Adapting BWRT for Children, Neurodiversity and Complex Presentations with Shelley Hall. Episode 10

BWRT is often taught as a structured and highly effective model, but what happens when clients don't fit neatly into a protocol?

In this episode, Clinical Psychologist Shelley Hall, an international BWRT mentor, supervisor, and developer of the BWRT-C programme for children, shares how therapists can adapt BWRT for children, neurodiverse clients, anxiety presentations, OCD, emotional overwhelm, and other complex real-world situations without losing the integrity of the model.

Together, they explore the concept of developmental readiness, why formulation matters, and how therapists can balance flexibility with clinical discipline. Shelley also discusses common mistakes practitioners make when working with highly anxious clients and explains how BWRT fits within a broader psychological understanding of the person sitting in front of us.

This conversation is particularly valuable for BWRT practitioners who want to move beyond applying techniques and deepen their clinical decision-making.

In this episode:

• What developmental readiness means and why it matters
• Adapting BWRT for children while maintaining fidelity to the model
• Key considerations when working with neurodiverse clients
• Understanding anxiety, OCD, and emotional overwhelm
• The relationship between BWRT and psychological formulation
• How experienced practitioners become more flexible without becoming less structured
• What Shelley wishes every therapist understood about BWRT

Whether you are newly trained in BWRT or have years of experience, this episode offers practical insights into applying BWRT thoughtfully, ethically, and effectively in complex clinical practice.

LinkedIn: Shelley Hall on LinkedIn

Facebook: Zululand Psychologist on Facebook

Website: Shelley Hall Clinical Psychologist

BrainWorking Recursive Therapy® (BWRT) is a fast, effective, and modern form of psychotherapy that is gaining recognition across the globe. This podcast offers a platform for BWRT professionals to share how they integrate the method into their unique therapeutic approaches. Through conversations about specializations, personal experiences, and client work, listeners gain insight into the diverse and evolving ways BWRT is being applied in practice.

To find out how to train to be a BWRT® Professional Therapist, please visit the official practitioner training site.

 If you’re looking for a BWRT® practitioner, you can also explore the BWRT Practitioner Directory.

The BWRT Podcast music was composed and produced by Edouard Van De Velde, BWRT® Practitioner and Trainer for the Netherlands.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to the BWRT Podcast, created in association with the International BWRT Institute. In this podcast, we sit down with brainworking recursive therapy practitioners, in short, BWRT practitioners, who are registered members of the Institute, and we talk about how they bring BWRT into their work. You will hear about the changes they see in their clients and how this approach is making a difference in the field of mental health and well-being. This podcast is for anyone working with people to support their growth, their healing and resilience. And it is also a way to share more about BWRT with the wider community. If you'd like to know more, or if you are interested in training either in person or online, you can visit the International BWRT Institute website to explore what is available in your country. Today I'm joined by Shelly Hall, a clinical psychologist based in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. I actually looked it up where it is and it looks very beautiful. Shelley has worked extensively across different clinical, developmental, neurodiverse trauma, anxiety, psycholegal contexts, so quite a variety of different contexts since she completed her master's degree in clinical psychology in 2003. And needless to say, Shelley is a BWRT practitioner and she holds level one to three. She is also an international mentor and supervisor for the International BWRT Institute and for BWRT South Africa. What I mostly appreciate about you, Shelley, is that you developed the BWRT for children's course. So I think it's also very, very important to mention that here in your introduction. And welcome to the show. Hello.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Thank you, Stephanie. I'm so excited to be here. As you say, because of the Notel is beautiful. It's winter, but it's about 23 degrees Celsius outside. So it's an absolutely stunning day.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Beautiful day to discuss BWRT and therapy.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Yes. Um, when you reached out that you would like to share about your experience, I was very happy because I um yeah, I did your course. I just really appreciate how you hold BWRT in the work with children, which we are also going to discuss today. I usually start this conversation with, you know, a question around how did you actually find out about BWRT? How did you get into this as a clinical psychologist? Do you want to tell us a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Absolutely. I was a really frustrated psychologist. I found myself jumping from training to training because clients would have insight, they would know what their problems were, and I would teach them these exercises, DBT, CBT, mindfulness, but nothing was really shifting. It's not that it did work at all. There were small shifts, but there wasn't really any lasting or big improvements. So I almost started to feel like a fake psychologist, not a real psychologist. People were paying all these money, they were having to come for a lot of sessions, and we just really were learning shifts. So I went off to a conference in Durban and Rafi Glockhatt was speaking about brainworking recursive therapy. And of course, it instantly grabbed my attention because it sounded like finally something that works in the brain can make permanent changes, and we didn't need a lot of sessions. So as soon as I could, I signed up for my training. And as I say, the rest is history.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

