A Hero's Welcome Podcast

Building Resilience in Young Minds with Kathryn Raley

• Maria Laquerre-Diego, LMFT-S, RPT-S & Liliana Baylon, LMFT-S, RPT-S • Season 1 • Episode 16

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What if you could unlock the hidden resilience and healing power within children through the magic of play? Join us for an illuminating conversation with Kathryn Raley, an LPC Registered Play Therapist and supervisor, as she reveals her journey from working with adolescents to her profound discovery of play therapy with very young children. Kathryn shares her insights into the fears therapists often face when working with young kids and how the simple, yet profound act of play can bridge the gap between traditional talk therapy and the immersive, hands-on nature needed for effective treatment with the "little littles." Discover the vitality of engaging the whole family system in this transformative process to foster deep, lasting growth.

Ever wondered how therapy can impact not just the child, but the entire family? Kathryn delves into the importance of creating a collaborative environment that includes caregivers, emphasizing that therapy should be a team effort. By involving the entire family, even if caregivers aren’t actively participating, the positive effects can ripple through the whole system. From crafting cozy waiting areas to concurrent parenting groups, learn about innovative approaches that promote a welcoming and inclusive therapy space, reducing stigma and encouraging system-wide change.

Navigating the complexities of a child's home environment can be challenging, but Kathryn offers invaluable advice on maintaining compassion and empathy, even in the most difficult situations. Drawing from her extensive experience, including work with incarcerated caregivers and reunification therapy, Kathryn discusses the importance of avoiding judgment and fostering a balanced approach of confidentiality and collaboration. We also highlight upcoming events and resources, ensuring you have all the tools needed to support families effectively. Tune in to gain practical tips and profound insights that can not only transform your therapeutic practice but also touch the lives of the families you work with.

Contact Information:
instagram.com/kathryn2ndstar
www.2ndstarcounseling.com

A Hero's Welcome Podcast © Maria Laquerre-Diego & Liliana Baylon

Maria :

Hello listeners, Thank you so much for joining us on today's episode.

Maria :

This is Maria LaCarrie Diego, one of your co-hosts,

Maria :

I'm here today with me Liliana Bailon, the second co-host, and we are here with the amazing Kathryn. Catherine, how will you want to present yourself to our audience? To?

Kathryn Raley:

Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm kind of excited. I'm Catherine Raley. I'm a LPC Registered Play Therapist, supervisor, acs Supervisor, love, supervision, love play therapy. I'm in Lafayette and just really passionate about applications of play therapy for everybody.

Maria :

I love that and my understanding is we're going to chat a little bit today about your passion for play therapy with, like, the little littles and their caregivers, which I know many people feel really unsure about or uncomfortable about. So tell us a little bit about when did you find that passion for the?

Kathryn Raley:

little littles. You know, I think I think I found that passion as I was working in the field my initial it took a few years my mentor and my supervisor, dr Terry Christensen. I think she has a passion for littles and my original passion was adolescence. I come from a teaching background. I taught middle school, high school, before I was a counselor and I just always really enjoyed middle school age up and I didn't mind littles but I didn't feel the passion. And then, as I grew into the language of play and into play therapy, as Littles started coming to me more along with their parents and caregivers and grandparents and I found that when I leaned into language of play, it was really satisfying, very healing, very. I know it's research-based and it always feels like magic. Well, absolutely does it. It's very organic for the littles right.

Maria :

I think it logically. It makes sense to me like that would be a nice place to start with play, especially like for new play therapists. But there's a lot of I don't know fear and anxiety around working with, like the little littles. I wonder why that might be.

Kathryn Raley:

I think I think that when we meet our clients, we are meeting children and families at a really low point for them, and I think that people who don't understand the resiliency and the strength of children in general, like who don't get to spend time with children. They're worried about the countertransference of children's suffering. They're worried about the countertransference of children's suffering. They're worried about making it worse. It's very challenging, I think, for some folks to not take their work home and of course I take my work home, quote unquote sometimes but I think that there is a faith in play therapy and in the resilience of children as their own sort of developmental phenomena. They're a lot stronger than we think and once you sort of get into working with kids, you really realize that they can heal, they can get better. It's not all on the can. They can get better. They're they. It's not all on the therapist to make it all better, and I think a lot of therapists worry that they're not. They won't be able to affect positive change.

