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Why Does Congruence Matter in Play Therapy? · Next Level Play Therapy: A Podcast for Play Therapy Excellence

• 0:01
  Cathi Spooner: Welcome to Next Level Play Therapy, a weekly podcast dedicated to supporting the next generation of child and adolescent therapists.
• 0:11
  Cathi Spooner: to provide exceptional play therapy services.
• 0:14
  Cathi Spooner: We'll explore all things play therapy to elevate your work with children and adolescents using the therapeutic powers of play.
• 0:23
  Cathi Spooner: I'll discuss practical tips and ideas so you can provide a transformative experience.
• 0:28
  Cathi Spooner: formative experience for your young clients and make a real difference in their lives.
• 0:33
  Cathi Spooner: So get ready to take your play therapy skills to the next level and make a lasting impact in the lives of children, adolescents, and families.
• 0:47
  Cathi Spooner: Hey there, welcome to this week's episode of my weekly podcast discussing all things play therapy to help the next generation of play therapists learn how to become amazing and effective play therapists to help children, adolescents, and families change.
• 1:10
  Cathi Spooner: So this week, what I want to talk about is looking at congruence and why congruence matters in the play therapy process from a neuroscience and attachment lens.
• 1:24
  Cathi Spooner: I love looking at the play therapy process using a neuroscience and attachment lens.
• 1:32
  Cathi Spooner: I'm kind of a firm believer that if you look at pretty much most of the play therapy models, you can kind of see how a neuroscience and attachment lens would, would, fit that understanding that therapeutic relationship and the change process.
• 1:53
  Cathi Spooner: If you look at it from an attachment lens, you could kind of see how that research information really can help you in the playroom.
• 2:04
  Cathi Spooner: And so that is what we are talking about today.
• 2:08
  Cathi Spooner: Why does congruence matter in the playroom and looking at that congruence from a neuroscience and attachment lens using the work of Daniel Siegel in his book Mindsight.
• 2:23
  Cathi Spooner: Daniel Siegel coined the term resonance circuits.
• 2:27
  Cathi Spooner: And so I want to talk about those today.
• 2:29
  Cathi Spooner: Just a little bit in terms of how that information can help you as you're learning how to use play therapy and how to access that therapeutic sense, uh, that therapeutic use of self in the playroom.
• 2:48
  Cathi Spooner: All right.
• 2:48
  Cathi Spooner: So let's get started.
• 2:49
  Cathi Spooner: I would love to see who's here today.
• 2:52
  Cathi Spooner: For those of you joining me live, I would love to know who's here, post your name in the comments.
• 2:59
  Cathi Spooner: where you're from, what population you work with, what's your favorite play therapy modality, treatment, uh, play therapy model are you using?
• 3:10
  Cathi Spooner: My default mode is child centered play therapy.
• 3:13
  Cathi Spooner: That's how I was trained.
• 3:15
  Cathi Spooner: And I kind of look at congruence in many ways from that neuroscience, I'm sorry, from that, Child centered play therapy model, especially when working with younger kids and congruence is really translatable to most, I would say most, if not all of the play therapy models because it has everything to do with your use of self in the playroom and how you are helping your clients get grounded in the play therapy process, using that therapeutic relationship in the playroom.
• 3:54
  Cathi Spooner: So let's see who's here.
• 3:56
  Cathi Spooner: Post your name in the comments, where you're from, what population you work with, what play therapy model you're using, and let's get started.
• 4:07
  Cathi Spooner: So I'm Cathi Spooner.
• 4:08
  Cathi Spooner: I'm a licensed clinical social worker and a registered play therapist supervisor here in the United States with over 30 years experience in the Child and Adolescent Mental Health.
• 4:18
  Cathi Spooner: I first got introduced to play therapy back in the 1980s when I was a special education teacher.
• 4:28
  Cathi Spooner: The school psychologist and I facilitated a play therapy group with my class of, I think at the time I had 10 children, elementary age, and we did play therapy groups using fairy tales based on the work of Bruno Bettelheim from his book, The Uses of Enchantment.
• 4:48
  Cathi Spooner: So, uh, there I kind of knew that teaching wasn't really what I wanted to do to help children.
• 4:55
  Cathi Spooner: I really wanted to do this therapy thing I was learning about.
• 5:00
  Cathi Spooner: So that began my journey into the play therapy profession.
• 5:04
  Cathi Spooner: So first and foremost, um, what is congruence and why does it matter?
