EP57 Healing Journeys; In Conversation with Kim Golding

In this episode of Pondering Play and Therapy, host Philippa interviews Kim Golding, CBE, a clinical psychologist, author, and expert in dyadic developmental psychotherapy (DDP) with over 30 years of experience. Kim shares her unconventional journey into psychology, her long tenure in the NHS, and her work with children affected by early relational trauma. The discussion covers the evolution of attachment theory, the challenges of working with foster and adoptive families, and the development and importance of the PACE model (Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity, and Empathy) in creating supportive environments for traumatised children. Kim also highlights the importance of long-term support for caregivers and introduces her upcoming book, aimed at making DDP approaches accessible through stories and visuals.

https://kimsgolding.co.uk/

Creating Loving Attachments - https://amzn.eu/d/eeSBaCe

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Transcript

EP57 Healing Journeys: In Conversation with Kim Golding

[00:00:00] 

Philippa: Welcome to this week's episode of Pondering Play and Therapy with me Philippa. And this week my guest is Kim Golding, CBE, and Kim is a clinical psychologist. She's also an author. A DDP, which is Dyadic Development Psychotherapy consultant and trainer. With over 30 years experience of working in this field, Kim works to improve the lives of children affected by early relational trauma.

So thanks so much, Kim, for coming on to our podcast. 

Kim: You are welcome. 

Philippa: So 30 years is a long time to be doing this kind work. 

Kim: Yeah, I'm feeling old. 

Philippa: You don't look, you look awesome. 

So was, I suppose lots of people have different stories about how they got into working with families and children. Is it something that you fell into, or was it [00:01:00] a career path that kind of, when you were a teenager you thought psychology is where I'm gonna go. 

Kim: Oh I had a chemistry teacher who told me for whatever you don't go into psychology. Your career in it. I was very much on a science route. My father wanted me to be a dentist.

So I was doing Science A Levels, which was a huge mistake. I'm not I'm much better at the social sciences than the the, whatever you call them, sciences. No it was basically mucking up my A levels that got me into clinical psychology eventually. So because I didn't do as well as I was expected to do in my A levels I ended up in the clearing house.

Yeah. Still looking at science. So I was looking at physiology and zoology, and I got offered a place through clearing at Cardiff University. But at Cardiff they also. You do your main subjects and two others equally for the first year. So I had to choose another one. I thought I was always [00:02:00] quite interested in psychology.

I'll put that down. And that's, so that's as accidental as it was. Fell in love with psychology, fell in love with clinical psychology. And the rest they say is history. So yeah, I say to people, yeah, don't worry about mucking up a levels or exams or qualifications 'cause you never know where it might lead.

Philippa: I think in this profession, lots of people find the way into it, don't they? Rather than think, actually this is the career path, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go down. You find 

Kim: who in their teens really knows what they wanna do with their lives, eh? Yeah, 

Philippa: absolutely. Absolutely. And then did you go into the NHS, were you or did you always work with children and families, or did you work with adults 

Kim: or, no I went, into clinical training.

Wanting to work with children. That was, always an ambition of mine. So yeah, did clinical training and it's went into the NHS, that was the route. [00:03:00] There wasn't so much moving in straight into private practice in those days. So I, I did 35 years in the NHS, which yeah, I think a accord with my values.

Philippa: Yeah, 

Kim: yeah 

Philippa: And then and, I guess when you're in there, what 'cause over the 30 years, the understanding of attachment and neurodiversity and how the brain works and the nervous system works, it's changed massively, hasn't it? 

Kim: When, yeah. When I first went into the field, we're only just beginning to realize that children were sexually abused.

Philippa: Oh God. 

Kim: That was not Freud had a lot to do with it. Yeah. But that was just not a thing. And then in the late seventies that was becoming understood that actually children are sexually abused within their families. Yeah. Know. So that's that's how much change has happened over these years, that the whole [00:04:00] field was poorly understood.

When I started work, I, I. So post qualification, I actually started working on the other side of the divide, so working with families who were struggling to parent their children. So parenting has always been an interest of mine in helping parents to parent their children according to the children's needs.

And and I was working with parents who, for whatever reason was struggling to parent, including what was in those days called and by proxy. Yeah. So did quite a bit of work with those parents. And it was only. Moving to Worcestershire, which was following my husband because of his, he was made redundant and got a job here.

Things you know happened, don't they? Yeah. That I got the job in Worcestershire, which was my first dip in my toe in the water of looked after children as they were called in those days. Yeah. Yeah. And we I was very lucky to be in a position of being, we were funded [00:05:00] as a multi-agency team to develop a team to support foster carers, initially, doctors as well later on and children's homes.

And that's where all this journey, this DDP journey began. It began in I was, I really feel for psychologists today, 'cause I don't think they get those creative opportunities that I was so privileged to have that we were literally given a blank page and some money and. Some, obviously some guidelines about what they wanted.

It was definitely a support project. They wanted the parent, the carer supported. And that's, then I had to figure out how to do that. Yeah. And I didn't know I, I came from a cognitive behavioral background. I tell this story in my training. I remember going out to one of the early visits to a foster carer who was grandmother and was, had been fostering for years and years.

