EP47 Exploring Professional Love in Therapy and Teaching: A conversation with Julie

In this week's episode of Pondering Play and Therapy, host Philippa interviews her co-host Julie about her diverse career path. Julie shares her early aspirations of becoming a car mechanic or ballerina, but ultimately became a primary school teacher. She narrates her transition to play therapy, influenced by her experiences with children in the classroom and a particular puppet, Rita, who helped her connect with students. Julie discusses her further training in play therapy, working with children in various settings including homes, and her current role as a university lecturer. The conversation delves into the emotional challenges and rewarding aspects of working with children and families, emphasizing the importance of 'professional love' and reflective practice in therapy.

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Transcript

Exploring Professional Love in Therapy and Teaching; A conversation with Julie

[00:00:00] 

Philippa: Welcome to this week's episode of Pondering Play and Therapy with me Philippa. And this week my guest is Julie. Julie is normally my co-host. But we thought it would be interesting to interview one another about our different backgrounds and professions. So Julie is my guest this week, and Julie started her career as a primary school teacher.

And then she trained as a play therapist, and now she works as a, the play practitioner, a play therapist, and a university lecturer. So welcome onto your own podcast, Julie. Oh, okay. Thank you But I think I'm gonna learn quite a bit today about you, because although we've weaved these conversations in, I [00:01:00] don't know that we've ever completely sat and give our full history to one another, have we?

No. No. So I'm really interested to learn more about you. So tell me then, primary school teacher is, did you always think. I'm gonna be a teacher. 'cause some children grow up and they know I'm gonna be a teacher, I'm gonna be a firefighter, I'm gonna be a pilot. Was that for you or how did you get into being a primary school teacher?

Speaker 3: No, that's interesting. When I was very little, I wanted to be either a car mechanic. Or a ballerina. Those were my two passions. I had a next door neighbor a guy called Stan, and I used to spend my Saturday and Sunday afternoons with Stan helping him fix his car. From about the age of three or four, Stan had really big hands, and I at that age had little tiny hands and better eyesight than Stan.

And so I thought I was gonna be a car [00:02:00] mechanic because I knew how to change a filter. I knew how to do all sorts of things under the bonnet of a car because Stan taught me how to do those things. But I also went to dancing lessons at the weekends. Saturday mornings I had my ballet outfit and so it was, I'd be a ballerina or a mechanic, but neither of those things transpired.

I grew too tall and I really wasn't very good at dancing, and I. I think like a lot of children perhaps, I played at schools. A lot of my play was having my toys and my friends be pupils, and I took turns at being the teacher and being the, pupil. But I didn't, when I left school, I didn't really have a big ambition to be a teacher.

My mother was a teacher, secondary school teacher. I wasn't particularly fussed about that, [00:03:00] so I did quite a lot of other things between leaving school and my mid twenties. I, wasn't a teacher, I was doing musical things. Lived in a community for a while, did a bit of traveling, didn't have, as my parents might have said, I didn't have a proper job.

I had lots of short term jobs. Yeah, focused around music, but in, in a way focused around teaching because a lot of it was about choirs, music groups, community groups and, helping people to make music. That was probably what I did for about five or six years. And then I left the community. I'd been living in in another country, and I came back to south of England.

And then did think I, I need to get a proper job. And teaching seemed a familiar thing to do. So I went and trained [00:04:00] to be a primary music teacher, so I was able to get the music in to the primary bit. And actually I really loved it. I loved that course. The postgraduate one year course, I did it in London, made lots of new friends and I loved being in the classroom.

Really loved being in the classroom, loved creating resources and doing sticky back clustering and writing labels. I just loved the whole setup of a primary school. 

Philippa: And was the music department while resourced because what would this have been in the eighties? 

Speaker 3: Yep. This was in, no, this was the early nineties.

Early nineties. 

Philippa: This was the early nineties. 

Speaker 3: I started teaching and to start with, I was a classroom teacher, so I was entirely responsible for the class of eight or nine year olds. And I had couple of years, three or four [00:05:00] years of being a mainstream classroom teacher. But I was also the music expert. I could play the piano.