• 5:14
  Cathi Spooner: So I'm going to read a definition to you of congruence.
• 5:18
  Cathi Spooner: These are from online dictionaries.
• 5:20
  Cathi Spooner: Congruence is the congruence of two systems, agreement, harmony, conformity, or correspondence quality or state of agreeing or corresponding.
• 5:35
  Cathi Spooner: From a play therapy standpoint, really, we're looking at congruence as being able to align our internal experiences with our external expression of those experiences to eventually create that sense of unconditional positive regard and empathy for my client in the playroom, really to anchor my client in that change process within that safe and secure space to facilitate the healing.
• 6:11
  Cathi Spooner: And so my clients can access those therapeutic powers of play.
• 6:15
  Cathi Spooner: One of the things that we've learned from affective neuroscience as well as the work of Stephen Porges is that we know children cannot access their play circuitry until they feel safe because they need to activate their social engagement circuits in order to access those play circuits.
• 6:37
  Cathi Spooner: And in order to access those social engagement circuits, they need to deactivate their threat circuitry.
• 6:47
  Cathi Spooner: So being able to create that safe and secure space in the playroom, using the therapeutic use of self to anchor that client in the change process is a really critical skill in the play therapy skill development process.
• 7:07
  Cathi Spooner: It's actually one of the core competencies.
• 7:11
  Cathi Spooner: of play therapy based on the, um, association for play therapy here in the United States.
• 7:19
  Cathi Spooner: They have developed some core competencies that a play therapist needs to develop in order to be effective.
• 7:28
  Cathi Spooner: Part of that is to know how to develop a strong therapeutic relationship.
• 7:35
  Cathi Spooner: The other part of that is really grounding your work in a theoretical model.
• 7:41
  Cathi Spooner: That's important too.
• 7:42
  Cathi Spooner: So if you have that, that balance of your theoretical model, plus your therapeutic use of self, allow, accessing those therapeutic powers of play, then that really is kind of the, all of the ingredients needed to effectively use play therapy.
• 8:01
  Cathi Spooner: And your therapeutic use of self, how you show up in the playroom is going to be rooted in your theoretical model.
• 8:11
  Cathi Spooner: So how I show up in the playroom as a child centered play therapist is going to look a little different than If I were an Adlerian play therapist or if I were a cognitive behavioral therapist, there'll be some similarities because that therapeutic relationship is needed in all of the theoretical models.
• 8:35
  Cathi Spooner: But the way in which I show up, like my tracking is going to look much different than it will in a different theoretical model.
• 8:44
  Cathi Spooner: And in child centered play therapy, a lot of that tracking, a lot of that use of social in the playroom space is what is a core component of that change process.
• 8:57
  Cathi Spooner: So this, this of congruence and therapeutic use of self is a really important part of the play therapy process.
• 9:06
  Cathi Spooner: In fact, we, we do talk about this.
• 9:09
  Cathi Spooner: I have a, an online play therapy consultation program.
• 9:14
  Cathi Spooner: So in that consultation program, we have.
• 9:18
  Cathi Spooner: online group meetings and there are courses in there and I give support.
• 9:22
  Cathi Spooner: I will also, um, the, the, in the play therapy academy have the option to be able to schedule some individual time as well.
• 9:34
  Cathi Spooner: And between the individual time and the group time, one of the things that we work on a lot is one, what theory model are you using?
• 9:43
  Cathi Spooner: And how are you using, are you using it effectively?
• 9:47
  Cathi Spooner: But the other is, how are you showing up?
• 9:51
  Cathi Spooner: How are you accessing congruence authentically and using that to create that safe space?
• 10:01
  Cathi Spooner: And in child centered play therapy, we had this conversation with one of the people that I work with.
• 10:07
  Cathi Spooner: We had this conversation last night, actually, really about a lot of what the new play therapist worry about is am I conveying unconditional positive regard because they really want to make a difference.
• 10:23
  Cathi Spooner: I mean that I did, to.
• 10:27
  Cathi Spooner: This is, you know, it's a hard job.
• 10:29
  Cathi Spooner: We hold hard stories.
• 10:31
  Cathi Spooner: We hold hard things.
• 10:34
  Cathi Spooner: It's exhausting to show up with a full therapeutic use of self session after session.
• 10:41
  Cathi Spooner: So we need that support first and foremost, but that's why we do it.
• 10:46
  Cathi Spooner: We want to make a difference.