Many children passed through a door, was fostering a very complex young [00:06:00] person with a complex history. And I started. Talking behavioral ideas with her. And she was just so kind to me because it was clear that what I was suggesting, everything, but she knew far more about parenting these children than I did.

Philippa: Yeah. Yeah. 

Kim: And that was a kind of, okay, what am I going to do here? And luckily that's when I met Dan Hughes. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: That was yeah, that, that gave me the, okay, this is the way forward Now I have a model I can train in that model and I've got something to bring. To these families. 'cause up until then, I didn't really have much draw for them.

Yeah. 

Philippa: And I think that's something that I've experienced is that foster carers parents, they are really kind and generous on the, when you are saying, because when I started out on my journey with DDP and Thera play and those sorts of things, I would say to foster carers, will you just have a go?

And they're like, yeah, okay we'll have a go. [00:07:00] And, they just will buy into, and that, I think as a practitioner, as somebody who's going in and working with families, it's I don't know. Such an honor, I think, and with birth families as well is that they will they, are kind when we are maybe not always knowing or getting it quite right.

Kim: Yeah. 

Philippa: Especially in those go. 

Kim: Yeah. I think the biggest learning of my career really has been working collaboratively with your clients, whoever those clients are, that just to drop the expert position. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: You own your expertise, you bring your expertise to the table you're working with someone, you've picking it out together.

Whether it's adult therapy, whether it's a child working with therapy with a child, whether it's parenting support and guidance, to do, the work collaboratively in this together is, the way to do it. Yeah, and I know my work is richer [00:08:00] for that collaborative approach. The writing I do.

The group programs that I've done have all been informed by collaborative, working with the parents, whoever those parents are. Foster carers, adopters. Yeah. And birth families. Kinship parents, residential caregivers all of the, all of those parent figures have contributed to my books. Really?

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: That's how I've learned. 

Philippa: Yeah. Yeah. A absolutely. And I, I think holding onto that. Is really important, isn't it? So you met Dan, Hughes. My, my training was with Dan Hughes, so I was quite, and that's how, actually I didn't go further down the DDP route. I went into Thera play, but it was Dan Hughes that told me I'd never heard of Thera Play.

It was him that and told me about it. But you were way before it, it really took off. DDP. Was a slow burn or wasn't it, in the uk? I imagine everywhere, 

Kim: but certainly the not a [00:09:00] slow, it went a bit faster than we could keep up with when we trying to develop services around it.

But yeah. I met Dan in, must have been two th 1999, 2000. So very early on when he was coming over to England and, the uk. He went to Scotland as well. And he's starting to work So with Firmly Futures and with Edwin Grant in Scotland, bringing DDP ideas in. So yeah, I went to one of those early an introductory day, first of all, which just blew me away.

I thought, yeah, this is what I want. This is what we need in our service. So then I signed up for level one. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: A year later did level two and then went to Maine to do an extra level two or level three, whatever it was called in those days, but just to, do it again. So I did three sort of four day trainings and obviously got to know Dan.

During that time showed in some of the things I was working on, including the nurturing attachments program. 'cause I was [00:10:00] working on that at the time and he's always been really generous about people taking his work as a platform to develop on. So that's how I got to know him really, how we got there to where we are now.

I'm not quite sure. 

Philippa: Did you, can I just ask you, in the early days did you find much resistance? 'cause I've, interviewed different people. Who've got the level of experience that you have, who started in the seventies and eighties and early nineties where the attachment and the brain stuff.

Pe there was a bit of resistance to, actually, no, this isn't going on. I spoke to Hilary Kennedy who does the VIG stuff, and she was saying, people were actually saying, don't say that because you are, bringing those into Dispu dis disrepute, because it's not, the way it is. 

Kim: The biggest resistance was to the attachment piece.

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: And that was because there was a huge scandal around at the use of attachment [00:11:00] theory in practice at the time that Dan was developing DDP and that was coming out of the holding therapy movement. Yeah, 

Philippa: yeah. 

Yeah. 

Kim: And and it was very worrying and when I went to the introductory day with Dan my, I that was in my mind, is this just, is this something we need to stay clear of?

Philippa: Yeah, 

Kim: because children had died in America through attachment interventions. It was there was some really, diff dodgy stuff happening at the time, and of course we didn't want to be perpetuating that. 

And Dan did get colored by that, not because he was doing anything, like anything coercive.

But because it was attachment therapy. It. People started to think, oh, that's more of this dangerous stuff. 

Philippa: Yeah. Yeah. 

Kim: And we did we did have, not so much recently, [00:12:00] but we've had articles written putting down, DDP as a dangerous attachment therapy. Oh gosh. That we e even now not for a few years now, but it's not, that long ago that there was, wow.

In America, I won't mention her name, but the social worker in America who was writing very damn articles about attachment therapist and included DDP within that, 

Philippa: right. 

Kim: We, we didn't get involved in those discussions and arguments. What we did is we put our own house in order. Yeah, let's make DDP as robust in intervention as we can, as quality, driven as we can, as research driven as we can.

Now, getting the research base is a very long process. We are still waiting for the results of our first RFCT trial, which has cost millions. It's. It's not an easy face, but we've we've supported that with, lots of smaller scale studies and Yeah. Audits and [00:13:00] evaluations of services and those sorts of things.