That's quite impactful.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

It was. It was just absolutely mind-blowing. I can remember because the training takes place over a weekend. I've actually just done a level one training in Durban with some psychologists and psychiatrists. So on the Monday morning, like they are this morning, I started to use it straight away. My very first client, I can remember it was a trauma case. And it was just exactly as we had done in the training. This person couldn't believe the change she was feeling. I couldn't believe that I'd managed to do this thing. I just kept going with it.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

And it worked.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

It worked.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

And you work across many different populations. Um, actually, so you work with children, you work with trauma, as you just said, uh, you also work with neurodiversity and anxiety. How do you feel? Because they are all quite different populations. Um, how BWRT can help all those different populations in a very similar effective way.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Yes, with adults too, and you know, in rooms and online. And I think what I'm always saying is that BWRT can really be adapted. There are concepts that we have to stick to, but we can be creative with those concepts. We don't have to make people fit into our model anymore. We can find ways to really open the door for them into this therapy.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Yeah. Is there any um prerequisite or any starting points that you feel a client needs to have in order to work with them with PWRT?

SPEAKER_01 5:33

So I think assent, consent is one of the most important things. You can't work with someone if you don't have that because this isn't brainwashing, this is brain working. So we really need to have the person to be able to understand we're working in the brain, and this is what we're working on. Is this what you'd like to work on? Yes. So that would be the first starting point. Can the person understand, identify the goal? You often, when you're working with children, you get a parent, a teacher, auntie, uncle, it comes in and says, I'd like my child to change this. Maybe even something silly, like I'd love my child to eat healthy food like vegetables. I've heard you can change things in people's brain. But if a child doesn't say, Yes, Shelley, I'd love to be able to eat vegetables, we're not going to get anywhere with it. So it's really just seeing, are they able to understand the goal? And then can they get the basics of this is the brain, and this is, you know, your brain has you doing or not doing things. Your brain is in charge. It's not you making the decisions. The brain gets the information in and then it allows you to do or not do. So can they get those basics? And if they can, and we've got that consent, BWRT can usually work.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

What are some things, for example, that you work with kids?

SPEAKER_01 6:56

All sorts of things. I think one of the very common things at the moment is sort of school refusal because of anxiety. And then your classic anxiety around having to stand in front of the class, present, um, writing tests, exams, you know, that going blank in exams. Some of the more traumatic things like being in a car accident, perhaps, or even choking. Choking on food and then not being able to eat anymore because you're really, really scared. Um, sleep issues, grief. Sure, just yeah, just so many things.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

Yes. It's actually um when you talk about it, I think you know that's also what adults come to therapy for. And it kids experience very similar things in life, but they have much more um maybe a different way of experiencing their environment and their own internal state. How do you see the work with kids and how you have to adapt actually to that compared to adults?

SPEAKER_01 8:06

So I think we know most children express themselves more through play. And then if we're also extending to the neurodiverse population, they might not have the verbal, not might not be very good at actually expressing or finding the feeling words. So this is why BWRT is so beautiful, is I work a lot with art, with drawing. So we can also allow someone to draw it. And they don't even have to tell us exactly what it is. As long as we have a basic understanding of what they're wanting to change and they're able to find it in some way for us to work on, we're good to go. And it's not even that somebody has to be able to sit down and sit still, it's not the preferred way of working. So I don't, this is not my go-to. But if I need to be able to incorporate movements to allow a child to jump around, I can actually do that. So it just makes it so much more accessible. Or perhaps someone is afraid of having to physically come into your office and sit with you. No problem. We can work online, we can allow the screen to create the distance. So we can really adapt the therapy to fit the person. Um and as I was saying, you know, children need to be able to make use of make-believe, of drawing, of art, also silly things like I've got this little worry monster, he's got a zip mouth that can open up, and I've got a plastic model of the brain that can fall apart if I needed to. So we can play, we can use these different things in the therapy to actually get to what it is the child is needing to work on and how they might like to feel instead of how they currently do. So adaptable.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Have you worked with kids before you did the BWRT training?

SPEAKER_01 9:49

Yes. I have training in play therapy, so I've always worked with children. Yes. I should probably mention that I came to working with children with BWRT because of my own girls. We were camping, and there are these. I'm not sure if you know what a baboon is, but they're much bigger than an average monkey, and they've got teeth like lime. They are huge and they started to bark, but it's a terrible sound, and then some of the babies started to scream. So my oldest daughter became hysterical. She was, she thought they were coming to attack us or something. And I quickly used BWRT with her, never having used with children before, probably not even very well, but it still worked. She went from this hysterical child to picking up her book and reading her book. So that inspired me. I thought I have to get find a way to help children with BWRT now.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

What gaps did you see that made you feel like you want to dedicate a course for kids with BWRT?

