes everything worse.
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So,
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I argue that our whole notion as a field
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that changing things and adding things and coming up with new things is progress.
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I'm going to turn that on its head,
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and y'all know,
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you know,
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I'll,
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I'll share my opinion and everyone is free to
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agree or disagree or land somewhere in the middle.
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So,
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an opinion is just that,
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but my professional and personal opinion on this
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is
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progress
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is measured
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by efficacy.
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Are we constantly moving toward more effective
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Interventions?
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Are we constantly seeing more evidence
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that what we're doing works?
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Because
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if we're measuring progress according to theoretical standards,
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Progress is more faithful adherents
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and more favorable outcomes.
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Those are really the only two things that matter when
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you think of it in terms of a theory.
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Progress is,
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are more and more and more people
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completely adherent to this model,
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and
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are those people that are already adherent
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constantly working toward greater levels of adherence?
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So it's not just we want more and more people to become child-centered,
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we want the people who are child-centered to be more and more faithful to the model.
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So that's kind of a two-pronged thing there.
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And then,
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Are we seeing more and more support and evidence
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that backs that this works?
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And measured through those two
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ideas,
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it becomes very clear,
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adding something,
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changing something,
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bringing some new idea into the picture,
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thinking that,
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oh,
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maybe if we X,
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Y,
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Z,
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it's going to whatever,
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that's not progress.
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I would argue it's getting in the way of progress.
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Because the only way that we can be effective
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in any theory,
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I mean,
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yes,
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of course we're child-centered,
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but throw out the theory.
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If you are a practitioner of a model.
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Progress is
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you are more and more
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able to execute that model with fidelity,
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and you see more and more evidence of how much it works.
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Through those two terms,
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everything else disappears.
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So as a field of child-centered play therapists within the field of mental health.
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We can be the ones that
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are seen as rigid.
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I was actually talking about this a lot in the last month.
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So many therapists
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have talked to me,
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emailed me,
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we've been on calls together.
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We've been in the Collective,
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and this is the word that everybody has thrown out about us.
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You're just so rigid.
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You just have such rigidity.
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Everything can't be that black and white.
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You can't have that much of a line of what you will and will not do.
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Y'all
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Let's wear rigidity as a badge of honor.
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It's not rigidity for stubbornness's sake.
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It's not rigidity because I refuse to learn.
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It's not rigidity because
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I have a big ego.
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It's not rigidity.
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You can assume rigidity means a whole lot of things.
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Our rigidity
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is faithfulness and adherence
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to child-centered play therapy.
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No,
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sir,
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ma'am,
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respectfully and with grace,
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I will not bring up that child's anger in session.
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No,
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respectfully,
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with grace,
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sir,
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ma'am,
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I will not do a worksheet with that child.
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No,
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I will not let a parent into my playroom.
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No,
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I will not
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have a parent talk to me in the lobby in front of this child.
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No,
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I will not bring in any toy that you think would be helpful for my playroom.
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No,
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I will not have a big couch and a big chair and a desk and a table and all this other
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stuff in what you're calling my playroom because it's not a
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playroom when there's a whole bunch of furniture in it.
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And it can be seen and perceived and often is.
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As rigidity.
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It's faithful adherence,
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and that's something of which we are proud,
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and that's something of which
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we don't back down and we stand by it.
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Because that's the way that we can say,
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I know that we're making progress
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as child-centered play therapists.
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There,
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there's a battle
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that's being waged.
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And maybe battle is
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a little bit
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harsh of a term,
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but it feels like a battle
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a lot actually.
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I have people in tears on calls with me talking about their supervisors and
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and their staff meetings
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and their colleagues and the way that they're treated
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when they do case consults and when they're talking about
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different discussions related to mental health and and
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the way that things are presented and said and
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It,
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it feels like a battle.
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And when a battle
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ensues,
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there's a line drawn.
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And we have quiet confidence.
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Preach this to yourselves,
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y'all.
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This is my catchphrase right now.
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We have quiet confidence.
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And we don't back down.
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We don't have to defend.
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We don't have to rationalize.
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We don't have to argue.