If you can play the piano in a primary school, you get to do lots of extra bits. And then I saw a job for just a music teacher in a primary school, and those jobs are really rare. They were rare then They're even rarer now. 

So I applied for this job and I remember at the interview saying I'll just come for a year or two because I had this sense of there is something else in me.

Julie: Yeah. 

Speaker 3: Other than being a, school teacher, I was in my early thirties by then, probably. So I remember at the interview saying, I'll just come for two years because I don't think I'll be a teacher for much longer. So I think that sense of, oh, there's something else around for me. Was already there. I did end up [00:06:00] staying in that school for 17 years.

Wow. They often joked about it. Oh, you came for just two years, Julie. But what I was able to do in that school, it was five days a week every afternoon. All I taught was music from reception from the four year olds up to the 11 year olds. I had class after class of music, and then in the mornings I was like the extra teacher for maths and English.

I taught geography. I taught pe. I was the cover teacher when other teachers had a bit of time to do their planning and stuff. So I got to know the whole school, 350 children very quickly. I knew every name and every child. And because I was teaching them every year for music, I got to know those children from reception all the way up to year six, which is unusual.

In a school, you [00:07:00] usually have a class for one year, then you pass 'em on to somebody else. 

Philippa: Don't you think that was beneficial for the for the children, for the, teaching. 

Julie: I think so, I think it meant that year on year we kept the same routine. So this concept of having the same room the same time, music was either one o'clock to two o'clock or two o'clock to three o'clock for every child we had the same room, same rou, routine, same.

Kind of the boundaries. What I think of now as a play therapist, a lot of that was really established in that music room. Laying out the shelves and things were labeled and things stayed on the same shelf year on year. So as the children got bigger, they had access to more resources, but they already knew where they were 'cause they'd [00:08:00] seen them.

There is something. I hadn't thought about that before, but it's a great question. There was something about the space, the environment of that room that I stayed in for 17 years, but the children had for six or seven years before they left. Something about not having to reestablish the relationship every year because we were already in relationship.

I knew them. They knew me. They knew the things that sparked me off, and I knew the things that sparked them off. So I got to know them really, well. 

Philippa: And do you think everybody can. Be immersed in music. I, remember being at school and I, can say it wasn't really one of my favorite subjects.

Yeah. They used to say to me like, everybody could go and practice for the [00:09:00] choir, and they used to say, Davis, which was my surname. Don't bother and like I didn't, they didn't even let me go and try for the choir because I was tone deaf. I remember them telling me I had to play a musical instrument once.

So I picked the cello just to be yeah, just to be as awkward as possible. 'cause it was the biggest, most difficult, most intrusive thing that you could pla think. I think I had it for two weeks before they removed it from me. Do you know what I mean? I think I lost out maybe, I don't know.

I wasn't, yeah, I don't feel that music. Connected with me or I connected with music 

Julie: or that you weren't given the chance to connect to it. And I think that's something I used to very, consciously think about that my aim of for [00:10:00] children leaving that school wasn't that they all loved music because I knew that wasn't possible and it wasn't my.

My remit to make anybody do anything or to have that ambition because I recognize for some children it really enriched their lives. For other children, it was more about being with their friends or doing something that was routine and. Not having to sit at a desk for an hour. That's what sit there. So my very low bar ambition was no child, was to leave St.

Mary's. It was called St. Mary's. No Child is To Leave St. Mary's hating music. So that was my lowest bar. And anything on top of that was a bonus. So no child was to leave. With the story about music isn't for me. I've been left out. I've been told not to do music, so no ERs to leave with the story that you have because [00:11:00] in my years before becoming a primary school teacher, I'd met so many adults.

He'd say, oh, I can't sing. I was always left out at school. I wasn't allowed in the choir. I was told I should stop singing. I was, I had a musical instrument taken off me. I wasn't allowed. And I could see them in their forties, fifties, sixties, still living with that, hurt or that bar. So I was really determined that every child could have a chance.

So choir only ever existed for a term. We created a choir each term, and there was no audition. Either you signed up or you didn't sign up. But if you signed up, that meant you were committed to coming for a term and, there were consequences if you didn't come. You could come for a trial for a week once and they had to sign their name.