SPEAKER_01 10:48

So the way that you approach it with children is a little bit different. Um, and I think practitioners needed a bit of help just to adapt some of the concepts. You know, how do you explain a brain to children, for example, that we're going to be working in this brain? Um, what if a child can't keep their eyes closed and sit still? So all those sort of little things I need to find ways to help practitioners see. And also just adapting, because we work from a protocol, a very structured protocol with BWRT, adapting some of the wording around it as well made a big difference. And then, of course, if you want therapy to work well with children, you also need to bring parents in. So providing a structure for practitioners. So you interview the parents first and how you explain BWRT to them and really try to get them to be part of it. I felt that that was important. Understand the conceptualization of the child as well. And developing some techniques too. That's instead of where we would usually teach, like a breathing exercise or a muscle relaxation exercise, developing some BWRT techniques that we could teach to parents, teach to the children, that they could also use in those moments when we can't be with them.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

How do you see the biggest difference actually from working, especially now with kids and pure play therapy to incorporating um BWRT into the work with kids?

SPEAKER_01 12:20

I think again it's it's the length of time. You know, sometimes it's play therapy. You feel like this child's coming every week and you're sitting there and you're just staring at them. Literally. Not all children want to engage you in their play, and then you're just sitting there watching them, and you start to feel like, are we actually making any shifts? Or, you know, am I just taking this parent's money for their child to come and have a nice play session? Play therapy certainly does work, but you're looking at sort of 15, 20, maybe even 30 sessions. Whereas now we can still incorporate some play, we can make it fun, we can even allow a bit of free play, but we're coming with very specific goals. The child's on board, they've agreed to those goals, we've created a list often. So we are actively working on issues rather than just allowing the time for them to sort of work out for themselves and maybe sometimes not play therapy, play therapy doesn't work with every child. Not all children then reach those goals.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

When clients, I don't know how you feel about it, but when clients realize how effective it actually is, they are almost in disbelief. How do kids respond to that change that comes from a session when before there was the issue and then all of a sudden it's not there anymore?

SPEAKER_01 13:40

Um, it's it's interesting because there's there's quite a variety of reactions. You know, some children will rarely genuinely notice it and they'll come back in, they'll say, I want to do that brain thing. They're very, very excited about it. They'll tell their parents it makes them really tired. They don't even sometimes particularly like it, but they want to do it again because they're feeling so much better. Whereas others, it's kind of like, yeah, it's working. Okay, let's do the next thing. And I think it's because it's because you're working within the person's brain or child's brain, it feels so natural. We don't give them suggestions like hypnosis. We want them to activate the neural pathways, to use their own information that's already stored there. So it can just feel so natural as if I just came in and played, thought about things differently, and now I am different. It also builds a lot of self-esteem, you know, for a child, especially when it's something I think like a performance situation where they can genuinely feel I couldn't do this before, no matter how much I wanted to, but now I can actually do it. I can stand up in front of my class and I can present. I can use everything I've studied and put on that piece of paper. I'm no longer going blank. I think that's where a lot of that excitement really comes in, especially when it's something they have been struggling with.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

And and kids are just the masters in feeling, they are not in their logical mind as much as adults are, and contextualizing what they are feeling. It's always a little bit about what you're thinking, how do you relate to that? But with kids, they they feel it, they just need the words for it to name it, and then as I'm as I'm hearing you when they went through the process, the proof is in the body, the proof is in how you feel it and how you can show up at school and and at home with your friends.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Exactly. It's a big shift, isn't it? To have a body that's panicking and making your heart go too fast and you can't think your mind's blank to actually feeling calm. And we don't take all emotion away, we're not turning people into robots that have no emotion. They might now feel a bit anxious. We need anxiety for some motivation, but it's no longer so crippling that the brain goes offline and you can't do anything.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Yes, yes. Um, like many therapists are working more and more with neurodiverse clients, and you already mentioned it um in the beginning of our podcast. What are some of the considerations from your experience that are important when we as BWRT practitioners work with um neurodiverse clients?

