Latest / Play Therapy Podcast: A Master-Class in Child-Centered Play Therapy / 444 | The Looking Glass Self: How CCPT Helps Children See Themselves Differently

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444 | The Looking Glass Self: How CCPT Helps Children See Themselves Differently · 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.
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  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.
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  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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  In today's episode,
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  we are going to talk through
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  Looking Glass Self.
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  And I know a handful of you are probably familiar with that term.
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  A few of you maybe remember it from
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  grad school,
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  but when I spoke in Jersey and New York last week,
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  I asked both groups,
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  how many of you are familiar with Looking Glass Self,
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  and less than 10% of the people raised their hands.
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  So that makes me think we need to talk about it.
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  So,
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  I think that
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  in light of how CCPT
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  gives kids opportunities,
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  it's really important for us to understand the Looking Glass self-concept
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  because it applies to what's going on in the playroom.
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  So,
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  we're gonna dive into that before we do.
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  Wanted to let you all know we have a lot of things up and coming.
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  So,
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  at the very end of January,
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  we're gonna have our 2nd annual Field of Dreams conference
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  and registration will be open for that very soon.
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  I know many of you have been
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  already planning and,
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  and buying plane tickets and things like that.
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  So,
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  we are opening registration very soon,
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  very excited about that.
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  And there's some new things coming in
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  January and all of next year.
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  So,
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  be on the lookout for announcements.
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  Make sure you're on my email newsletter.
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  That's where we communicate everything.
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  You can do that at playtherapynow.com
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  and then you'll always be in the know.
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  So,
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  I appreciate y'all.
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  OK.
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  Let's dive into this Looking Glass Self-concept.
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  So,
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  for those of you that do not remember learning about this in grad school,
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  I will give you a 12th crash course.
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  Charles Cooley
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  is responsible for Looking Glass Self
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  and
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  came up with the idea in 2002.
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  So,
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  ironically,
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  seven years before the first
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  Recorded instance of play therapy
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  with Freud in 1909.
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  So,
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  same decade,
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  early part of the 1900s,
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  and coolly posited
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  that we develop our self-concept.
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  Because of our interactions with others.
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  So,
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  let's now take that knowledge into this
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  discussion about Looking Glass self for children
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  and for CCPT.
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  So the idea is,
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  for those of you fairy tale people and or
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  fantasy people,
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  There's the concept of the looking glass.
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  Now,
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  if you're
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  going,
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  I have no idea what that is,
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  imagine a small handheld mirror.
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  Usually it's fancy.
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  Usually it has like filigree around the edge
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  with gold or silver trim.
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  But very common with
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  the
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  super wealthy.
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  They found them in the wreckage of the Titanic,
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  for example.
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  They're almost always in fairy tales with princesses and things like that.
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  So small handheld mirror
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  that you hold and you can see yourself.
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  So it's a looking glass
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  now.
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  The idea is
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  that every person holds up a looking glass,
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  but it's faced
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  outward.
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  And essentially what goes on
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  is we are measuring
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  our sense of who we are
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  against
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  what other people reflect back to us.
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  In other words,
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  if
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  every time I'm out and about and every time I meet people and
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  every time I'm hanging out with someone with whom I'm in a relationship,
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  People give me messages reflected back to me about who I am.
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  And I either accept those messages and make them part of my self-concept,
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  or I reject them because I don't want to believe it or I disagree.
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  So here's how this would work.
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  Every time I go out.
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  To a
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  large crowd.
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  Let's say I'm at a Rays baseball game,
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  which y'all,
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  the Rays are,
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  are struggling right now.
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  My heart's a little heavy today.
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  We're down
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  0 and 3,
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  but we're,
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  we're hoping for a win today.
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  So,
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  we have this notion of
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  I'm at a Rays game
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  and I'm interacting with all of these strangers
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  and people are engaging with me,
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  communicating
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  parts of myself.
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  So,
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  someone might communicate that I'm smart,
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  someone might communicate that I'm smart,
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  someone might communicate that I'm funny,
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  someone might communicate that I'm funny,
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  someone might communicate that I'm successful.
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  Someone might communicate that
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  I'm clueless.
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  OK,
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  whatever.
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  It's not always positive.
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  Let's be clear.
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  So,
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  people are
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  reflecting back
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  these parts of who they think I am,
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  and then internally,
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  I'm tasked with,
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  do I agree or disagree with these messages.
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  So over time,
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  Across the lifespan,
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  by the way,
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  this is not just for children.