Liliana:

Love that. Right. When you asked Maria that question, I started thinking of our training. So both of you started thinking of your training. It is so funny because we know play therapy is research based. We know that it's in the play, not cognitive, not cognitive. Yet Most of our training is talk therapy.

Liliana:

So a lot of people that comes in, of course they're petrified of working with this population. How do I translate that? How do I translate what I know, which is a lot of talk therapy, a lot of making sense of to this population? And then when I'm working with this population, sometimes I have to include caretakers in the playroom. So how do I translate that? So you become the bridge. So a lot of the new cohort is having a hard time. I know I had a hard time. I love that. Catherine is like yeah, so I think it's that. So I love, catherine, that you're like I'm finding this passion on working with kids who are three to five years old per se and helping them because they're able to bounce back faster and I'm gonna say that because they're sponges, um, and then when you're working with the system, the keto does not have to go home all alone, trying to share, in a way. What's different? You're working with the whole system, so the whole system is seeing it in the room. How powerful is that?

Maria :

yeah yeah, I think that is one of the other trepidations. Is the working with parents right, like even if we are able to get clinicians with play therapy background and training to like, okay, yes, I believe in the power and play, I can let go of the cognitive piece, I can really be present and watch the play and the healing unfold. And then I have the parents right. And then there's just like I don't know if it's fear, I don't know if it's frustration. I know in my own supervisory experience like some of it is like they have a hard time letting go of their. The clinician has a hard time letting go of, like their frustration and feelings towards the parents. Or we get a lot of still like the drop off parent of like, all right, I'll be back in 55 minutes, fix my kid.

Kathryn Raley:

I don't want to be involved?

Maria :

Yeah, yeah, how do you? What magic have you found to like get the parents, the caregivers engaged and involved?

Kathryn Raley:

This might be a long one, but I do want to say thank you, the bridge. I love this idea of being a bridge. Right before COVID, I went to a CCA conference, a Colorado Counseling Association conference, and one of the speakers there really kind of a brilliant social worker had also decided that they had gone into counseling to work with families and then had become so frustrated with systems in general, like larger cultural systems, larger societal systems, family systems, that they backed out of counseling and decided to do something else in the service of mental health. And so, as this person was telling the story sort of their own background, they made this comment like parents, am I right? And everybody at CCA, like 100 people in the audience, you could hear the general oh, you know. And I just remember thinking holy cuss word, this is an ism, this is a, we are down, we want somebody to blame for children's problems and I think as counselors we have to look to hold a no shame zone of responsibility without blame and shame, to a crippling shame, because how is that helpful? So I just started thinking about how to both teach and implement strategies and culture that very mindfully includes parents and still very non-directive keeping them. You know they want to drop them off, fine, here's how that's going to work, no judgment.

Kathryn Raley:

But when they're little like three, my general rule of thumb is potty trained, more or less. I have worked with some kiddos that are not quite potty trained, which I'm always kind of like, okay, this is bad, I forgot. But my general you know age group in my own head is potty trained up, is potty trained up, and sometimes little people want mom, dad, grandma, caregiver in the room with them, and so I try to set up a relationship with parents. That involves two or three at least phone calls, perhaps a meeting. Come see the office, let's talk about this before I ever meet the kid, let's talk about this before I ever meet the kid. And I think that sets up a collaborative relationship. And I'm very clear, like if you told me I was a systems therapist, I would not agree with that. Actually, I think I'm an individual therapist but collaborating with parents affects the system in a way that makes my job with the individual that much easier.

Kathryn Raley:

So really getting clear about how to invite a parent in before I meet the kid and take them through, what a course of treatment is going to look like and what role do they want? Do they want to be involved? Do they want to be engaged? Do they want to have a comfy place, a little couch in the room, and I also have a great waiting room. The waiting room was actually designed so that parents can fall asleep, and many of them do. They nap, they hang out, they have a tea, and some of them will have a tea and breathe, and then they'll join us for the last half of the session. I'm okay with that. I really don't have a lot of structure on when parents are regulated, kids are regulated, and I don't have a lot of demands on parents in that way. Until we get to get to know each other, I'm veering. Did that answer that question?