SPEAKER_01 16:26

I think really holding and trusting that the person's brain usually picks and does the right things in the process. You know, as practitioners, we can really get stuck on what some of the rules are around uh presenting it to a person. So by that, I don't mean we get rid of our concepts such as finding the worst memory of something. What I mean is adapting it to the person. You know, so if the person can't verbalize certain things as per the usual protocol, then as long as we can find a way of making sure they are getting it in their mind, it's actually okay. As long as the person is confirming they're feeling better, they're feeling the changes, it is okay. So we don't have to get so stuck on the person really naming and being able to fully verbalize. Uh, you know, even the whole thing of imagining something, you'll often get people on who are neurodiverse saying, I can't imagine it. But of course, everybody can. I might not get a full HD video in my head, I might not get a full picture, but I've got some way of remembering. So if I say to you, what does your house look like? What does your front door look like? You've got some way of recalling it. And however you're doing that is absolutely fine. I don't know what you're seeing anyway. And that's what we have to remember as practitioners, actually trust the person's brain. It can be difficult when we're coming from other models where we're so used to being more in control, more directive of the process. But it's actually just stepping back and seeing what this person's brain is going to give us and working with that.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Yeah. How do clients respond to this space and actually the flexibility around that?

SPEAKER_01 18:16

I find they really love it because for once they're not being made to fit in with me. I'm not the one in control and all the rest of the time guiding the process. But for once they can actually truly be themselves and they have understanding that the brain is in control. They know they don't want these feelings, these behaviors, they're not choosing it, and that's a huge relief. And then they can work with me how they need to work with me. Um, I'm not forcing them to be in a certain way. So I think it's quite exciting that we can return to therapy being so client-centered, more of that rejerian kind of feel to it.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

It's a very expansive approach, actually, when I think about all those populations that in a lot of aspects of their lives they have to fit in, and they from early on they hear you cannot do that, you should not do this, don't be like that. But I cannot do it differently. I don't know how. But in a space like yours, where there is actually space to just be, you don't need to perform or mask or pretend um or or bend yourself like a pretzel so you fit the therapy. You can actually do that. Very expensive.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Nice, an exciting concept.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Yes, absolutely. And uh I mean it helps with so many different things, with so many different issues, from very heavy to what we almost think I can never get through this, I can never um let go of this. Um, I have lived with this all my life, I cannot even see a different way of being than that, to something that um you know is much easier, like maybe you can come with an example of where you felt like you know that was actually quite easy, but the client didn't know it was so easy, but I could actually bring change to them in a in a rather quick way.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Yeah. And it might just be something very simple, like you know, being able to use the toilets in a shopping mall.

unknown 20:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

How many people are unable to use the toilets in the shopping mall, especially post-COVID, because it's become such a big thing with germs? So the brain has marked it unsafe, and it doesn't matter how much they try to do it, they can't because the brain has said, absolutely not, it's not safe. So now, within a few minutes of this intervention, they were able to do so again.

unknown 20:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Yeah, and the stress change is yeah, exactly. Like you you can be out and do your shopping and enjoy yourself without constantly having to worry, oh my god, I need what if I have to, I I don't know what I have to leave, like I have to go back home. But you can actually enjoy yourself, you're much more relaxed.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

Exactly. Has lots of knock-on effects to other aspects as well that you don't even think of. Actually, enjoy your shopping and not sit with that worry monster thought in your head the whole time.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

Yes, connect with people, enjoy your time with your loved ones. Shali, what is one thing that you wish every therapist knew about BWRT? What would that be?

SPEAKER_01 21:45

I think that BWRT allows us to return to our original intention. The reason most of us became a therapist is because we genuinely want to help people feel better. So finally we have something that allows people to feel better, but not only allows people to feel better, but allows them to do it in their own way, with us guiding the process, but them really doing it for themselves, for their own brains. That's such a beautiful thing to me. And finally, finally, I can feel like a real psychologist because I'm genuinely helping people.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

Yes. That's beautiful. Shali, where can people find you if they listen to this podcast and they are interested in your work with kids, or if they want to do the course with you, if they're already BWRT practitioners, or if they're clients and they want to find um, you know, a time with you, where can they find you?

SPEAKER_01 22:53

Easiest is probably my website, www.shaleyhall.co.cda. I'm also on Instagram, Facebook, um, LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Perfect. I think you shared all your links with me, and I will put them in the show notes of this episode so people can easily click on them and be directed to your website and your social media.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

Thank you, Stephanie. I've really enjoyed this chat.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

Thank you so much for sharing a little bit about the work that you do and the change that you bring to kids and people with you know different brain structures and how they experience the world and how helpful actually BWRT is for them. So thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

My pleasure. I hope it inspires more people to work with children.

SPEAKER_00 23:44

Exactly. And we need more BWRT in the therapy community.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

I totally agree.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

If you enjoyed this episode, please do share it with colleagues, with a therapist that you know, and you think, oh, you know, they might be interested in BWRT. We have regular trainings available for level one, two, and three. The links are in the show notes of this episode, so please do share it. And if you like this episode, give us a like and a thumbs up so that more people can find out about it. I'll see you next time for another conversation on the PWRT podcast. Bye for now, I'm gonna go.