• 10:47
  Cathi Spooner: And in the beginning, people, you know, there, there's a concern.
• 10:51
  Cathi Spooner: Am I showing up?
• 10:53
  Cathi Spooner: Am I conveying unconditional positive regard?
• 10:56
  Cathi Spooner: Am I showing my client that I care about them?
• 10:59
  Cathi Spooner: And I, am I using my play therapy model correctly?
• 11:03
  Cathi Spooner: Am I making a difference?
• 11:05
  Cathi Spooner: Is this even working?
• 11:07
  Cathi Spooner: And part of that has to do with how you're showing up.
• 11:12
  Cathi Spooner: Are you able to access congruence?
• 11:14
  Cathi Spooner: So for example, if.
• 11:17
  Cathi Spooner: If internally you're experiencing a lot of.
• 11:21
  Cathi Spooner: worry like, Oh, are my clients knowing that I care?
• 11:25
  Cathi Spooner: Are they, uh, am I doing this right?
• 11:29
  Cathi Spooner: Did I track that right?
• 11:32
  Cathi Spooner: Am I making a difference?
• 11:33
  Cathi Spooner: Are my clients going to find out that, are my clients going to find out that I'm a big fraud and I don't know what I'm doing?
• 11:41
  Cathi Spooner: If you're experiencing all of that internally, then it's going to make it challenging to externally express unconditional positive regard and empathy, as well as do some of that clinical decision making in the moment about, oh, what am I doing at?
• 12:00
  Cathi Spooner: Am I applying these models?
• 12:02
  Cathi Spooner: I mean, am I applying this model accurately?
• 12:05
  Cathi Spooner: And so first and foremost, part, this is part of the process is learning how to settle into your, um, managing your own internal responses.
• 12:19
  Cathi Spooner: while you're implementing a play therapy model.
• 12:23
  Cathi Spooner: And that takes a lot of support.
• 12:25
  Cathi Spooner: I remember trying to find play therapy back in the 1990s, not finding it anywhere.
• 12:33
  Cathi Spooner: And finally, after years, because this is way before the internet took off years, just trying to find somebody to help me learn how to do this play therapy thing that I knew was a thing, because I experienced it when I was a teacher.
• 12:51
  Cathi Spooner: Finally finding a supervisor who was a registered play therapist supervisor and having her help me learn how to do it plus some other friends along the way who were a little further along in their development than me.
• 13:08
  Cathi Spooner: That was such a game changer.
• 13:10
  Cathi Spooner: My ability to learn the skills once I got that support was enormous.
• 13:20
  Cathi Spooner: My confidence grew.
• 13:22
  Cathi Spooner: I noticed that too, with the people that I supervise, especially in play therapy academy, really seeing that growth and development take place, that confidence take place.
• 13:33
  Cathi Spooner: So, so I want to read, I want to read, um, a quote from Gary Landreth from his book, Play Therapy, the Art of Relationship, because I really do think that this kind of real, what we're going for and what we're kind of talking about here.
• 13:51
  Cathi Spooner: And he says acceptance grows out of a genuine and sincere interest in children, a sensitivity to their rights and a belief that they can assume responsibility for themselves.
• 14:04
  Cathi Spooner: Children who experience such an atmosphere of acceptance in the playroom learn that they can depend on others for support while developing their own sense of adequacy and independence.
• 14:19
  Cathi Spooner: Acceptance is communicated through the, the, their patients.
• 14:23
  Cathi Spooner: And willingness to trust the process.
• 14:26
  Cathi Spooner: And a lot of that is really grounded in child-centered play therapy.
• 14:31
  Cathi Spooner: And it's still, it, I think, applicable across a lot of different models.
• 14:36
  Cathi Spooner: But that idea of that therapeutic use of self and the ability to establish a sense of congruence internally also means that you, you believe that children have that innate drive, that innate ability.
• 14:53
  Cathi Spooner: That innate desire to move towards healing and wholeness, given the free and protected space.
• 15:00
  Cathi Spooner: And that idea of trusting the process really is grounded in, you're trusting the process of your theoretical play therapy model.
• 15:10
  Cathi Spooner: And your ability to show up authentically and congruently with that therapeutic sense of self to establish that strong therapeutic relationship that anchors your child in safety and security in the change process.
• 15:28
  Cathi Spooner: So that's that therapeutic use of self and trust the process and your ability to access congruence in that is really a kind of a game changer I found to facilitate the change process.