Maria :

Yes, yes, and I'm already thinking of like oh my gosh, yeah, a waiting room designed for parents to have that break for themselves. Room designed for parents to have that break for themselves. Yeah, it also invites them to that.

Liliana:

You're welcome to come in when you're ready to come in, right, and I still, because I'm even thinking I was like, well, it's either they're in or they're out and you have such a nice, kind offering for them to be like.

Maria :

You need a moment, you can take a moment. If you need the whole moment, you take the whole moment. But if there's a point in time where you want to come in, you can come in.

Kathryn Raley:

I think parents are torn between I should be involved in everything and I need as much break as as uh, as my, my child does, and they are better parents for it. You, you know they're a little more. They're a little more regulated themselves. And I talk a lot about parenting from regulated state, which is hard, so hard, so hard. And never forget kids, little littles in particular, are hardwired to dysregulate you. When they feel dysregulated, they want the world to be dysregulated with them and they go to a lot of lengths so like get, get the dysregulation around them and different. And then you know, of course, and that's every, every little kid, so you bring in a little kid who's having behavior problems or has trauma or has something going on. You know dysregulation is their safe place. So they, you know, trying to get parents to really breathe into that. It's okay, this is normal. Let's work with it.

Liliana:

I think what came to mind when you were sharing about your waiting room is what a beautiful metaphor of let me model to you. What would it be like for you to model to your child? You know, come in, you know you can take care of you, you can come in. What a beautiful space, especially for a three, four, five-year-old to say you don't have to do something right away. Right, you can come in and I will join you in the chaos or the regulation or the co-regulation, but if you need time, I don't have to be there with you projecting or rescuing. There's also space for this. How beautiful that is.

Kathryn Raley:

Yeah, thank you. Sometimes I don't have the words to say it. I just really recognize that parents need some care too, and they're not my client, and they are, because my kids, my kids, their kids you know that I'm privileged to work with need them. They need their parents. We're not trying to fix them in the face of their parents, we're trying to. Something I talk to students a lot about is don't it has to be all of us me, client, caregivers, community against a problem we cannot identify and it sounds so simple when you say it out loud, but it's shocking in the field, over and over and over and over again, we have to remind ourselves it's all of us against the problem. It's not me and the parents collaborating to like tamp down on the kid.

Maria :

We got to get the kids buy-in, but we can't get the kids buy-in without the parents buying yeah no, I love that, I love that and I know, I know you don't identify as a systems uh, therapist, but the work that is so cute, it's, it's adorable, um, but I think I think anytime we look at the work that we do, even individually, like, like even the child let's say you have a three, four, five year old and their parents are not engaged they are, you know, they are the ones that you know sit in the waiting room and can't fully come in we know that the work you're doing is still going to have an effect on the rest of the family system.

Maria :

Doing is still going to have an effect on the rest of the family system, right, um? And we know that the more we in we see change happen, the more that the system, if it's not bought in, we'll try to tamper that down, right, and like we like our homeostasis, we like things to be, even if the homeostasis is dysfunction, right, like that is our, that is our safe place, um, and I think you know, and perhaps without the words or even fully knowing, you being able to invite, like you take care of you and that's going to help take care of your kid, um, in just a very nice, organic way. That I think.

Maria :

I think a lot of missed opportunities by many clinicians, like, like, I'm considering my own like our own waiting room right now and I'm like, yeah, no, I don't, we don't have that invitation to them. And what a nice, easy way to get some buy-in from those that might feel a little more hesitant or, you know, have their own traumas to get through, to be able to be present in the room like we would like them to be beautiful yeah, I, I recently well, not recently, it's been a couple years it still feels like my new office.