So we are gradually building up a body of knowledge that says. DDP is doing something useful and helpful. 

Philippa: And it, I'm guessing it's much harder to quantify the change in attachment, isn't it? If you are doing a CBT piece of work and you're working on a phobia, there's a beginning, a middle, and an end, isn't there?

There's a, there's an outcome. If you are working with a young person who's experienced trauma or ad early adversity, it's very difficult to measure. That sense of felt safety that they've got in a relationship because actually the behaviors may get worse. 

Kim: Yeah. No, absolutely. And behavior c will remain challenging especially when you move into the teens.

A lot of these young people really struggle in at the teen years for all sorts of reasons. And parents are hanging on by their fingertips. So you know, you can do an intervention pre 12, and then you look at them as a [00:14:00] teen, you say. Has that helped? Yeah. Hopefully it's helped Care carers.

Hang on. 

Philippa: Yeah. Yeah. 

Kim: Bringing the children through to and I always say what care, what foster carers and adopters and birth parents who have tried working with children who've got traumas Yeah. Are doing is they're planting seeds, but they really rarely come to fruition until adulthood.

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: Yeah. You dunno what's gonna flourish and what isn't. I've had a really great Christmas this year in that I've had, I think. Three contacts from three different parents about their grownup children. Oh, that's wonderful. They just wanted you to know they're doing well for whatever reason.

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: So if you live long enough you can see that you've really helped, but you don't necessarily see that at the time. Yeah. Because you are working with a lot of stress, a lot of distress in the children and in the parents. Yeah. And I use parents to mean all, yeah. In whatever way they're caring for the child.

I'll just use that as the general [00:15:00] term lots of block care as Dan and John. Yeah. Talk about it. The, because parenting these children who fear relationships, it's really, hard. Yeah. And these children. Will not trust easily. Why should they? And it's a long journey to build that trust.

You can't do this with 12 sessions of CBT, and I'm not knocking CBT and trauma focused CBT definitely has its place and can be a really useful in intervention. Along with a lot of other things. Yeah. Yeah. And I think DDP brings a very holistic approach to supporting the families. It's not just targeted at therapy with the children.

That is an important part of it. That's where Dan started in developing DDP. He started developing a therapy for the children, which involved the parents because what's broken in a relationship needs to heal in a relationship. Yeah. That took us into, and this is the practice med model that we've developed over [00:16:00] time, which we could, I could send you a diagram of that moved into so what to, how do we support the parents in order to do the therapy work?

That Yeah. Then took us into, and this is where a lot of my work was, well, how do we help the parents be DDP informed parents? Yeah. How do they bring the principles in the work and what support do they need, importantly, to do that. Because it's not a quick fix. It's a long, hard process, and you have to cope with a lot of rejection and hurt along the way because these children are not going to readily trust that parents are safe people.

That's their life experience. Yeah. We honor that. We privilege that we get that these children are gonna come with a lot of adults are mean, parents are dangerous, I'm a bad kid. And it's slowly, those narratives change. So we have to work alongside the parents. This is where collaborative working is so important.

Yeah. [00:17:00] Where we're in their lives. They joke about having a bedroom in the house. For me, we're not we're not moving into their families but we are in their lives and we need to be in their lives for longer term. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: Isn't always understood. 

Philippa: No, and I suppose that was just before we get into the model that thing around.

As a therapist being there for the longer term. 'cause off sometimes in my work I will get pushback from, maybe other therapist who, don't do this work. If you've been doing it for three years and it still hasn't changed, then maybe the wrong, yeah, exactly. They need something different.

Rather than thinking, actually, this is about consistently showing up. And having those breaks where they're saying, I don't wanna see you anymore. I hate you. And I was still saying, actually, we are still here for you and you can come back when, you want to. And then they come back [00:18:00] and, that three year process is actually just that consistent, predictable stuff that's not just for the child, it's also for the parent, isn't it?

That actually Absolutely. They've got somebody alongside them who can empathize and say, I know this is really, hard. For you right now. And I'm sorry I can't do anything but I can hear you. So it is a much longer term. Possession of a therapist than traditional, therapeutic models 

Kim: because it's more than a therapy, yeah, it is. It's so much more than that. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: You are working with the environments that these children are grown up in to try and help those environments become supportive enough to help them over time, heal. 

Philippa: Yeah. Yeah. 

Kim: Yeah. That means working with the parent environment, that means working with the school environment.

It means working with social services and the social work service system [00:19:00] around these children. Yeah. And the health system around these children. We need to get we can't fix the child that's just a myth. Yeah. The child isn't broken, they're just struggling with life experience.

Yeah. And they're doing the best they can with as much resilience and they have amazing resilience to. In what they bring. So if they're not broken, we're not fixing them. 

Philippa: No. Yeah. 

Kim: But what we're doing is we're trying to provide them healthy environments to grow up in where their narratives about self and others can slowly change.

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: Yeah. And that's the healing. It's when you can finally say, okay, not all adults are mean, and maybe I'm not a bad kid. 

