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Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP - Guest
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Registered Play Therapist Supervisor & Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. Karen returned to school to obtain her MSW at Bryn Mawr College of Social Work and Social Research in mid-life after a career in child welfare. She is known for her encouraging and down to earth approach and has been described as knowledgeable, supportive, and playful. Karen’s postgraduate education includes certificates in Gestalt Therapy, Somatic Experiencing, and Filial Therapy. In addition, she has had intensive training in Child Centered Play Therapy, sand tray therapy, Gestalt Play Therapy, trauma treatment, interpersonal neurobiology, and Internal Family Systems. Karen is in private practice in Oakland, CA and provides professional trainings, consultation, and supervision. From 2006 to 2021 she was a certified Filial Therapy trainer with the Family Enhancement and Play Therapy Center and currently a Filial Therapy supervisor with the National Institute for Relationship Enhancement (NIRE). |
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W. Keith Sutton, Psy.D. - Host
Dr. Sutton has always had an interest in learning from multiple theoretical perspectives, and keeping up to date on innovations and integrations. He is interested in the development of ideas, and using research to show effectiveness in treatment and refine treatments. In 2009 he started the Institute for the Advancement of Psychotherapy, providing a one-way mirror training in family therapy with James Keim, LCSW. Next, he added a trainer and one-way mirror training in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and an additional trainer and mirror in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy. The participants enjoyed analyzing cases, keeping each other up to date on research, and discussing what they were learning. This focus on integrating and evolving their approaches to helping children, adolescents, families, couples, and individuals lead to the Institute for the Advancement of Psychotherapy's training program for therapists, and its group practice of like-minded clinicians who were dedicated to learning, innovating, and advancing the field of psychotherapy. Our podcast, Therapy on the Cutting Edge, is an extension of this wish to learn, integrate, stay up to date, and share this passion for the advancement of the field with other practitioners. |
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (00:22):
Welcome to therapy on the cutting edge, a podcast for therapists who want to be up to date on the latest advancements in the field of psychotherapy. I'm your host, Keith Sutton, a psychologist in the San Francisco bay area and the director of the Institute for the advancement of psychotherapy. Today, I'll be speaking with Karen Pernet, who is a licensed clinical social worker, registered play therapist, supervised licensed clinical social worker, registered play therapist supervisor, and somatic experiencing practitioner. Karen returned to school to obtain her MSW at Brian Mar College of Social Work and Social Research in midlife after a career in child welfare. She's known for her encouraging and down-to-earth approach and has been described as knowledgeable, supportive, and playful. Karen's postgraduate education includes certificates in gestalt therapy, somatic experience, and heliotherapy. In addition, she has had intensive training in child-centered play therapy, sand tray therapy, gestalt play therapy, trauma treatment, interpersonal neurobiology, and internal family systems. Karen is in private practice in Oakland, California, and provides professional trainings, consultation and supervision. From 2006 to 2021 she was a certified therapy trainer with the Family Enhancement and Play Therapy Center. And currently heliotherapy supervisor with the National Institute of a Relationship Enhancement. Let's listen to the interview.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (01:51):
Well, welcome Karen. Thanks for joining me today.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (01:55):
Well, thank you, it's been interesting and fun to be here.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (01:58):
Yeah. So Karen, I forget exactly how we originally connected, but you had been part of my group practice many years ago and had done a number of trainings for us on your work with children and play therapy and families. I know you've got a history of doing some training and I think research around, helio-family therapy. I've been able to bring my own kids to your office, and my daughter when she was little with your so many figurines and just walls and walls of toys. It was amazing. So yeah, would love to hear about your work and before we kind of get to that, you know, how you got to doing what you're doing, you know, I'm always interested in the evolution of folks' kind of thinking.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (02:41):