I will be committed to [00:12:00] choir for just a term. And some children stayed in choir for four years and some children dipped in and out, but every, everybody fully belonged for that one term. So again, I think there's something about the child's agency, the child's choice to say yes and to commit to other people.

To commit to a routine, to commit to belonging to a group. But having the agency to say at Christmas, okay, I did all the Christmas stuff, it's not for me next term. And that was always fine. And yeah, I think it was the singing, it was the choir bit that was the most important bit for me. 

Yeah. And 

Speaker 3: I was in charge of timetabling in the school, so I got to save choir stuff to Friday lunchtime and Friday afternoon.

[00:13:00] 'cause for me, that's how the end of the week was March by singing with 50, 60, 70, sometimes a hundred kids in a room and not always making the most joyous sound. But we had a good time together and we sang in harmony and for the children, watching them sing in two parts for the first time. Them going.

They I remember every year when we did something for the first time in two different tunes, put them together and they'd just sit there and go, whoa. I said, yeah, you did that. That's not me. I can't make harmony on my own. You did that. And they just look at each other. Oh, whoa, we did that. So yeah, years and years of teaching maths, teaching English.

Often teaching what is called the bottom groups the [00:14:00] children who hadn't quite got the hang of maths just yet or the, children who hadn't quite got the hang of reading and writing yet, and just identifying with the struggler. I think that was a big part of my teaching is looking out for the kids who, for whatever reason, didn't quite feel.

That they were doing well enough. 

Philippa: And did you have a little assistance Sometimes that gave you some communication about maybe some of the struggles that the children might be having. 

Speaker 3: I think Philippa you might be talking about, and those of you who are listening rather than on YouTube won't know about this.

This lovely, this was my co, this was my coworker this is my little puppet. Who I confess I stole from St. Mary's School when I left after 17 years, I couldn't bear to [00:15:00] take her with me to leave her because what would happen is she was often left in the middle of the room. So lets just describe her.

Just got a red, she's got a big red, so it's a big hand puppet. So I can put my hand into one of the hands. She has, and I can manipulate one hand, and then she's got a face, a head that's probably about half of a human's head. She's got orange hair, a red bow, big red lips. She's wearing a red dress and blue trousers today.

In fact, that is her only outfit. And I've called her Rita. I don't know whether the children named her Rita or I did. But she's always been called Rita. And I had like, I think a lot of people who go on to train to be therapists who've started as teachers. I noticed there were [00:16:00] lots of children who I would now call being in hyper aroused states.

The child who is not on their chair very often, the child who's very vigilant. The child who needs to know what's happening is listening into teacher conversations all the time. The child who expresses themselves very loudly and very quickly, but I also notice the quiet, the withdrawn, the kind of scared looking child who was terrified of getting told off for anything, terrified of not getting all their spellings right.

The child who would be devastated if they had to go to another class with a message. Even the really hypo regulated children, the ones that were very, sleepy. So I had gone off on a one day course a Saturday, and it was called [00:17:00] helping Children with Feelings, using puppets or using puppets to help children with their feelings.

And at that course I bought Rita, I also brought, bought the, other puppet that went with her. And I, he's still in the cupboard. He's still there, but he didn't come with me. And so I started in my music lessons talking to Rita about what was going on in the class. So she would whisper to me. Oh. Oh, oh. Philip is looking a bit sad. Yeah, I can see Philips looking a bit sad. Should we ask if Philip's okay and then what I found is the children began to respond to Rita and tell the, tell her what was going on. Whereas if I asked them directly, they would just go, fine, miss, fine. But actually, especially the younger children were fascinated and [00:18:00] really thought.

They bought into the reader that she was my coworker. So she'd have a go of the instruments, she'd show them how to sing, how to move, and then at the end of every lesson, I had to take the children back to their class or out to the playground for the end of the day. So I would leave Rita on the floor in the middle of the room.

It was a room with no furniture in it. The children sat on the floor in a big circle, and then often when I came back from the children saying goodbye, I would come back and Rita would be in some disheveled shape and she would be distorted and she'd have her tongue poking out. Her arms would be twisted, her legs would be twisted.