Philippa: Yeah, 

Kim: And that's the journey these children are going on, and that's not gonna be a quick one because their early life experience has. Has taught them that they are back.

Absolutely. And adults are mean. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: Yeah. And again, I'm not blaming any parents who, you know, per [00:20:00] parents to the best they can. I Dan always talks about, hold these three assumptions. They're good people doing the best they can and they want to love their child and I hold that very dear for the poor birth families who lose their children because for whatever reason, they're not able to parent them well.

And that's a great sadness. Yeah. I grew up with a mother who was depressed most of my life. I know that parents will sometimes not give you what you need, but for, but they ideally want to. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: And how we step in and support them, I think needs looking at. 

Philippa: Absolutely. And often the system then can exacerbate it, can't they?

So we then don't have foster placements and so children can be moved, they can be moved schools, and so that initial trauma actually can be exacerbated by a system. And then they can have had four or five people who are gonna be their parents by the time [00:21:00] they get to their settled placement, whether that be adoption, fostering, or returning home sometimes.

Kim: Yeah, 

Philippa: absolutely. We work with families where children are coming home after they've had five or six foster placements, and we are expecting parents to. To parent children who are very different than when they left for, because a system has intervened in some way. Yeah. And that again is not about blame, it's just about 

Kim: a broken 

Philippa: system really.

Kim: It's really challenging how to support these family and these children. It's a really challenging task and. There isn't enough money it comes down to that. Yeah. 'cause what we ought to be doing is putting a lot more trauma work into the parents. Absolutely. We go in services tend to go in at the behavioral point of this is how you parent your child.

Yeah. That misses so much that these parents need and, but that would make services really expensive, wouldn't it? It, yeah. Absolutely. Have the money to [00:22:00] actually give these families what they need and what they deserve. Probably not. That's sort into politics, but 

Philippa: yes, you could go all down the as f but we'll, oh yeah.

Kim: We'll, 

Philippa: we'll, we 

Kim: around 

Philippa: That one, Kim, shall we? So I just wanted to ask, I work at Gateway Psychology Services and we, Do lots of training with parents and we often use your house model, which is just amazing and pace which is playfulness, acceptance, curiosity, and empathy. And those two together I think are for parents are an easy takeaway.

Could you just explain a little bit about those? Did you develop them? And how and why. No, I 

Kim: can't take the credit for pace. That very much comes from Dan as much as I'd love to. Yeah. And we did write creating, Loving Attachments together, which is the book about pace. Yes, 

Philippa: yes, definitely.

Kim: Yeah. But, and 

Philippa: I'll put a link to that book in, our in the, 

Kim: in the writing for 

Philippa: this. [00:23:00] Yeah. 

Kim: So Dan. Dan came up with this acronym when he was, so his history is he was working the service for children who had been abused. This would be in the seventies. And he was finding and, that took him into working with foster adoptive parents.

Yeah, because a lot of these children were being parented in foster and adoptive homes. And he was finding all his ways of working were not helping all the things that he'd been trained to do. And the therapist he was providing, were just not making a difference to these children. And he tells a story in his training, which I'm sure he won't mind me repeating of the child one day.

He said, I know how you can help me. And he said, yeah, tell me. He said you just helped me move every three months and then I'll be fine. And it was just like, oh my goodness. That's how this young person feels. Yeah. Yeah. They do not believe in permanence. They do not believe that this family can hang on in there with them.[00:24:00] 

Philippa: Yeah, 

Kim: if they move every three months and they can keep starting again and you get that honeymoon period where it all feels okay, and he thought, we need to do something to help these children. And that was, the start. And then he had to think, but what, and of course he looked at attachment theory, its obvious one to look at later on bringing in, into subjectivity when he met Cole, winter Arthur.

And was understanding more about that model. And he looked at, what did I do with my children? 

Philippa: He 

Kim: has three daughters. You know what works with them? And that's where Pace came from. Because we are naturally ful with our very young children. We are playful. We accept whatever they bring. We may feel frustrated 'cause you are a parent, but we accept that they're hungry, that they're upset, they're tired, they're grumpy, whatever.

We accept it. We are curious about it because that's how we solve the problems with infants who are nonverbal. Now we have to be curious about you going on for you that I can do to help you. [00:25:00] And we have empathy for them. And, that's it. It's not that we lose that when the children grow older, but we bring in the discipline and we bring in the expectations of what they should be doing in school, in education in with their peer group.

And it all gets lost a little bit in Yeah, in the huge task of parenting, growing children where we have expectations of them. And we, we do have to discipline them because that keeps children alive. Yeah. We have to come in with that, and when you start bringing that alongside the playfulness, acceptance, curious, empathic parenting, it's, much more challenging.

Yeah. So that's, that was the move, that was what DDP is all about, is how do we hold this pace for attitude alongside all these other parenting tasks as the children grow. So that was the parenting side. And obviously in the therapy side is how [00:26:00] do we give these children this experience of being in a relationship which is peaceful for them.

Which is intersubjective in a positive way. And, 

Philippa: and that can be really hard, can't it, for children to have that empathy reflected back to them that don't, do that. Don't say that. Don't, because it it, connects with something that is. Odd and different for them, isn't it? It can be a little, and often parents will say they don't like that.