So, I went to graduate school in midlife, in my forties, before that I worked for children in youth, child welfare in Philadelphia for many years. I also had two children, who by the time I went to graduate school, were mostly grown. So when I worked for children in youth there, I would come in contact with play therapists, but it didn't make any sense to me. I absolutely did not understand what they were doing. It was like, "Okay, but I don't get it. Your therapy work is not tuned into the presenting problem," was how I thought at the time. I went to graduate school, I learned a lot. I loved my graduate school, which I'm a social worker. And there was nothing really directly on working with children. After graduate school I would say I served my time, meaning I owed the agency two years. And then I worked for a family. Then I went to work for a family therapy agency. Well, of course, in a family therapy agency, there are families, and children. And so I realized that I had no experience doing therapy with children. And so in the break room of this agency, there was stuff on the bulletin board and one of the items was play therapy, play therapy training. So that was what originally peaked my interest. And this agency also had an art therapist come in, and that was not play therapy, but in that realm of nonverbal therapies. After graduate school, I studied gestalt therapy.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (04:44):
And in my interest in play therapy, I learned that there was a gestalt play therapist named Violet Oakland, who is just an amazing, wonderful person who died. She just died in her guess late eighties recently. I was lucky enough to go take a two week training with her, which actually it was my first visit to California in Santa Barbara. And I was just enamored with combining gestalt therapy and play. And it was a tremendous self-growth for me also. Then back to Philadelphia, back to working with kids and families. And I realized I was missing another big piece, which was child development. I didn't feel that I had a solid understanding of the child development that I would need if I'm gonna work with families and kids. And it so happened that in my neighborhood, like three blocks away, a woman named Dotty Higgins Klein started a family and play therapy training institute.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (05:58):
And so she was offering a two year course in child development. So I was like, "Okay, well, this is just, meant to be!" Her specialty was a combination of child-centered play therapy and mindfulness. So I then started learning about child-centered play therapy, which is basically -- what's his name? Carl Roger. It's basically rogerian therapy that was developed by Virginia Axline into working into a version where you could work with children, where basically the child needs the play. And so then I continued, I did an internship at the Family and Play Therapy Institute doing primarily play therapy with children, with some involvement with parents, but there was, I was dissatisfied. Because I didn't feel that parents were sufficiently involved. Well at this program, Dotty had different play therapists, well-known play therapists come and do, trainings like for small group trainings, and one of them was Louise Guerney. Louise Guerney and her husband developed filio therapy, and filio therapy -- filio is not a common word. And she often said she regretted calling it that, but that's what it's called. And her meaning of it was parent and child. And so what filio therapy is, is teaching parents how to do non-directed play sessions with their children, and doing it in a, what's the word I want, parent-child, like one a diet (incoherent). Doing it dietically with one parent and child at a time. And the therapist teaches, supervises, and helps. The goal is to move the sessions to home and apply it to regular life so that you're getting to the underlying issues. And you're really working on the relationship between parent and child in a different kind of way where the parent gets to see their child.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (08:18):
So I was so excited about this, that I did what I would not recommend anybody do, but I went to this all day training. I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna do this." And I had a very difficult situation that I was working with where a mom, she was a black mom raised in foster care, had lost two children to the system already, and was on the brink of losing her little five year old, who was quite challenging. And she was of the belief that unfortunately, a lot of parents of all kinds have that, "If my loved me, they would obey me." And so for her, her child didn't love her. And so we did a version beginning version of filio therapy. And I taught basically she and I played with her son and I led the way.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (09:12):
And in this play, she began to see him for who he was. She began to see that his behavior was not because he was disobedient, but because he was in the state of turmoil because of the circumstances of his life, which included her, dropping him off with his father who was a drug dealer. And so you can imagine, and even more importantly or more, what really, I guess what really grabbed me was during this one session, he took this little bunch of little mini bunch of plastic flowers that he had, and he gave it to his mom. And he said, I love you. And it was like, I don't know. It was like, she never heard the words before she didn't, or she never took it in. But it just was such a change. And it made this shift and she began to see him for who he was and that she needed to make some changes and what she was doing, especially dropping him off with his father was not a good thing. And so I always say, I don't think she became mother of the year, but she became the mother that this boy needed. And as I was able to go back to the, the child welfare system and say, this child can stay, should my recommendation is this child stay with the mom. So that was the beginning. And then I decided, okay, then I need to get some training because surely a one day workshop is not sufficient. And so, there was two, there was a first side training with a man named, Barry Ginsburg who was local to Philadelphia and was very well-known in the Philly community. And then I later found another woman who lived in mid-state Pennsylvania, Rise VanFleet. And I trained with her for a number of years and ultimately became a trainer, filio therapy trainer myself.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (11:18):