And there was a real sense of ooh disgust from me at [00:19:00] seeing that. And I can see your face is going, that's really revolting. And I never got to know who the child was who'd raced back into the room on their own and had done something disturbing with Rita. But it, oh, sorry. I'm just gonna put, her tongue back in 'cause it really is disgusting.

And straighten out her limbs and pull her skirt back down and get her arms folded. It really got me to think about what is going on in a hidden way for children that isn't being heard in school. And I noticed it actually made me quite angry. I would come back in and be really, not only disturbed and sad, but also.

Angry that one of the children had done that to this beautiful puppet who'd become so much part of what we were doing in the class. So [00:20:00] I think it was teaching music and Rita, the puppet, that really helped me to see how helpless I was in being able to. Even recognize what was going on for those children.

Hyper regulated, hypo regulated. The children who I would now say have experienced trauma or neglect at the time I was probably using language like the naughty child, the one that nobody wants to teach, or the one that drives everybody up the wall. This is 25, 30, 30 years ago. Maybe not.

Yeah, maybe 30. Yeah, 30 years ago. And so I know how my language and my perception of the naughty child has completely changed. Partly because [00:21:00] generally in the world of education it's changed, but also because I went on to do some more training. But it was those children at St. Mary's School that got me thinking there's something else.

Going on and teaching and being in the choir and taking them on trips and going to music festivals and all the wonderful things we did is, still not, isn't enough. There is something else that these children need. And I suppose naively I thought I could be the one to sort all of that out. Yeah, absolutely.

You and I will know it's not as well and all the listeners will know. It's not as simple as that. 

Philippa: Yeah, it's one small step though, isn't it? So is that what led you then to your play therapy training? 

Julie: Yeah, I did some training with the place to be. That's an organization that [00:22:00] trains counselors to work with children in primary schools.

So I, went on a course for a year with them and became a place to be counselor, and then I'd gone part, I went part-time at my own school, did that one day a week, and then I volunteered in a school for a year as a counselor. I had got my place on the ma Play therapy course. But I deferred it, one, because financially I, I realized I wasn't gonna be able to afford it at that stage.

So I needed to save for a couple of years. And also I wanted to go and try it out first. Wanted to actually be in the room with the child doing counseling, doing therapy in a playroom and see whether I could do it, whether I was any good at it. I didn't want to commit to a three year training that was gonna clear out my savings [00:23:00] without testing it out first.

And I remember my very, first client and I fell in love with him and I fell in love with the whole practice on the third floor of a Victorian primary school. A little boy and all I was given was his name and his class at that time with the place to be, you didn't get any referral notes?

I didn't get any background information. The, manager in charge of the service had all that information and then gradually over the year I got to know information if it was felt that was necessary for me. Yeah, to understand something. So I worked with three children that year for the whole year, and I remember them vividly, all of them.[00:24:00] 

I dunno, does everybody remember their first clients that strongly? 

Philippa: Yeah. I, think I remember. Certainly from being a social worker, I remember I would say 90% of the families I worked with I still remember their names. I still remember their stories. I still remember because they're part of our I would journey, aren't they?

And I just think. Even if you're doing tricky stuff, there's still a connection that you make. And the imprint goes two ways, and as a social worker, which we'll talk about, I guess when we do mine, there was still some of the stuff that I was having to almost impose on families is really hard.

But we were still in a relationship and yeah, I remember. I remember all my families. All of them. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Julie: And. I remember I used the word [00:25:00] love earlier on and I was very cautious about using that word, and, but I really loved this little boy. This little boy who couldn't bear to end sessions.

He really hated. The ending and in the place to be. At that time, there was only a five minute gap between sessions and we, there were two counselors and we went back to back with each other, so you had to clear up with the child in the session. And different practices do that different ways. Now I don't clear up with the child, I do the clearing up myself afterwards, but in the place to be, you clear up with the child and he used to create these huge.

Wet Gloopy Creations and I bought a ground sheet, like a big camping ground sheet because a small, even a, an a one piece of paper wasn't big enough [00:26:00] for what he needed to do. So he would basically create this I don't want to call it a mess, because it wasn't a mess, but it, he needed to create in a big way.