Kim: Yeah. Yeah. Children have told me it's weird. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: You're rich, you're psychic, how do you know what's in my head? Yeah. But more importantly that they're also telling me I don't wanna feel vulnerable. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: This is hard. You know when I don't want to cry and you're making me cry. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: Of course.

They you have to adapt your empathy to what they can tolerate and hopefully gradually increase that range of [00:27:00] tolerance. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: Yeah. So I call it muting. Muting empathy. Yeah. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: You have to mute your empathy for some children.

Yeah. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: So that's one issue with empathy is, what can the child tolerate and can we work within their window of tolerance for it? And can we gradual broaden that window? 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: Can you do, 

Philippa: sorry, can you do empathy with positive feelings though? 

Kim: You of course. Absolutely. Yeah. And just think that's 

Philippa: easier than the, than 

Kim: the, it may be easier, but it still brings emotion up, which Yeah, in the past has felt dangerous.

Philippa: Yes. 

Kim: Yeah. So these children maybe don't want to feel that, or they feel it in the moment and then they want to get it, reclaim it back. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: Yeah. So they can enjoy moments of playfulness. 

And and we can, dip in and out of playfulness, but then they may have to reassert their Yeah. Control.

Yeah. Because it feels a bit scary. 

But the other big thing with [00:28:00] empathy is it has to be authentic. You can't fake it to make it so that relies on mentalization, that the parents can really understand what's going on within their child. Yeah. Underneath the behavior to really have acceptance for that, what you feel is neither right nor wrong, it just is.

And when you get that, you can start to feel empathy for the child. Quite naturally. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: A child who's angry and shouting, hatred at you and threatening you with I'm gonna stab you with a knife, or it's very hard. You can't have empathy for a child in that state.

You just can't. It just triggers the brain, people tell you, it triggers different parts of the brain, you 

Philippa: know? Absolutely. 

Kim: But what you can do is you can hold onto your curiosity. What's going on? What has created this anger for my child? What's underneath that? And when we go underneath it, and [00:29:00] that's the mentalization process, we can start to make sense of the hurt, the worry, the fear, the sadness that's underneath.

And when we start to understand that, that you can empathize with, 

Philippa: yeah. 

Kim: So then your empathy comes through as you connect with the child. Around that internal experience. Wow. You must be really scared right now if you're feeling that way. I get that. I get you're scared because I was out late last night and I didn't come back when I promised.

Wow. That must have been so scary for you. I hadn't quite understood how that would've, how you would've been frightened that we weren't coming back. Okay. Now I really understand that you're really angry with me right now. Yeah. And I bet you do feel like stabbing me with a knife. Yeah, I know you won't 'cause you're a good kid.

I can understand that you feel that way. Yeah. And I'll do my best to support you in how you show me those feelings, because some of the ways you're showing me these feelings, I can't allow. Yeah, 

Philippa: yeah. 

Kim: So it's that [00:30:00] it's. To, be able to do that, to be able to do the connection with the discipline.

Yeah. To it. It's huge. It's huge. Yeah. I know my kids my kids have grown up, so when I they trigger me. I just moved to defensive so fast. Yeah. 

Philippa: Yeah. Its 

Kim: really hard and I've had soft to the carers who do this, it is really hard to stay open and engaged and curious. When you are under attack.

And that's what we're asking these carers to do. 

Philippa: Yeah. To 

Kim: stay open and engaged and curious what is going on underneath. Yeah. And when we can get to that, it just opens up a whole different dimension to the relationship. 

Philippa: Yeah. Yeah, and this isn't about, 'cause often people will say we're just letting them get away with it.

But it's not that is it, there's still the discipline, there's still the boundaries. There's still the, actually it's not okay that you hit your sister. What is Okay. Is the feeling you had at that moment in [00:31:00] time. Exactly. So I can connect with that feeling and say, I can see that you were really frustrated there, or cross or whatever it is.

But that's not the way to show me really. 

Kim: And I will guarantee that all of those children know it's not okay. 

Philippa: Absolutely. 

Kim: Yeah. And they know they're a bad kid because they're doing that. So we're not letting them get away with anything. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: Yeah. We, they are in shame because they know they're behaving in ways that aren't unacceptable and disappoint the people that they don't want to disappoint.

Yeah. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: Yeah. The idea that you are letting them get away with something is a little bit of a nonsense. You are leaving them in shame. When you move straight into discipline, and especially if that discipline is punitive, all you are doing is compounding the shame they're feeling.

'cause you're just reinforcing the idea that they already know I'm a bad kid. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: Yeah. So it makes no sense in terms of, helping children develop into be in pro-social citizens in the [00:32:00] world. It makes no sense to not address that layer underneath. 

Philippa: Yeah. Yeah. 

Kim: And when we dress the layer underneath the child softens, and then they take the discipline, they join us in, I, I talk about collaborative consequences rather than coercive consequences.

Traditional parenting is very coercive. You threaten me with a knife, therefore this is gonna be the consequence. It's not acceptable. This is gonna be the consequence. So it's, a coercive one. Implemented by the parents for the best motivations. 

