Sometimes it is the emotional intensity of the caregiver that activates your nervous system. For many divorced or divorcing couples, survival mode is the only mode available to them and this might show up in consultation in a variety of ways: grief, anger, shame and shutdown, therapist. The parent, frustrated that their child’s anxiety around the divorce doesn’t seem to be changing, angrily questions the work you are doing and why they’re paying you so much for nothing. As you been through this so many times already. Why don’t they listen to me?” Perhaps your thoughts shift to, “They’re so right - am I even heavier and your shoulders slump.
Our own stories or assumptions around divorce might show up during consultations when we are helping caregivers explore parenting- related issues. For example, you may realize that you have been struggling with one parent while meeting regularly with the other. You have canceled several check-ins with this parent and when you do no longer under supervision, you pinpoint that the change happened after this parent shared they had begun dating while waiting for the divorce or your parents’ divorce.
We can learn to be compassionately aware and curious about our own responses while simultaneously being aware of the caregiver in front of us. In Synergetic Play Therapy, Dion (2018) calls this ability of dual awareness having “one foot in, one foot out”. Similarly, Cozolino (2021) describes this ability to shift our focus and awareness from ourselves to our clients and back to ourselves as “shuttling”. This ability to connect with our own experience, both bodily and cognitively, while maintaining connection and attunement with a caregiver provides a deeper and broader context to our work. We learn to connect more deeply with our clients and their caregivers when we learn to connect more deeply with ourselves.
Seeking Our Own Supports to the children we work with but also a commitment to ourselves and our ongoing personal growth” (p.61). This commitment can include knowing when we need to seek our own support, whether it is through consultation, supervision, or our own personal therapy (Wonders, 2019). When our own feelings are strong and continue to arise when working with a certain set of caregivers, this may be a sign that we “What is this caregiver really asking?”. Maybe it’s reconnecting to the tenets of your theory and conceptualizing caregivers as you do with children. Having visual representations or reminders of what you know to be true somewhere in your space can be regulating when Synergetic Play Therapist, I keep a copy of the tenets hung by my
desk. I also keep a glittery star hung up that represents my “north star” of treatment - safety, connection, co-regulation, curiosity, and delight.
The commitment to
self-awareness and growth through
highest quality of compassionate
The path to growing our own awareness and self-compassion is hard enough, and can be especially hard in the face of complex and intensely charged cases. Do not do this work alone! Find support through quality supervision or consultation, seeking your own safe people who can provide you with the co-regulation, compassion, and curiosity you deserve. Sometimes the family requires something more than what you can provide, especially when there are high levels allows you to remain focused on your work with the child (Wonders, 2019).
and supporting families going through divorce, here are a few questions to consider. These questions came from this author’s own you go:
• What is my own experience with divorce? How might this be
• If there is a divorce in my history as a child, how did my parents’ actions (or lack of action) impact me?
• When I think about divorce, what thoughts and sensations arise? divorce?
• Do I place a higher value on staying married versus seeking divorce?
• What are my fears about working with divorced or divorcing parents?
• Do I have clear expectations and boundaries in place around
The Most Important Toy In the nuanced and emotionally charged environment of play therapy with divorced families, the beliefs and attitudes of the therapist play a critical role in shaping the therapeutic process and outcomes.
www.a4pt.org | September 2024 | PLAYTHERAPY | 13
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