But that meant we spent 20 minutes of the session towards the end clearing that and getting the ground sheet back. And then what he would do, and I'll never forget this, he would, we would fold it like you would fold a sheet with your granddad or something how you would fold up a sheet this way and this.

And he would say the sessions were on a Thursday, so he would say, Friday. Then we'd fold the next way Saturday, we'd fold the next way, and he'd count all the days back to Thursday while we folded this mat. And I really remember that, the ritual of that, that he taught me that while the ending was painful for him, deeply painful every week.[00:27:00] 

Without me having to initiate anything, he created his own ritual for us to end in relationship and to recognize the reality of there were gonna be seven days before we saw each other. And I remember the supervisor who I saw every day at every time I was in at the place to be. So every Thursday the supervisor saying.

Do you love this boy? And I was like, oh no. This is dodgy ground. No, I'm not allowed to say that. That's really not allowed. And she saw the shock on my face and she said, there is something called professional love. And it's absolutely okay to acknowledge that you have professional love for this boy, and he has it for you.

And that's contained, it's within the boundaries of what you are doing, but your relationship. Includes love. And empathy and acceptance. All the other words I've [00:28:00] since added. So thank you to that. Now, young man, I dunno where you are, what's happening in your life, but he was the one who made it okay for me to say yes to the play therapy training.

Philippa: And I think that professional love, I think that's so important. 'cause sometimes for some children you work with, that might be the only time they feel that, that kind of connection and joy if somebody else has in there. Yeah. For whatever reason that's going on in, in, the family that they're in, that might be that connection.

I, remember, I think I've talked about him on other podcasts, the young man that I worked with who sofa surfed in, in, North London and I worked with him, and. He didn't have consistent families, he didn't have consistent relationships. He had consistent peer relationships that made it [00:29:00] but he didn't have the adult care.

And to have that from somebody else, from an adult is super important, I think.

Julie: Yeah. Yeah. So that concept of professional love and another little boy, and I'm sure I've told you about this one, who this is a more recent client who was not enjoyed at school by staff members. He was the child that lots of people I'm sure were rolling their eyes at and. Were nervous of this little boy, and one of the things he was able to say to his parents about coming here to this room for play therapy was, I enjoy being enjoyed.

Yeah. This concept of professional love, you know, is it.

Is it allowed?

And [00:30:00] I've learned over many years. Yeah, absolutely. And this other little boy, I'm sure I've told you

Philippa: no, you.

Julie: Yeah, this concept of professional love. Thinking about that with my very first client and thinking more recently about a client I've had, oh, a couple of years ago, who was not well loved, I think at school he was a child who was finding it very difficult to stay in class. Staff. I expect we're rolling their eyes a little bit around him and he wasn't able to be in school.

He was excluded quite a bit, but one of the things he was able to share with his parents about coming here to the play therapy room was, I enjoy being enjoyed by Julie. I want to keep coming, mom, dad, because I enjoy being enjoyed, and that, that melts my heart actually to hear that because. [00:31:00] He wasn't often enjoyed by adults outside his family, and part of the work of a play therapist, I think is, in the relationship and in the self-worth of the child.

The self-esteem we sometimes talk about that is can never come by somebody else praising a child or an adult. It's self-worth. It's selfishly, it comes from the self and he had picked up. I enjoyed being with him. So he then enjoyed being enjoyed. Yeah. Yeah. so yeah. Those first clients that one year with the place to be confirmed that, yeah, I did want to do my play therapy training 

Philippa: So you.

You then moved on and it's three years, is it the training, 

Julie: so I did the part-time route. I did it in at Ro Hampton University where I'm now teaching. [00:32:00] And so I did the part-time route, so it was three years. So I still taught at the school. I was still a music teacher three days a week and did my play therapy training one day a week.

And then I was on placement for one day a week. So having my placements at a bereavement service in a CAM service with looked after children in other schools, I had lots of placements and that was I, remember thinking, this is really tricky. I'm still Miss McCann, the school teacher three days a week and then two days a week, I'm one-to-one with children.

In such a different way. And I found being a teacher much harder those years. Yeah. Yeah. Because what I was learning wasn't what I was able to do in the school. 