• 15:44
  Cathi Spooner: Like I remember when I moved from being anxious and insecure about my skills to just deciding, you know what, Whatever, just show up.
• 15:58
  Cathi Spooner: I'm just going to fully be present in the moment.
• 16:00
  Cathi Spooner: I'm just going to follow the model.
• 16:02
  Cathi Spooner: It'll be what it is.
• 16:03
  Cathi Spooner: My whole goal here is just to show up authentically with unconditional positive regard and acceptance along the way.
• 16:11
  Cathi Spooner: And I will figure it out.
• 16:13
  Cathi Spooner: And I'm telling you, once I, I'm that shift and I was able to show up more congruently in the play therapy sessions, I made all of the difference in addition to I kind of grounded that on top of the training and support that I was getting and I at some point in time had to make that shift with that congruence.
• 16:36
  Cathi Spooner: So how?
• 16:37
  Cathi Spooner: How do resident circuits play play a part in this process?
• 16:42
  Cathi Spooner: And so because I love neuroscience and attachment within the, the, the face of play therapy, I love to see how it fits in this idea of play therapy and using play therapy to help children and adolescents heal and their families.
• 17:02
  Cathi Spooner: Because I would say as play therapists, we also need to show up congruently with unconditional positive regard and empathy with parents.
• 17:12
  Cathi Spooner: And that's a lot of where I find the challenge to be for play therapists is not really knowing how to do that with parents and feeling uncomfortable there.
• 17:22
  Cathi Spooner: And so I like to make sure to talk about the importance of integrating parents intentionally, having a plan where you're meeting with them.
• 17:32
  Cathi Spooner: Not just doing the in between phone calls and texts and emails, not just doing those five minute check ins at the end, which are never five minute check ins.
• 17:41
  Cathi Spooner: I think it's a much more effective plan to integrate parents in, to have a plan where you're meeting with them a whole meeting regularly.
• 17:53
  Cathi Spooner: You're regularly having a whole entire meeting without the children present, at least initially to create that safe space for parents as well.
• 18:04
  Cathi Spooner: Because if you want them to make the change, then it's important to read that and that safe space as well.
• 18:13
  Cathi Spooner: So let me check in.
• 18:14
  Cathi Spooner: I forgot to check in.
• 18:16
  Cathi Spooner: So we have a couple of people who have checked in.
• 18:20
  Cathi Spooner: Michelle B from Campbell.
• 18:23
  Cathi Spooner: Writing fun children's stories.
• 18:25
  Cathi Spooner: Awesome.
• 18:26
  Cathi Spooner: That's awesome.
• 18:27
  Cathi Spooner: And Hey there, Steph, what age do you stop meeting with parents?
• 18:33
  Cathi Spooner: What?
• 18:34
  Cathi Spooner: That's a great question, Steph.
• 18:35
  Cathi Spooner: And I would say never.
• 18:37
  Cathi Spooner: I always meet with parents when I'm working with adolescents.
• 18:41
  Cathi Spooner: I mean, think about it.
• 18:42
  Cathi Spooner: Adolescents need their parents as much as two year olds need their parents.
• 18:48
  Cathi Spooner: They need them in a different way.
• 18:50
  Cathi Spooner: They still need them.
• 18:52
  Cathi Spooner: I, I, adult grown children, they still need, my husband and I, they need us in a different way and they still need us.
• 19:00
  Cathi Spooner: Parents are going to be in their children's lives, hopefully, the goal is, hopefully, for the rest of their lives.
• 19:08
  Cathi Spooner: To be that support for their children, parents of adolescents need to be different.
• 19:17
  Cathi Spooner: In their parenting than parents of five year olds, but they still need their parents to be present.
• 19:24
  Cathi Spooner: So I, I, I'm meeting with adolescents.
• 19:27
  Cathi Spooner: I make that a requirement.
• 19:29
  Cathi Spooner: I tell parents that the requirement is if I'm working with their child, then my expectation is that we're going to meet a minimum of at least once a month without your child present, at least in the beginning, the likelihood we'll start having some family sessions as That's also true with play therapy.
• 19:53
  Cathi Spooner: Well, I mean, with the younger kids, because at some point, the likelihood I'm doing some family play therapy sessions is very high.
• 20:01
  Cathi Spooner: Um, but that initially, I like to have that opportunity to meet with parents and establish that sense of, safety and security with parents as well.
• 20:13
  Cathi Spooner: So I have to show up congruently and authentically.