Philippa: Yeah, But, 

Kim: but that's what happens where if you say, I really don't like you threatening me with a knife, but I get it.

I get that you were feeling really angry with me right then. And I think underneath that anger, you were also really scared. 

Maybe you were scared that I wasn't gonna come back. Wow. Those are big feelings to be managing. I get why you were so angry. What are we gonna do though about the [00:33:00] knife?

Because it's not acceptable to threaten anybody with a knife. And they, and the child then who's feeling understood, is much more likely to say, I know. Okay, what are we gonna do about it? Let's figure that out together. And the child will often come up with I could do this. It might be, can you hide the knives away, mom?

'cause I'm not sure I can trust myself at the moment. 

Philippa: Yeah, 

Kim: it might be can I do some chores for you? Just to say sorry, because the, child will come up with their own ideas, which we can join them with to make them, 'cause often they come up with wild ideas as well. Young child might say, can I give you all my Pokemon cards?

Oh, maybe we don't need to go that far, but what about if you do this? So we've figure it out together. And that's what I mean by collaborative consequences. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: That's the best discipline. Yeah. Is the child's pickering it out with support from the parent? Yeah. Yeah. Like how can I deal with these strong emotions?

That I'm not managing very well at the moment. 

Philippa: [00:34:00] Yeah, 

Kim: and they do it because they feel understood. Yeah. 

Philippa: And those examples that you gave are also in relationship, aren't they? They're not done to the child. The child's not sent away or the young person. It's together. We will put the nose away together.

I'm going to do something kind for you because I've understood that maybe that made you sad. And so it's, a relational, yeah. Connection, which is that rupture and repair, isn't it? Which is what we want, is that actually we all break relationships either on a on a micro level or on a big level and we say sorry and we repair it, don't we?

In a relationship. And I guess that's what you are teaching when you are thinking those things through. 

Kim: Yeah. The DDP model is all about relationships and connection. It's it's relationship is right at the heart of it. And it's making sense of why children [00:35:00] fear relationship, and it's finding ways to help these children discover safe relationships.

Yeah. That's what DDP is all about. 

Philippa: Yeah, and you can do DDP with, you've talked about in therapy and also with parents, helping them to build those skills. And then as practitioners for us to work with parents. So it's it's a multilayered thing, isn't it, that everybody can.

Kind of work in the same way, using the same phrases, the same wonderings or curiosity which I guess for the child also then feels safe. Whether they're at school, whether they're at home, whether they're in therapy, whether they're with grandparents. The conversations can easily. Be the same feeling.

Kim: Yes. That's what we would love for children. It's not what Alwaysand thing understand. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: But yeah, that's what we want. We want these [00:36:00] children to hey, can, couldn't the world have a good dose of this? We all grew up in these environments, 

Philippa: absolutely. 

Kim: Yeah. Pay pace.

It's such a simple idea, but it's actually so powerful. Yeah. I should give given nod to people who are in non-English speaking countries so that it, is problematic in that it, it is in English language. We need to find a word for pace that doesn't necessarily rely on English language. Yes. Yeah.

Just, that's just something to be thoughtful about as we think about bringing pace around the world. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: Yeah. It's an acronym that just captures something so fundamental to what a relationship is all about. 

Philippa: Yeah, and I think it, sorry, go on. 

Kim: No, go. Go for 

Philippa: it. I was gonna say, I think it it's something that you then becomes instinctive.

I just think I was learning this [00:37:00] one as my. Child was growing up so often, practiced lots of the curious and wonderings and has, as they reached teenage years, they would say, mom, don't do that stuff. But then I'd hear them on their headphones to their friends saying, I'm just wondering. And I'd be like, yes.

So even though like they were resistant, it was still going in and even now he is. They're in their early twenties and I can hear in their conversations at times these peaceful words and the way that they are reflective without ever thinking. 'cause if they thought that they were doing you know that therapy stuff that you do with them other, the kids, that they'd be mortifying, 

Kim: especially as teenagers, you have to rebel against what your parents do. Absolutely. That's on the job description of a teenager. So yeah, that's why the teens are such challenging times, particularly [00:38:00] with traumatized teens.

Yeah. Yeah, it does. It still soaks in. Yeah. 

Philippa: Yeah. And it just becomes a way of life, doesn't it? A word, but I think it's hard to get to that point. You there. It is a very different way of parenting, isn't it? And you have to be very mindful. I know sometimes I work with foster carers or adopters and they'll say, I just think, what would Philippa say?

And they almost have to be very conscious in the beginning, but. Very quickly. You can hear it again with them starting to come through once. Once. But you have to be very Yeah. Mindful, I think at the beginning. 

Kim: Yeah. So I think we have to acknowledge that it's, you can't do that all the time.

Philippa: Absolutely. 

Kim: And we do lose it we do move back into defensive ways of responding. That's being human. Sorry, the phone's ringing. Can I hear it? 

No. We ha Yeah. [00:39:00] Sorry, just recap what we're thinking. It, I think it's really important, especially for parents listening to know that this is not easy.

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: And to know that even those of us who have been practicing pace professionally for years and years and not always ful with our children or our, yeah. It's very normal, natural to move into defensive ways, responding. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: So you don't need to beat yourself up about that. Yeah. I'm thinking about when my daughter was 15, 16, and it's a horrible age.