I, 

was seeing the conflicts between the attitude of a [00:33:00] therapist compared to the attitude of a teacher or my attitude as that teacher and.

I think I did become a better teacher because of it, but more and more I knew I wanted to be doing the one-to-one therapy. Yeah. Than the, rather than the 30 at a time in a classroom with a fixed agenda or a, purpose. When you're teaching, there's a program of study, there's a, thing to come out with.

Whereas when I'm doing therapy. It's child led, it's where the child wants to take

Philippa: so one of the things that I was thinking about, Julie, when you were explaining that, was that you went from teaching, which was quite structured, quite task led really to play therapy, which from my understanding is quite free in movement and child led.

But then you did [00:34:00] Thera play, which is actually where we met through Thera Play and Thera play is. Quite structured and adult led. So it's it's not teaching, but it is a, very, it's very different than, play therapy, even though it's got play in it. 

Julie: Yeah, that is a really super question. From teacher to play therapist, child-centered play therapist, sometimes non-directive to the play practitioner and I got really confused because. When I prepare for a child in play therapy, I set up the room. That's the only directive I do, and it's the same every week.

So I've chosen what's there, and then I say to the child, Philippa, this is your time to do and say just about anything you like. Should we see what happens? And then I sit down. We [00:35:00] see what happens. So I don't have a plan in my head. Whereas, as with thoroughly practitioners, I look at the previous week's videos I have in my mind.

Does this child and parent need more structure, engagement, nurture, or challenge? And then I create a list, almost like a lesson plan of what, which activities I'll do between the entrance and the exit and the nurture sequence. And 

Philippa: I guess also that is another one, is that with, because we talked about last time what is play therapy, didn't we?

But play therapy. You don't have the child in the room. And Oh, you do have, oh, I bath in the room. You do. You don't have the parent in the room very often. I'm sure there must be times in you, but where Yeah. The you all, you 90% of the time have the parent in the room. And again, that's a bit of a, an upside down.

You've done a, [00:36:00] you like to challenge yourself, don't you, Julie, with the, these different interventions. 

Speaker 3: It was because of this job in an adoption and fostering agency, that part of the funding. It was funded by BBC children in need, and part of the funding bid included my training to do therapy because in, in the field of adoption that was and is often seen as a first priority is to get the relationship with the parent and the child.

Especially in the early days of their life together as a family is, to work with that attachment, work with that relationship. And so I did do play therapy with some clients, but in my seven years there, I know I remember counting up at the very end when I left in just, it, it closed at the [00:37:00] beginning of COVID.

I, I stopped the whole service closed and we, closed at the beginning of COVID, I'd seen 75 families for Thera play. 75 some just for six sessions, but many for more than that. It was a fairly hectic job and I went to see them in their homes. A lot of them, some of them I saw in the office.

So again, that was something new. I hadn't come into Thera play as you have as a social worker, used to visiting family homes. I had never, as a professional. Gone into a family home. So I had to learn from my social work colleagues. Oh, what do I do? Can you turn up early? Can you turn up late? Do I keep my play therapy hat, which is, if the session is at 10, we start exactly at 10.

But if I'm visiting a family and I [00:38:00] arrive at 10 to 10. Can I still knock on the door? I had said a huge amount of learning and I'm very grateful to those colleagues. A huge amount of learning about working in the family home as a therapist. And do I take my shoes off? Do I not? Can I put cushion their cushions on the floor?

Do I having to check with the family? Are you okay with being on the floor? Can we use your living room? Just, yeah, that was a huge learning curve. 

Philippa: And I imagine doing therapy in a family home is very different than doing it in, the space, like the room that you're in now, is it? 

Speaker 3: Yeah. What I did go on to do then is a lot of play therapy in family homes, so taking my kit to the family home and.

Very generously. The families [00:39:00] gave me a space to leave it there. So I didn't have a car at the time. I was doing this all on public transport, so I built up four kits and I had three kits in different places. Then I had a sort of roaming kit for personal use. And it was only last year that I started practicing at home, starting practicing at home.