• 20:18
  Cathi Spooner: So that version of Cathi Spooner is going to look different in the than that Steph version or different than the Michelle version, it will be dependent upon, you know, who you are, your therapeutic self of use of self has everything to do with kind of your personality and your way of providing counseling and showing up congruent internally.
• 20:46
  Cathi Spooner: How are you demonstrating that congruence with unconditional positive regard and empathy.
• 20:52
  Cathi Spooner: Doesn't mean you don't set limits.
• 20:54
  Cathi Spooner: We still set limits.
• 20:56
  Cathi Spooner: And that was one of the conversations I had last night.
• 20:59
  Cathi Spooner: Like I'm afraid, how do I set limits or if I don't answer the question of my client?
• 21:04
  Cathi Spooner: So this is a young client and we're using child centered play therapy.
• 21:09
  Cathi Spooner: If I don't answer their question, then how are they going to feel like I care about them?
• 21:15
  Cathi Spooner: Well, they are going to feel like you care about them because you're showing up authentically and congruently in the session with unconditional positive regard.
• 21:26
  Cathi Spooner: That will be, you'll feel that internally, which will reveal itself externally based on your voice tone, your facial expression, your body language.
• 21:38
  Cathi Spooner: All of those things are what communicate how you're experiencing things, internally.
• 21:45
  Cathi Spooner: And so getting that alignment is really important.
• 21:50
  Cathi Spooner: When we're talking about resonant circuits, then we're talking about, I like to use that, that, uh, of resonant circuits because I think it's got a lot of really rich information with it.
• 22:05
  Cathi Spooner: And it's, it's, way of being that you can access through knowing how to access those resonance circuits.
• 22:13
  Cathi Spooner: We, I mean, they're, they're all there all the time, whether or not we know how to access them.
• 22:18
  Cathi Spooner: So in my mind, might as well learn what they are and how they work so I can use them to my benefit, to help my clients.
• 22:26
  Cathi Spooner: And Daniel Siegel talks about in his interpersonal neurobiology model that he's called Mindsight in this, this of Mindsight is how we connect.
• 22:40
  Cathi Spooner: mind to mind with others, and the resonance circuits play a very pivotal role in that process.
• 22:49
  Cathi Spooner: And so what he talks about with the resonance circuits is really to fully resonate with another.
• 22:57
  Cathi Spooner: We really have to understand and recognize what's me.
• 23:01
  Cathi Spooner: So here's where that self awareness comes in.
• 23:04
  Cathi Spooner: I need to recognize what's me and what's not me.
• 23:06
  Cathi Spooner: What's, What's my client?
• 23:09
  Cathi Spooner: And this is a big part of congruence is recognizing my internal experiences and what that is, because then that's going to show up in my external expression.
• 23:23
  Cathi Spooner: And so I read this quote from Daniel Siegel from his book, Mindsight, because I really does give a really good picture of what I'm talking about here.
• 23:35
  Cathi Spooner: So he says in his book, Mindsight, Mindsight is a kind of focused attention that allows us to see the internal workings of our own minds.
• 23:47
  Cathi Spooner: It helps us to be aware of our mental processes without being swept away by them, enables us to get ourselves off the autopilot of ingrained behaviors and habitual responses, and moves us beyond the reactive, emotional loops.
• 24:05
  Cathi Spooner: We all have a tendency to be trapped in.
• 24:08
  Cathi Spooner: And this was part of the conversation that I often have with people that I'm doing consultation with.
• 24:14
  Cathi Spooner: We talk about this in our consultation group as well.
• 24:18
  Cathi Spooner: And I do this when I meet with people individually.
• 24:21
  Cathi Spooner: What's going on within you and then figuring out what those experiences are and what is because those can when you get kind of caught, especially when we're new to the health profession and we're new to play therapy, we don't always recognize that's part of the work that we do.
• 24:42
  Cathi Spooner: We begin doing it in graduate school and it doesn't ever stop for the record.
• 24:47
  Cathi Spooner: We begin really looking at it, and working towards understanding those internal experiences that I'm having beginning to understand, Oh, what is that?
• 24:59
  Cathi Spooner: You know, in the old days, and it's still a term we use today, it's that counter transference and transference concept.
• 25:06
  Cathi Spooner: Like my client did something, something activated in me.
• 25:11
  Cathi Spooner: And so what is that?
• 25:12
  Cathi Spooner: Is it me?
• 25:13
  Cathi Spooner: Or am I picking up on what my client is doing?