Kathryn Raley:

I moved from my first office to my new office a couple years ago and, um, many parents I had this beat-up couch, you know, secondhand beat up, refreshed and refreezed, you know, to keep it limping along, could not wait to chuck that. And several of my parents were like do not get rid of this couch, I love that couch. They loved it. And I was like I am buying you a new couch, don't you worry. And they would just laugh. And I mean I bought them a new couch and parents would be like this is nice, I like this. And here's your fluffy pillow, here's your, you know, hand sanding, you know, I just think I did my internship and initial training at People House and People House has a big culture of come in, have some tea and, I think, tempering that really humanistic sort of feminist sort of way of thinking about clients with some clinical knowledge and some research and some credibility. We're always trying to thread that needle and so the office is very mindfully set up to be to be welcoming them.

Kathryn Raley:

There's also a little section. I don't know if you guys saw this. Did you see that article that came out recently on so called glass children. Oh yeah, so children that are healthy but are jealous of their peer, of their siblings, who are in play therapy because they don't need therapy but they would love to be in therapy because it looks like it's so amazing.

Kathryn Raley:

I'm actually thinking of ways to. I do have a corner in my waiting room for siblings that's set up like a little crafty corner for them, you know, and little ideas for parents to do crafts with the kids that are waiting for the identified patient's IP. And I'm also sort of I'd love, in my next reiteration of business, to think about how to address siblings in a way that's accessible, you know, because parents and resources and therapy can be expensive and I want to be mindful of that. And also, do you got to be sick to get play therapy? I mean, I just that might be a bigger question for another day, but there is a nice little crafty corner in the waiting room for the siblings too.

Maria :

No, I love that. I know we just this year started to really hone in our own, our community here. So we're doing parenting groups, um, that are happening coinciding with a child group, right.

Maria :

So and they're all like, right now it's inside out. Um, our first one was a bluey theme. Um, right, because I get to buy in. Uh, it's what the kids are into. Um, but the parents go through their portion, children are going through their portion and at the end they come together and we made a really conscious decision that it didn't have to just be the client-identified child, it could be siblings included, and that has been. I think that has like extended our reach with you know, it's like an hour and a half once a week for like six weeks, but we're able to watch system shifts and have a little bit of that shame reduced from the identified client, because now everyone gets to be involved and a little less of that kind of jealousy or even we've had. We've had a couple of families where they're like, oh, we were thinking about bringing brother in, but since we've all been doing group, those behaviors have decreased.

Kathryn Raley:

Right, right it's like, well, yeah, because clay therapy is still fine, and they're missing out and they're going unintentionally, or potentially unintentionally, trying to up the ante, so they too can have that experience Right right.

Liliana:

I'm wondering if anyone who's listening had this aha moment that I just had with both of you. As you know, you were extension, which is it's funny because in mental health overall we'll think about how do we change the stigma of mental health. Yet you have to be sick quote or have behavioral issues in order for us to justify you being in therapy. So we're actually adding to the stigma of these are the requirements for you to be here, when in reality, we all know that anyone can benefit from therapy. You don't have to be in therapy. As you two were having this beautiful discussion, I'm like how do we change that? To welcome, to explore, to organize whatever is happening? Because we all have daily stressors, including this kid, a three-year-old trying to master a new skill, trying to find independence, like there's so many transitions happening. It's not just for trauma, which we all have. We have different kinds of trauma. It's not just because of behavior. We all get in trouble because of behaviors. Can we say that out loud? I know I get in trouble quite often because of behaviors.

Maria :

You're just staring at me, liliana, I know, I know.

Liliana:

But what a beautiful invitation you're doing, Both of you are doing in regards to what about the siblings who are not in and they're feeling like they're missing out. What if we change the stigma of it? The other thing that I was thinking of, both of you were talking, which is so, Catherine, I'm curious what for everyone who's listening when you're working with this population? I use the word bridge and I use the word how do we translate this when I'm working with supervisors, but for you, what is your favorite therapy model to use with this population?

Kathryn Raley:

so, uh, I think it. It speaks to both the questions about, uh, you know, the larger question is what do we believe therapy is and who is it for? I am very grounded in feminist union theory across most of my treatment and union theory, despite young's many, many faults around race, ethnicity, religion, all of those things. Fundamentally the theory is a feminist theory, meaning taking into account culture and larger systems of oppression, power, as well as inner reservoirs, you know from the unconscious. And so Jung would say he would not work with anybody until they were 40. I, I feel like that's kind of lazy. I think, bless his heart, right, I can, very he's on my list of people to meet, you know, someday, like, if I get to have dinner with people living and dead, I'd really like to argue with carl jung. Um, I think I think kids are, you know, the material coming in and the material coming out. I'm really grounded in.