I moved from school teacher, play therapist in schools, the play practitioner in an adoption service, and then was unemployed for a year. It all, stopped in COVID. I did what a lot of us did, which is the play over Zoom and it's possible play therapy over Zoom. It is possible, and I only chose to do it with clients that I was already working with.

Philippa: Yeah 

Speaker 3: and then a job came up at Ro Hampton at the [00:40:00] university as a lecturer on the play therapy course. And in the back of my mind, I think I'd been waiting for that job for a long, time and there had been no shift in the staff there for seven years. Suddenly a job appeared just a year after COVID, the first COVID Lockdowns, and I went for it and just thought this might be a way of bringing me back full circle.

And back at the university, I actually did my first degree there many, years ago. I did my first degree at also at Rohan, did my ma there, and here I was back with a lecturer badge. And I know we talked a little bit before we came on today about. The term lecturer and the term I prefer is [00:41:00] therapist educator because so much of what we do is about the person who is to become a therapist.

Julie: Yeah. And 

Speaker 3: the constant becoming of a therapist. All our, trainees have to be in personal therapy throughout their training. And for me, that's absolutely essential too. Know more and more about yourself, that self-awareness that is needed and is, I'm realizing at the age that I am now is never finished.

It's that constant self-awareness and, I think it was during the course and a few years afterwards when I did the course 15 or so years ago, I had thought I had gone into the training to help the children. I have seen at school. With my good girl, I'll just be, I'll be the savior. I'll be the one to help these poor souls.

That was [00:42:00] yeah. I'm not ashamed to say that was part of my attitude is I'm going to be the one who can help these children. But the more I delved into the training, the more I delved into myself with the, personal therapy, realizing that I could have done with a play therapist when I was little.

There were lots of things about my childhood that I gradually unraveled and unpeeled that were not great, that were sometimes scary. Were sometimes what I would now class as adverse childhood experiences that had a play therapist spin around. I might have really benefited from that. So I think part of my motivation unconsciously was some healing of my child, except I would've been the unnoticed, quite quiet, but always compliant [00:43:00] child who would even now rarely make it to play therapy.

Yeah. And then delving a couple of layers below that was also thinking about my parents and. Their childhood experiences, which they, were both children during the Second World War in a big city. They both stayed in that big city throughout the war. One of my parents was bombed out a few times.

There were, very traumatic deaths that they each experienced very early on and. Perhaps that's what brought them together in some way. They've had that common experience, but I think there was also a a sense of wanting to heal the past through doing something in the present. Yeah. Yeah. I, don't know if that's even possible, but that [00:44:00] sense of hereditary trauma.

Yeah. There's a sense, and I've heard lots of people talk about this where. Their parents grew up in an age where not only didn't people talk about tragedy and, huge events that it wasn't the kind of norm, but also that they had no desire to do that. They had cut off from feelings around these traumatic experiences they'd had.

But I feel that I and perhaps others in my family have carried some of that trauma through it, it comes through to the next generation. And so in becoming a play therapist, there is a much greater understanding of my parents and how they parented and actually a lot of acceptance and forgiveness of.

How, they did manage, how they did cope, [00:45:00] how they did bring up a big family with, tragedy in their own young lives. So I didn't know any of that consciously when I applied to be a play therapist. But yeah, I think the little Julie and the little my parents were also in need of doing that course.

Yeah. Yeah. Definitely, 

Philippa: I think it is a it isn't honor and a privilege, isn't it, to do that. Those kind of trainings, whether it's play therapy, play, whatever it is, because you do, as part of that learning, get. To be able to reflect on yourself and your own experiences and actually process some of your experiences through the therapy play and through the play therapy or the family therapy, whatever [00:46:00] it is you are doing.

Yes. You, get. The space. Really? Yeah. That a lot of people don't do they, if you are going to a nine to five job in an office or Tesco's or JCB or wherever it is you're going, you're doing your job and you're coming home. When you are doing the kinds of trainings that we have. Often this built in space to reflect, to learn to, know.

Even yesterday in in my day job, we had a reflection. We had an hour and a half as a team painting some kind of. Halloween mug. Things that I was terrible at, 'cause I'm not artist artistic, but having reflective conversations around and there's not, many jobs that give you that, the privilege of being able to do that.