It's a really challenging age as a suppose it was for me anyway and I could, I was at the time understanding and learning about pace and DDP and obviously bringing it into my parenting. And I was rubbish at it. Because I would move to defensive so fast because she would, she, what she was doing is not, she didn't do it deliberately, but what she was doing was triggering me with [00:40:00] bits of my attachment history, which I can make sense of.

And I was getting cross with her, and. Even when I would have days where I managed to hold onto pace and it would be beautiful. We'd have a really good connection and she would calm from her dysregulated state. She's autistic, so she does have problems with regulation and I would feel really good as a parent, and when I'm talking to parents, I say, so tell me this.

Why for the next six times, could I not do that? 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: Because that's how hard it is. And I think it's deceptively simple and it's really hard. 

Philippa: Absolutely. '

Kim: cause we're human. 

Philippa: Yeah, 

Kim: we're human. 

Philippa: And also it builds up, doesn't it? Ty? My, for me, with my child, it was 14, 15, we're really, there was two years and there was so tricky.

It would, I'd be, I'd hold it, And then there was a, and I'd just go in to the room and I'd go everything that I'd been holding on, and I feel great for a moment that I'd kind [00:41:00] let it all out, get to the bottom of the stairs and think, oh no, I've got to repair it. Yeah. That, but you can't, hold it in.

Kim: I, I think we, it's really important to remember that because to be a, to be peaceful all the time would be. Yeah. Impossible. Yeah, it's just impossible, 

Philippa: and I think, yeah, I think that if you, when you start, you have to be very intentional about it, don't you? Yeah. And slowly it seeps into your every day, but there are still moments, still times where.

It's not possible. And actually sometimes I think it's okay for us to have those moments. 'cause it demonstrates to our children our young adults, that you can have these moments and then you can recover from it. That you don't have to be this there's very calm, consistent all the time.

What's important is. Is that [00:42:00] we go back and we say, I'm really sorry. So when I've let it out I go and have a cup of tea and in a, moment, and then I go back and say, I'm really sorry. I was a bit stressed at the time or whatever. And, that repaired just like the young person that you were talking about.

The example you're giving about the young person who's upset that we model that. 

Kim: Oh, 

Philippa: we did it. We got it wrong. And now I'm gonna say sorry to you. 

Kim: And it's recoverable. It's recoverable. Yeah. It's just harder when you've got the layer, bring the layer of trauma. Absolutely. This.

Because the children have their own histories that get activated. Just as we may be being activated as the parent of often from something from our own history. The children have these very complicated traumatic histories as well, which also gets triggered. And then you do have a challenge to, how to support the children and to support yourselves in those moments. Yeah. So when you have the layer of trauma [00:43:00] in it all becomes more complicated. 

Philippa: Yeah. Yeah. And I guess when you are you are having those challenges at, an intense level every day. So you're getting the aggression, the violence.

Every day as a parent that is just wearing, isn't it? And, nobody can be expected to, be able to hold that and hold that peaceful every day when you don't know what 

Kim: which is. Which is why we need the support for the parents. Long, 

Philippa: absolute. 

Kim: We can't go in with short interventions.

We can't send them to a parenting group and expect that's going to make this okay. 'cause what they actually need is someone sitting alongside them when you know, when you're parenting these very challenging children with great challenges. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: You'd need people in your life that can keep you going, that can help you keep hold of your resilience.

And that's what our services have really got to get to grips with. [00:44:00] How do we prepare, how do we support parents long term when they're parenting traumatized children? 

Philippa: Yeah. Yeah. 

Kim: That doesn't mean we have to live in their homes. That doesn't mean we have to be in their lives all the time, but it means we need to be there to there as a touch point for them.

Philippa: Yeah. It's that accessibility, isn't it? That they know that they might be having. A period where it's calm and they've all got it together, and then there's a moment of stress, whether that's Christmas, birthdays, transitions, whatever it is, that they can come back and say, actually it's really tricky now.

Kim: Exactly. 

Philippa: Can, you be that person for me? For the next two months or three months or whatever it is. Yeah. 

Kim: And the fact that they keep needing that isn't a sign of failure. It's a sign of this is how challenging it is. 

Philippa: Yeah. And that's attachment and relationship, isn't it? It's all those, kind of things.

And we could go on about this, but I'm just mindful we're coming towards the end. But then you've written loads of stuff. So just tell us a little [00:45:00] bit about kind of the, because that, I guess for parents, for professionals for people, these are resources that, when there is a gap that might just be able to be a little bit helpful.

Kim: Yes. I've. I think I've just published, I'm just about to publish my 16th book. I'm not quite sure how that happened. Wow. Yes, there is a big back catalog of my books. It's foundational within them are the two parenting programs, nurturing attachments, foundations for attachments which have been developed as group work par programs for par for parents, particularly parents of children with traumas.

Then I was also privileged to work with Dan and Julie Hudson to do the Healing Relational Trauma book, which is like the DDP textbook. And then Dan and I wrote the workbook to go along with that. Yeah so, those are if you're interested in really pursuing DDP in the [00:46:00] parenting and across the whole model, including the therapy, those are kind of foundational books.