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  We are constantly
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  editing and modifying our self-concept based on looking glass self.
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  So now let's take this down to children.
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  What messages do kids get about themselves
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  all the time?
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  I think probably our brains went to,
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  you're bad,
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  you're the problem.
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  You
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  have tantrums,
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  you're misbehaved.
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  OK,
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  so yeah,
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  they absorb those labels as well.
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  But what about
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  You're incapable,
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  you're not strong enough,
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  you're not tall enough,
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  you're not tall enough,
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  you're not brave enough,
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  you're not big enough,
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  you're not fast enough,
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  you're not,
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  because
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  people will often take over for children,
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  not give them credit.
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  In an effort to help them,
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  they swoop in.
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  So these are all messages that children are absorbing all the time,
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  especially if they're struggling behaviorally or emotionally,
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  they're going to get the labeled branded
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  terms.
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  Oh,
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  you're the dysregulated kid,
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  you're the bad kid,
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  you're the emotional kid,
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  you're the
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  externalizing kid.
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  OK,
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  so that gets absorbed.
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  It's also sometimes just that we treat them as lesser humans.
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  So,
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  everyone else in the world is more capable than you because you're still 5.
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  And so these are things getting reflected back to
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  children.
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  And
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  that's tragic.
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  I realize it's sad,
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  but here's the,
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  here's
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  the,
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  here's the antidote.
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  They come into a CCPT playroom.
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  With a CCPT.
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  And
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  They have an opportunity for the first time usually.
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  To see themselves differently.
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  Because every message that gets communicated in a child-centered playroom.
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  is different
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  than what they're used to.
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  You're capable
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  You're equipped
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  You know what to do
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  You can choose.
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  You have the control.
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  You have the ability to be regulated.
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  You know what you need to work on.
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  You can do it.
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  You're strong enough,
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  you're brave enough.
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  All of these messages that they get.
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  It gives them the opportunity to see themselves differently.
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  Rogers talks about this a lot.
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  In the therapeutic relationship and the therapeutic environment,
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  people see themselves differently.
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  And so then Landreth took that and said,
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  kids for the first time usually
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  are able
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  to form who they believe about themselves.
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  Who do you believe yourself to be?
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  Here
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  it can be anything,
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  and that's where ideal versus actual comes in y'all.
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  Because actually,
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  I'm all the things that the world has reflected back to me.
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  But ideally,
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  I want to be all these other things,
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  and when I come into the playroom,
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  And there's unconditional acceptance.
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  And there's
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  empathy,
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  and there's congruence,
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  and there's genuineness,
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  and there's belief
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  that I know what I need to do,
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  and there's trust
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  of me to govern it all.
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  I can start to see myself as capable
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  or confident
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  or competent
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  or equipped
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  or brave or whatever it is.
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  So the looking glass self,
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  I mean,
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  when you think about
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  the notion that we're figuring out who we are for our whole lifetime.
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  It's not like it's
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  unique to childhood.
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  We're doing it even right now,
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  but
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  in childhood,
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  those are formative years.
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  Those are huge
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  for
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  a child figuring out what they're capable of becoming.
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  And
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  if we kind of
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  piggyback this in with Pygmalion effect and or self-fulfilling prophecy.
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  Then now all of a sudden we understand how important it is for a child to come in
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  to a relationship and environment
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  where they go,
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  but I don't have to be that thing.
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  I don't have to be that label.
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  I don't have to be
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  that kind of person.
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  I don't really want to be,
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  quite frankly,
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  so let me work on that.
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  That's the beauty of CCPT
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  and that's how special
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  the relationship and the environment are
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  because it gives kids an opportunity to change everything
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  about how they view themselves.
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  So that's Looking Glass self.
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  I hope that that helps you.
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  You know,
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  that's something that I share with parents as well.
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  When I do parent consultations talking about
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  ideal versus actual and self-actualization
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  and the child becoming a better version of themselves,
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  I will often talk about Looking Glass self,
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  not
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  in the depth
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  that we just talked about it,
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  but
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  I will bring that up because that helps parents understand
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  how CCPT is effective.
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  And how it creates change.
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  So,
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  I hope that that equips you with some things that you
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  can share with parents and or at least a better understanding of
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  why CCPT is so special.
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  I love y'all.
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  Please reach out if you'd like 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.
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  Brenna Hicks.
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  For more episodes and resources,
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  please go to www.playtherapypodcast.com.