• 25:17
  Cathi Spooner: And then what do I do with that information?
• 25:21
  Cathi Spooner: And so when you are working on developing those skills for congruence, it really is important to understand what's going on.
• 25:31
  Cathi Spooner: And Daniel Siegel talks about that we even resonate physiologically one to another, meaning I can physiologically feel what you feel, and some people are much more sensitive to this than others.
• 25:48
  Cathi Spooner: Like I remember this took so long.
• 25:50
  Cathi Spooner: I pick up on everything, especially when I was a kid, I picked up on everybody's emotions.
• 25:56
  Cathi Spooner: Like I knew things going on that as a grownup much later, especially in graduate school, when I learned some theory models, I remember thinking I was right.
• 26:07
  Cathi Spooner: I was right.
• 26:08
  Cathi Spooner: My family was a little nuts.
• 26:09
  Cathi Spooner: And.
• 26:10
  Cathi Spooner: That's what that is.
• 26:12
  Cathi Spooner: I knew what that was.
• 26:13
  Cathi Spooner: But as a kid, you're thinking, Oh, I don't know those things.
• 26:16
  Cathi Spooner: And, you know, we have to learn how to manage that.
• 26:20
  Cathi Spooner: What do we do with that?
• 26:21
  Cathi Spooner: What is that?
• 26:22
  Cathi Spooner: That's that self awareness piece, because if we don't recognize what it is, then we can get off track in the playroom.
• 26:33
  Cathi Spooner: And that'll often happen a lot in the beginning, A lot, you know, that's how we learn from our mistakes.
• 26:39
  Cathi Spooner: Your imposter syndrome will kick in.
• 26:42
  Cathi Spooner: You'll think you're the worst therapist.
• 26:44
  Cathi Spooner: Anybody's just about to find out.
• 26:47
  Cathi Spooner: But the reality is we all make mistakes along the way, which is why you get support, which is why I created Play Therapy Academy to have a place where people can get support.
• 26:58
  Cathi Spooner: At this point in my career, my focus is really on helping the next generation of play therapists become amazing and awesome to make a difference in the world for children, adolescents, and families one community at a time, right?
• 27:13
  Cathi Spooner: We have 10 people maximum in Play Therapy Academy.
• 27:19
  Cathi Spooner: Each of the groups.
• 27:20
  Cathi Spooner: So that's 10 people in 10 different communities making a difference for children and adolescents in the community.
• 27:29
  Cathi Spooner: How cool is that?
• 27:30
  Cathi Spooner: You're all making a difference.
• 27:32
  Cathi Spooner: And so to be able to do that in the beginning, you need support to do that.
• 27:39
  Cathi Spooner: It's a learning process.
• 27:41
  Cathi Spooner: And there are places to get that support.
• 27:44
  Cathi Spooner: I'm going to talk a little bit more about Play Therapy Academy at the end.
• 27:47
  Cathi Spooner: So if you're interested in Play Therapy Academy and some other things I have going on, you want to make sure you kind of, um, hang in there till the end.
• 27:56
  Cathi Spooner: And I'm going to talk a little bit more about that and what it is and how to learn more.
• 28:00
  Cathi Spooner: The thing is, uh, I'm going to read another quote from Daniel Siegel because I like this one as from his book because it talks about these resonance circuits.
• 28:10
  Cathi Spooner: And what he says is the resonance circuitry not only allows us to feel felt and to connect with one another, but it also helps to regulate our internal state.
• 28:23
  Cathi Spooner: And that's the other thing about the ability to stay congruent in sessions.
• 28:29
  Cathi Spooner: with your clients is even when they're, you know, sometimes you have clients in the playroom that get a little rambunctious or they're having a hard time.
• 28:40
  Cathi Spooner: I've had family play therapy sessions when, you know, it's not going so well and therapists, we have to stay regulated to do that though.
• 28:50
  Cathi Spooner: We need to really stay internally connected and, and, and that congruence so that we can stay grounded while connected to ourselves and providing that co regulation.
• 29:05
  Cathi Spooner: We want to teach this to parents as well, so that they can do it with their children.
• 29:11
  Cathi Spooner: We can have clients who are just really working things out in there and they got stuff they need to get done.
• 29:18
  Cathi Spooner: Our ability to stay grounded and rooted and congruent in the session also helps with that regulation for our clients.
• 29:27
  Cathi Spooner: And we know from the work of Daniel Siegel that that we're, and we know that from now, we know that from attachment theory, that whole co regulation component of attachment, teaching parents how to do that.