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We don't have to have any kind of conflict.
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We don't have to,
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there doesn't have to be a big to do about it.
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But I unequivocally,
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absolutely
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will not change what I'm doing in that playroom.
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I won't.
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You can call me rigid,
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you can call me inflexible,
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you can call me whatever.
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And
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I was on a Collective call a couple of weeks ago,
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we were talking about rigidity,
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and I said,
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what's the opposite of being rigid?
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Flimsy,
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flaccid,
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flexible,
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like these are not
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encouraging words.
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I mean,
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I don't wanna be consulted,
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I don't want anyone to ever say,
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well,
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she's kind of like flimsy,
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she's kind of flaky,
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she's kind of wishy-washy.
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She,
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she just kind of like,
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you know,
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flexes whichever way.
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Call me rigid all day long
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because that means that I know what I'm doing.
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It means I know what the model says,
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and I know what's required of me.
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We
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should be very proud of that.
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OK,
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so now let's talk about a little bit of a shift that I'm seeing.
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So,
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as many of you all know,
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maybe you don't,
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I don't know.
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I'm not a podcast listener,
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which
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a lot of people think that's crazy cause I host two podcasts,
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but I'm not a podcast listener.
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But it literally in my world,
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I'm not an auditory person,
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number one.
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I need to see it.
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So I want to read a book.
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And secondly,
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I don't have time to listen to podcasts because
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sometimes I think it's like 99% fluff and 1% content,
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and I have better things to do with my time.
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So,
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thankfully,
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Eric loves them and he kind of
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keeps his ears open for what's going on in the podcasting
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world and he kind of gives me cliff's notes and summaries.
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So that works out really well.
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So,
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guess what has been taking place in the world of CCPT and
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and the podcasts that are out there.
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There are a lot of podcast hosts that are
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starting to talk about the importance of adherence.
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And a lot of podcast hosts that are
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talking about you can't combine theoretical models.
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And all of a sudden there's episodes getting published that are like,
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hey,
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we really need to think about
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fidelity to models and we really need to understand that you can't just
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throw a whole bunch of stuff together and expect to get positive results.
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I mean,
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thank God.
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Because we've been in this
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death spiral
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for more than a decade
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of
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just
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mix a whole bunch of stuff together and see what happens.
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Try that with ingredients when you're baking something.
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Without a recipe,
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without a roadmap,
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just take a whole bunch of crap from your kitchen and
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in any proportions and in any ratios and in any quantities,
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just throw a whole bunch of stuff,
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mix it together and put it in the oven and tell me what you come up with,
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because
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it's gonna be crap is what you're gonna come up with.
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So,
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therefore,
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we have to think about that in terms of our execution of therapy as well.
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And finally,
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we have some people that are bold enough to say it.
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There's,
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there's a lot to be said about being bold,
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y'all.
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Be bold,
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be brave,
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be courageous.
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Articulate,
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communicate,
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educate.
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There are some
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tasks
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to which we are called,
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and being bold is one of them.
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So I am very grateful,
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seriously,
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I'm grateful and thankful
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that there are finally some people
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that are standing up and saying,
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hey,
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boldly,
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bravely,
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I'm gonna put this out there.
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We need to start thinking about this.
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We need to have conversations about this.
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We need to change some of this stuff.
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So there's a turn,
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and we're going to celebrate that
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because
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everything goes in a cycle,
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you know,
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if you go back over history,
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there's cyclical patterns,
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so we know that everything kind of goes in ups and downs,
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but maybe we're starting to see
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everyone kind of.
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Convening and going,
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hm,
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yeah,
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I don't know that this whole innovation and novelty
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and mixing a whole bunch of stuff together has actually done what we hoped it would.
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Let's go back to the drawing board.
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And when we do that,
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we end up with pure and true CCPT,
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which is what we've known all along.
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So I'm encouraged.
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I hope you are too.
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I love y'all.
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Please reach out if you'd like to,
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brenna@thekidcounselor.com.
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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. Brenna Hicks.
16:01
For more episodes and resources,
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please go to www.playtherapypodcast.com.