I've written some parenting books I've written for schools as well. For residential care, I've contributed, I should say, to colleagues who've done most of the writing for the residential care book. Yeah, there's a lot out there. I will mention I've got one book coming out this month in January.

'cause we're talking in January. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: Which is, I got it here 'cause I never remember titles. Do you 

Philippa: want just show us, 

Kim: on the screen? Yeah, I can show it. You left. I haven't got my boo on. Does is that show? Yeah. The 

Philippa: DDP Guide to Healing Childhood Trauma. A Visual and Creative Companion for parents and Practitioners.

That's really great. 

Kim: So, I've done something a little bit different in this book. I've tried to, talk about DDP through stories and my colleague, Juliet Young has, brought images into it as well for, because I'm, not an artist, I'm a wordy person. So it's very short chapters, not too much text, [00:47:00] but story and a story for each chapter.

Philippa: Yeah. Wow. 

Kim: Yeah, I'm hoping that will be accessible for, and people who don't have a lot of time to read can dip into it, read the odd story look at a little bit of text to get the context for it. So that, yeah, that's coming out on the 21st of January. 

Philippa: Okay. Yes, so we'll, put a, I'll put a link to your website and so all the resources will, be on there.

And when we put our newsletter, I'll put a few little pictures in to remind people of what we've talked about. So these books really are awful. For practitioners, some of that are going and, doing DDP, and then there are some for that, one's for parents maybe who have had some. 

Kim: I mean that one's for everybody.

Anybody across the DDP parents practitioners 

Philippa: across 

Kim: the board. But I've written books that are more aimed for parents and I've written books that are more aimed for practitioners. 

Philippa: Yeah. [00:48:00] Because I think that's useful. 'cause all often on the parenting courses that. That we do the the nine, 10 weeks and we talk about pace, but you can't do it justice, you can't cover it.

So those are really useful resources that then parents can go and find out more and, and add on to the very I suppose introductory idea of pace, which is always very helpful. So are you, go on. I 

Kim: just, the best way of learning pace is experiencing it for yourself.

So being with people who are peaceful for you. Yeah. That's way to embody it. So the books can help you put some context to that. Some richness to, what am I doing when I'm ful? 

Philippa: Yeah 

Kim: You, couldn't get it just from reading a book. 

Philippa: You, you need to, you need 

Kim: to be with people who are peaceful with you.

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: Which is why in our trainings we model the model all the way through. 

Philippa: Yeah. Yeah. And so people can come on that. So [00:49:00] just let, just tell me how, if people wanted to be a DDP practitioner 

Kim: the root there is through the DDP training. So we have level one and the level two. Yeah. So those are both 28 hours of training that will give you the model, understanding the principles, you can start to bring that into your way of working.

So the way you are already trained to work, so doesn't make you a DDP therapist or DD practitioner, you're bringing DDP into your social work or your teaching or your therapy or whatever you're trained to do. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: If you want to develop as a DDP. Practitioner then you are going on to what we call the practicum, which is su supervised.

You record your work and you're supervised by someone, and it's all on the DDP website, DDP work.org. It will tell you the route and, what that looks like. And 

Philippa: people can just work through that bit of their own pace. 

Kim: Yes, exactly. With a supervisor. Yeah. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: And the important thing is they're showing their work, so it's quite, [00:50:00] the quality of the work is, guaranteed because we are supervising somewhere in the training. You're just listening and taking what you do from it. You, there's no evaluation part of it. There's no assessment of you. So that is only it's an education. It's it, 

Philippa: yes. 

Kim: Qualify you. It's not a qualification.

Philippa: No. It just gives you like you say, the model. And do you do other trainings, Kim, that people, if they wanted to come and you do. Workshops, trainings, 

Kim: things like that. So mean, the DDP website lists everything. There's special interest groups. We also have a list of approved to DDP approved PACE trainers.

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: Who are being supervised by a DDP trainer. That's often a starting point for people is Yeah. Is that, might be one or two, or one day is very introductory. Two days gives you a reasonable grounding in pace. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Kim: Some local authorities run the. Group work programs I've written so they can be signed up to.

That [00:51:00] kind of depends where you live whether that's being delivered or not. But I do a train the trainer, so I train people who want to facilitate those groups. 

Philippa: Okay. 

Kim: Go back into social, into local authorities to deliver it. 

Philippa: Yeah. And what are for parents are those accessible training for 

Kim: parents?

The pace, training is often geared towards parents. Yeah. That's the best one for a parent who, who's exclusively I want to do, I want to bring this into my parenting. 

Philippa: Yeah, That maybe they've had a little bit of Yeah. Of knowledge or read about it, but they're like, actually I need, I want a bit more.

That would be it. 

Kim: That and the group work programs, nurture attachments and foundational attachments are for parents. 

Philippa: Excellent, excellent. Thank you. So I could ask you a million more questions, but I'm aware that we're coming to the end of our time now. But, so thank you so much for your, you're welcome.

Your time and yeah, [00:52:00] good luck with your new boot cash. You'll definitely be buying it, it looks back. Yeah. So thanks very much for your time, Kim.