Kathryn Raley:

All behavior has a reason and all behavior has an ask, and so and and there's this theory of opposites sort of is at work, meaning when kids yell at you all the time, there's a theory of opposite that you can choose to yell at them or you can choose to model your yelling. This must be important to you. Is there a different way to ask me? You must need something really bad. What do you actually need? Okay, you're still yelling. Okay, this is important. I'm waiting for you to not yell at me and then I can help you. I can't help you and you yell at me. And so, modeling that with parents in the one-on-one visits, before I ever meet the kid, I sort of get a sense of behaviors and then I start telling myself a story about this very, you know, relational thing happening between parents and children when they're little. And you know, some people who love attachment have said to me oh, you're so attachment, so you're so attachment based, and I'm like, yeah, okay, sure, you know, I think all the theories kind of look a lot alike once you sort of get into them. But for me there's this, there's this idea that all behavior has a reason, all behavior has an ask. And when you are working with parents you're also working with Do they understand the ask, the demand or the ask of that behavior, and do they understand their own reaction to the ask, and so the collaboration there can just be so rich.

Kathryn Raley:

And it's not counseling with parents, it's really not. It sounds like it, it feels like it. It's really sort of asking parents to be respected as the parent, as the person that is the most important person to the child, as the person that knows the child best. But still stay the parent. And I'm pretty clear about the therapist is not the parent and the parent is not the therapist. You have got to. You still have to parent. You know you can't, you can't be the play therapist who says you can choose to do anything you like and as long as you're safe and I'm safe and the toys are safe and I'm here to let you know like therapeutic alliance and relationship is not parenting, but parents can borrow therapeutic alliance to support their parenting from love instead of from discipline and fear. Oh, that's how I'm grounded. Does that make make sense? Oh, my God, it was so beautiful. I can talk. I'm sorry. I'm such a good talker but I don't know if I ramble, you know. No, it was beautiful.

Liliana:

It was beautiful, yeah, which I'm like. No, yeah, and I think, and that can have a, you know, a larger conversation in regards to the work that we do as play therapists just working with the individual, or are we do as play therapists just working with the individual, or are we systemic therapists? Because we're working with the caretakers too, and everything that you just share is so beautiful because you can say I'm neither, I'm working with the system, right, you don't get to tell me who I am, but I'm working. But it was so beautiful the way that you organized it. In order to make sense of this is a work that needs to be done, not only to help the child, but to co-regulate the parent and model the parent so the parent can be curious about their child.

Maria :

And for me, it just it displayed how you invite parents without shame. There's just no shame and the way that you are like I'm not trying to be you and I don't want you to try to be me. We are going to come together to help your child because we both have a vested interest in the healing process. Um, because I do think that there is a lot of I mean one there's. I think there's a lot of shame when you're a parent who's like I have to take my child for counseling, right like there there's something wrong, right, quote, unquote wrong with my kid. Yeah, I have, I have messed up in some way, and that that shame, that shame can come off as defensive and dismissive and trying to engage you in an empower struggle, and I love how you can just simply disarm them of like I'm not trying to be you and you're not trying to be me.

Kathryn Raley:

I need you.

Maria :

Yeah, I need you to be you so that I can be me and we can do what I know we can do together for your child.

Kathryn Raley:

Do you guys remember that story that Lisa Dion tells, when she says nobody looks at their absolutely perfectly newborn baby and says I can't wait to take you to therapy, right, nobody does that? I mean, maybe we should. Maybe that's the stigma we're trying to address. But you know, I I think, recognizing I had a parent and it was a parent that I did not think very highly of honestly say something to me once at many, many years ago, when I was very first starting out. I said is there any barriers to the work that we're hoping to do that you want me to do with your, your kiddo? And this parent looked at me and said um, I, a lot of therapists have made me feel like the worst parent ever. Please don't, don't make me feel bad about being a parent. And I think I was just like, okay, and it really struck me. It really struck me like nobody, I know purposely wants people to feel bad. But when a whole conference of people says parents, am I right? Like we're really passing down this, this, you know this ism of parents are to blame. Parents are the bad people. Uh, some I've talked to play therapists who are like how do I work with kids? And then send them right back into a toxic system. Okay, well, you got to rethink that system.