Really. Yeah. 

Speaker 3: And, I think as you're speaking I've [00:47:00] got, can never remember the difference between jealousy and envy, but I've got the one where. I want to have been in your team yesterday. I don't want to take it away from you, but I want to have been in that yesterday and, that's something as working at a university which has its big institutional hat and being a therapist educator in that, finding the space to be reflective.

With my colleagues and on my own. It has to be really carved out and, is really precious. We, the students have quite a lot of opportunity to do processing. So I know certainly my clinical supervision has had to really increase since I've started teaching therapy because I need that reflective space to.

Yeah. To process, to look at, to bring up in, into [00:48:00] some sort of consciousness what is happening in the lecture room, because there's 20 students there with all their stuff in the room. It's almost like having 20 clients sometimes. Yeah. So I know my, I've taken on a lot more supervision since becoming a lecturer because I need that too.

To steady myself. After days of, teaching. And I suppose I'm just conscious that we are coming to the end, but I suppose coming around to the podcast and us doing this together, that's part of our career. But actually today, this morning, I was doing my CPD for my registry my professional registration, and you have to put so many pieces in and I'd got.

Philippa: Kind of training at door and different things. And then I thought, I'm gonna do the podcast. I'm gonna put the podcast in as, Continual professional development, but how [00:49:00] do I do that? And really the thing that came out was reflection. That is the bit that this 12 months has given me. I don't know about you, but is an hour or an hour and a half, sometimes two hours if you're doing a better research before of, reflecting with so many different people and hearing their stories and.

It helps me then think about my own practice, even if I'm not. Particularly in the field that they are in, it's still, there is always something that I think, oh, okay, I, yeah, that makes sense for my families, or that's makes sense for me in there. That reflecting. I think the podcast has really given me yeah. The privilege of being able to do with, a lot of people. Really. I don't know how you feel about that. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. I [00:50:00] think, yeah, it coming to an end now this is really what the podcast came out of is our us, you and I during supervision sessions, having these pondering reflective conversations and then we just decided really to press record on it one day.

Yeah. With a sense of. We are not here in the podcast as teachers and NN neither are any of our interviewees. But in listening to somebody else tell their story, I can be reflective and inspired within my own story. I've told my story today, which will not be the same as anybody else's story. It's unique to me the way it's wandered and meandered and where, it is at the moment, and next week we'll hear your story and how that's unique to you and how that's meandered.

But my hope is for anybody listening for those who are listening and watching [00:51:00] is that it sparks off a sense of how did I end up where I've ended up? What's my story? What's the back story? To how I ended up where I am and I'm sitting here just I'm just gonna put Rita in just at the last minute.

Rita has been with me for these old 30 years of this whole journey, and she sometimes comes to university and she's part of play therapy sessions. And this, has been almost like my, coworker, my co reflector. All the way through. She's nodding. Yeah, absolutely. And we think that's just about the time to end for today and next week Philippa, Rita and I will interview you.

Philippa: Actually that's not the next time we are gonna do, so there'll be, this will go out. Oh, there'll be another one in three episodes. Yeah. And then we are [00:52:00] gonna do our 50th episode together. So that'll be the next one that we do is our 50th episode. And in the new year, you and Rita can interview me.

That absolutely, you'll probably interview me next week. You're completely right. But it won't go out until the, new year. So the next time our listeners will hear you and I together will be for our 50th episode, which will be on the 19th of December before we've got to 50. Yeah. And that'll be our breakup for Christmas on 50 episodes.

I know. That's 

Speaker 3: amazing. I know. And then we'll interview Philippa. 

Philippa: Then you can interview me. Yes. Okay. She that wrong, she goes 

Speaker 3: into shame quite quickly. This sort. That's 

Philippa: okay. Go listen to Sharon Lin's episode where she talks about yes, shame and attachment. 

Speaker 3: I'll do Phillipa. Thank you so much. 

Philippa: That's all right.

Thank you for your time, Julie. That was amazing, and for people listening, [00:53:00] if you've got to the end and you're still listening, please hit subscribe. Leave us a comment. All those things really, help us. Thanks very much.