So that was my kind of story. I'm currently not with her any longer, but I'm with the original institute that that the Guerneys founded, and then also just backtracking a little bit. Because I wanna talk about sand tray. I never heard of sand tray in Philadelphia. I was like, I don't know what this is. This is back in the nineties -- mid nineties. So when I went to Violet Oakland, she among had all kinds of expressive arts as part of her play therapy, training, and sand tray was one of them. And I was, again, I was enamored. I loved miniatures as a child. If I could've built my room with doll houses and toys, I would've done it, which I think was part of it. But I also, what I also loved about sand tray was that it, unlike art, there was no talent that was involved because the objects were there and they called to that same part of us, that right hemisphere part of us to express what's going on more deeply. So kind of simultaneously, I fell in love with sand tray, and then a little bit later, I fell in love with filio therapy and I have continued those interests to the present.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (12:46):
Oh, great. Wonderful. Yeah. And I forget too, had you been involved with the writing of a manual or doing some research or so on at one of the programs? I might be mixing that up.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (12:59):
No, you're not mixing it up. It's an incomplete <laugh>.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (13:02):
Ah, got it. Got it.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (13:03):
So one of the things in Philadelphia that was really, just again, it was like very happenstance in a way that we got involved. So I had a colleague, her name's Wendy Kaplan, and I always sort of drug Wendy along with me in whatever my interests were. She also, she was a psychologist. She was also interested in working with children. So yeah. Anyway, after we had learned filio and she took the trainings with me,
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (13:35):
I mean, along with me, not by me. We had an opportunity to apply for a grant with the city of Philadelphia they were doing child abuse prevention and they had like a number of different, programs that they were funding. And because of, well, I think because we had something really worthwhile to offer, but also because I had worked for the department because she also had some contacts with the funders. And we had a good program, we were able to get funding. And what we did was we took Filial therapy, which actually was originally meant as a group program, designed as a group program. And we made it into a parenting program that was geared towards high-risk families, and it was open to the public. There was no charge, but there was a definite, you know, outreach to high-risk families. So we ran this program for probably about six years, and then what happened is, then we trained the staff and we worked with a children's mental health preschool. After we stopped, we trained the staff to do the program. We were supposed to write a manual, Andy and I, but that is incomplete, however, the program was, there was research given to the program, and we got high, you know, high marks.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (15:13):
Oh, good, good, wonderful.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (15:14):
And I think it may still be going on actually.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (15:16):
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. You know, from my understanding a lot of times when, you know, the play therapy with children is more from a psychodynamic perspective. And so sometimes that, you know, kind of creates these boundaries about involving parents or, you know, having them as collateral or so on. And, and sometimes the way I've heard it is, you know, the goal is to kind of create that attachment between the therapist and the child and kind of the reparenting work. But it sounds like you're doing something different where you're actually kind of building a relationship and then you're kind of helping to strengthen the relationship between the child and the parent for their kind of actual attachment figure.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (15:57):
That's a really, really great question because that gets to where Filial therapy came from. So Filial therapy and child-centered therapy, which is the core of Filial therapy. That's what we're teaching parents, non-directive play sessions, child-centered play therapy is not psychodynamic. Child-centered play therapy is basically child-led with the parents or the therapist creating safety by limiting setting and structure. But the essence of the play is the child is in charge with the understanding that the healing comes from within and from the relationship with the person with, I mean, with the person, whether it's therapist or parent. So back in the sixties, when Filial was developed, the guerneys were child-centered play therapists, and they were working out of a university in Pennsylvania or New Jersey rather. And they got the idea that if basically, if child-centered play therapy is so good for children and healing for children well, and the relationship is with the parent.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (17:18):