• 29:43
  Cathi Spooner: We also use it in the playroom.
• 29:46
  Cathi Spooner: And yes, I also believe we need to help parents of adolescents know how to do that as well.
• 29:54
  Cathi Spooner: So the thing is, though, when you have poor self awareness, it's going to be difficult to be attuned with your clients in the moment because you may be out of your own autopilot, old things that you're working on from growing up, you may kind of get off track and go in a direction that's not going to be helpful, or you may get reactive to something and you've got to figure out what that is.
• 30:24
  Cathi Spooner: And I'm a firm believer, it's not if these things happen, it's when.
• 30:29
  Cathi Spooner: And what do you do with them?
• 30:30
  Cathi Spooner: You can't show up in the playroom being authentic and connected and working through congruence.
• 30:41
  Cathi Spooner: You can't do that perfectly a hundred percent of the time.
• 30:44
  Cathi Spooner: It's just not even possible.
• 30:46
  Cathi Spooner: So it's really about making sure that we're checking in and understanding what's going on with that.
• 30:54
  Cathi Spooner: And so the, the thing I wanted to talk about today in terms of why does congruence matter and how can you use information that we've learned from decades of research about neuroscience and attachment to help you show up congruently and why that matters in the playroom.
• 31:16
  Cathi Spooner: And one of the things that we know is that the ability to have self awareness, what's going on within me is a key part of using congruence, effectively accessing that therapeutic use of self.
• 31:36
  Cathi Spooner: Our own self awareness is an important part.
• 31:40
  Cathi Spooner: of that learning process.
• 31:42
  Cathi Spooner: And so being able to do that means we need to be still mindfully present, kind of checking in to myself, what's going on.
• 31:51
  Cathi Spooner: And then I'm going to check in to what's going on in the playroom, what's going on with my client.
• 31:58
  Cathi Spooner: And that's really going to help me tune in to my clients in the playroom.
• 32:04
  Cathi Spooner: So then I can use that information to pick up on emotions, recognize subtle behaviors, understand statements that are made in the session.
• 32:15
  Cathi Spooner: And then I'm going to decide what I'm going to maintain that congruence, what's going on with that as things come up in the playroom.
• 32:25
  Cathi Spooner: So tapping into my resonance circuits or for you tapping into your resonance circuits and using that congruence to align with your clients to demonstrate that unconditional positive regard and empathy, really, in my opinion, is the secret sauce to play therapy and being effective.
• 32:46
  Cathi Spooner: To do that, though, you really need to have that really good self awareness so you can figure out what's going on in the playroom.
• 32:54
  Cathi Spooner: So that's it for today.
• 32:56
  Cathi Spooner: Let me just do a quick recap of what we talked about today.
• 33:00
  Cathi Spooner: Congruence in the play therapy space really does provide that free and protected space where children can experience unconditional positive regard and empathy to anchor them through that play therapy process through the therapeutic use of self.
• 33:22
  Cathi Spooner: And that's really what's going to help to facilitate that healing process.
• 33:27
  Cathi Spooner: And it really is an important, it's important to keep in mind what your theoretical model is, so that you use your, um, you show up with your therapeutic use of self developing that therapeutic relationship within the context of your specific play therapy model.
• 33:47
  Cathi Spooner: And what we know though is that neuroscience also provides us with a wealth of information that's going to help us use the therapeutic aspects of that play therapy relationship to help children heal.
• 34:03
  Cathi Spooner: And we know that our resonance circuits really allow us to connect mind to mind to resonate even physiologically with our clients when we can use that information that we access through that attunement process that by tapping into those resonance circuits to really understand what's going on in the playroom and how we need to respond or how we are facilitating that that safety and security in the playroom, using that unconditional positive regard and empathy.
• 34:46
  Cathi Spooner: And again, showing up congruently and demonstrating and authentically and demonstrating unconditional positive regard and empathy doesn't mean that we don't set limits.
• 34:58
  Cathi Spooner: We do.
• 34:58
  Cathi Spooner: And how you do that's going to be dependent on your theory model and being able to stay attuned and congruent through that limit setting process is really, really important skill to learn.
• 35:14
  Cathi Spooner: And then finally, accessing to do that effectively, though, you really need to access self awareness and we can tap into those resonant circuits when those tapping in and tuning into those, then we're really think taking a look at, okay, what's me first and foremost, what is this?