Kathryn Raley:

You know I've worked. I've done visits with kids to incarcerated parents. I've done reunification therapy. I have done the kind of work where parents only get to see their kids, because of whatever circumstances, once a week. If I don't have any judgment, I have no judgment.

Kathryn Raley:

You know people are doing the best they can. The shittiest parent I know is doing the best they can and maybe they have lost the right and the privilege to be with their child. It does that kid absolutely no good. To join the chorus of your parents are terrible. People versus your parents have made massive mistakes and I'm so sad that they don't get to be with you every day and I'm sad that you don't get to see them. So how do we support them in that? And I know there's absolutes around child abuse and sexual abuse and those sorts of things, and it's case by case and I am not saying those parents deserve any access to kids. That is not what I'm saying. But who are therapists If we don't cultivate compassion and empathy for the? For you know people that have no capacity for for themselves.

Liliana:

Absolutely yeah.

Kathryn Raley:

I don't know, I'm.

Maria :

I don't know You're, you're good, yeah, absolutely the belief that people are doing the best they can with what they have. And it's not all great, it's not all great, it's not all great.

Kathryn Raley:

It's very rarely great, right, but it doesn't help kids. No, it doesn't help kids.

Maria :

And I mean, and it doesn't help our field, right, like if we're still trying to break down the stigma of therapy and therapists, right, and we have a whole collection of therapists going, oh, parents, yeah, like how we got to get past that because otherwise there are going to be so many children who aren't given the opportunity for help and healing and so many families because of that fear that they rightfully have. If that was a collective response yeah, right, right, right.

Liliana:

Ladies, as we're coming to the end, um, I'm thinking um, what would be one takeaway, katherine, that you want anyone who's listening to take? I mean, you give so many nuggets and then two, please. How can they get a hold of you? What are you? What are you doing? How can our listeners stalk?

Kathryn Raley:

you. Oh, I would love that. I enjoy being stalked I in a way, uh, professionally, thank you, I. Um, I think the takeaway is uh, you know, really, do some self-work around, do some self-care and some self-work around your own commitment to helping families turn towards each other against a problem and don't get triangulated right, teenagers taught me that very early on. Do not get triangulated, keep there is, there is a fine line between confidentiality and collaboration and we all have to find that. And the best way I know to find that is in supervision and groups and talking to other therapists and community. So doing that work and then doing that work in community and then nobody's perfect. So keep trying. Those are my nuggets, I think. Um, if you want to find more, uh, my practice is called second star counseling, the number two nd star counseling, and I am at um.

Kathryn Raley:

There's a lot of contact information on there and I'm on all the social media things which I check sometimes getting better, uh, but I I'll check it more if, if, uh, if, there's a little more traffic there, so please feel free to reach out anytime. Uh, my name is Catherine K A T H R Y N at secondstartcounselingcom and I'll be at the Colorado Counseling Association Conference August 22nd and 23rd, keystone. I've got a couple of presentations that I get to be part of and love conferencing, speaking of large scale community, so it'd be lovely, lovely, lovely to see people there.

Liliana:

Awesome. So, please, any of our listeners, we will make sure that we include Catherine's information there. If you are here in Colorado, if you want to come to Colorado, please go to Keystone. This is going to be an amazing conference and, catherine, thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you Talking to our audience in regards to how to work with not only little kiddos, but how to include caretakers.

Kathryn Raley:

Yes, Very welcome, thank you for having me.

Maria :

Yeah, no well, and I know Liliana's already emailing you.

Kathryn Raley:

We'll have you back because we have way much more to talk about with you, but we really, really appreciate you taking time with us today.

Maria :

Yeah, and until next time, guys. Thanks, we'll see you. Bye.

People on this episode

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Liliana Baylon, LMFT-S, RPT-S

Host
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Maria Laquerre-Diego, LMFT-S, RPT-S

Host
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Kathryn Raley

Guest