• 35:34
  Cathi Spooner: Is this me?
• 35:36
  Cathi Spooner: What is this in me?
• 35:37
  Cathi Spooner: Oh, okay.
• 35:38
  Cathi Spooner: It's that darn it showed up again.
• 35:40
  Cathi Spooner: Let me set that aside.
• 35:41
  Cathi Spooner: I'll deal with that later.
• 35:43
  Cathi Spooner: Or this is Oh, this is my client.
• 35:46
  Cathi Spooner: Oh, this is what's going on.
• 35:48
  Cathi Spooner: And then you use that information based on your theoretical model to help facilitate that change process.
• 35:55
  Cathi Spooner: So that is it for today.
• 35:58
  Cathi Spooner: So if you're interested in Play Therapy Academy, Play Therapy Academy is a program that I developed to provide really maximum support to child and adolescent therapist who want to learn how to use play therapy effectively to make a real difference in the lives of children, adolescents, and families.
• 36:21
  Cathi Spooner: And so to do that, what I realized is having, first and foremost, having that that the time in the group psych in the group consultation meetings.
• 36:35
  Cathi Spooner: We have case presentations to make sure everybody gets a chance to present and get feedback.
• 36:43
  Cathi Spooner: The of using a group formatted is that you not only get my 30 years of experience.
• 36:50
  Cathi Spooner: You get the collective wisdom and I call it brilliance of the group and their knowledge and their resources.
• 36:59
  Cathi Spooner: So in the comments, if you're interested and you want to schedule a free 30 minute appointment with me, a video call, so we can talk about Play Therapy Academy and how it can help you.
• 37:11
  Cathi Spooner: And there'll be a link to that in the comments.
• 37:14
  Cathi Spooner: There'll also be a link over to my website at rhplaytherapytraining.com.
• 37:22
  Cathi Spooner: If you click on the course on the supervision page, You can see a little bit more about that.
• 37:29
  Cathi Spooner: Because in addition to the group meetings where you get some of, you get some dedicated time to learn from others, to learn from me, to talk about your cases, to learn from other people's cases of what they're working on, you also have access to some online courses.
• 37:52
  Cathi Spooner: So the, the meetings are online and the courses are also online and they're self paced so you can take them when it is convenient for you.
• 38:04
  Cathi Spooner: They're courses that are going to help you get grounded in some really fundamental, critical skills using play therapy.
• 38:14
  Cathi Spooner: And then in addition to that, we have a group chat that's private, to have support in between sessions.
• 38:23
  Cathi Spooner: And there's some other bonuses.
• 38:24
  Cathi Spooner: The idea is to maximize the kind of support that you can have in order to get real results for your clients in the play therapy process.
• 38:36
  Cathi Spooner: So that is it for today.
• 38:39
  Cathi Spooner: You will find the links in the comments.
• 38:41
  Cathi Spooner: If you, if feel free to reach out to me on Instagram, you can click the link in my bio and hop over to my resources.
• 38:52
  Cathi Spooner: That way you can message me on Facebook group or my LinkedIn channel or Instagram or even YouTube.
• 39:03
  Cathi Spooner: Feel free to message me.
• 39:05
  Cathi Spooner: Feel free to hop over to my website and check those out and I will see you next week.
• 39:11
  Cathi Spooner: Bye for now.
• 39:14
  Cathi Spooner: Thank you for joining me on this episode of Next Level Play Therapy.
• 39:18
  Cathi Spooner: I hope you found the discussion valuable and gain new insights and ideas to support your work helping children, adolescents, and families heal.
• 39:28
  Cathi Spooner: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review.
• 39:33
  Cathi Spooner: Your feedback helps to improve and reach more people who can benefit from this information.
• 39:39
  Cathi Spooner: Remember, play therapy is a powerful tool for healing and growth.
• 39:44
  Cathi Spooner: Whether you're a new play therapist or experienced, I encourage you to continue your learning journey to unlock the potential of play in your own work and relationships.
• 39:55
  Cathi Spooner: If you have any questions or topic suggestions for future episodes, I'd love to hear from you.
• 40:02
  Cathi Spooner: Connect with me on social media and visit my website at Renewing Hearts Play Therapy Training to stay updated on upcoming episodes, trainings, and resources.
• 40:15
  Cathi Spooner: Thank you once again for listening to Next Level Play Therapy.
• 40:18
  Cathi Spooner: Until next time, keep playing, learning, and growing.