I mean, not with the parent, the relationship is with the therapist and the child, and that's the relationship that's getting strengthened that is safe, that is accepting, and all those wonderful things, wouldn't it be better if we involved the parents and trained them, and had the therapist train the parents, how to do this therapy, this non-directive therapy with their own child, because then we would be working on strengthening the relationship between a few things, parent and child, which is, and by well, by helping the parent, in child-centered or Filial therapy the child is the teacher of who he or she, or they are. And that's very different for parents because parents' job, so to speak, is teaching their child how to grow into the person that, you know, they should be, or they want to be, or will become.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (18:26):
So it can be often hard for parents to make the switch and say, in this time, not all the time, not not saying do this, you know, 24 7, but in this period of time in these play sessions, which are a half an hour, for the actual play session, let the child lead the play and the child is gonna let you know what is going on with them. And we, the professional will help you to kind of, to do this, teach you the skills, but also to understand what the meaning of this might be and how it relates to the presenting problem. So that is where it got started at the time.There was a lot of opposition to it from the profession, not from parents. From the professional community, for kind of the reasons that you say that you're talking about.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (19:19):
Well, you know, you don't, that, that means that the parents are going to, you know, get into basically be therapists. We're not training the parents, you know? Yeah. And, and, and also the thinking in the professional community at the time was because this was kind of the pre-family therapy also. So we're very much into psychodynamic time where, you know, if children needed therapy, the child would see a therapist. If the, and the parents, hopefully they would be in therapy, individual therapy. So, and then maybe everything would get worked out and they'd all go back together. Uh, you know, I'm simplifying things well,
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (20:02):
And I think there is still a lot of agencies that do that. They'll give everybody, every kid, a different therapist or every, you know, the parent, a therapist and so on, but never actually having them together.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (20:12):
Right. Right. So, so that, so anyway, so the professional community was like, well, parents, basically, if the child needs therapy, then the parents cause the problem. So you can't possibly put them together. Basically. Um, so that was the opposition. And so the Gurneys and they later taught for years and years at Penn state and they, as teachers, they had lots of students who needed Detroit dissertations as I'm sure, you know, as a psychologist. So they had research that was built in. So partly, you know, because of the opposition, but any, but I think they would've had research anyway, but Louise Gurney would say, if, look, if this doesn't, if the research doesn't hold up, then we'll come up with something else. Yeah. It wasn't that it had to be Filial. But over the years there's been a lot of research on Filial therapy, and it has come up, there was a big research study. It was written kind of underwritten by the, I think, or undertaken by the university of North Texas a while back sometime in the twenties, two thousand rather. However it came out that Filial therapy was the most effective kind of play therapy.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (21:32):
Oh, great. Wow.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (21:33):
So it's well, at this point, well established, um, when I'm moved out to California in 2006, nobody knew what I was talking about. Yeah. Yeah. So that was kind of, I decided, well, this must be what I'm supposed to be doing then is bringing physiotherapy at least to this part of California, to central California.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (21:56):
Yeah. That's wonderful. Yeah. I, I think that, you know, oftentimes, uh, many people, even when I was in grad school, I was in the child and family track, and most of the therapists who were, you know, folks that were getting their doctorate all pretty much wanted to do individual therapy, uh, play therapy with the kids. And you know, sometimes I think that maybe I wouldn't say easier, but sometimes it's a little more comfortable for the therapist to just be working with the kid and not with the parent and child together. Um, you know, and, and uh, sometimes you know, that that kind of bridging that gap can be, can be difficult. Or like you're saying sometimes the therapist jumps to conclusion that, oh, it's a parent that's causing this. But again, kind of not thinking about how we can change this in the system.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (22:38):
Right. Yeah. I mean, I think that's true. A lot of play therapists really love working with children and it's wonderful. I mean, I love, I too love and have loved over the years, working with children and have learned so much. Working with parents is a very different thing. And it took me a while to, uh, fully understand what I might see as resistance from a parent is actually I had to remember back to who I used, who I was when I didn't understand how play therapy worked at all.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (23:15):
Yeah.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (23:17):
And, and so I came to understand, well, parents, there is no reason that anybody but a play therapist, including therapists that work with adults, should really understand how the value of play and what play is, you know, the essence of it and what it's really about and how play is in metaphor. It's not straight out not gonna do cognitive behavioral therapy, normal cognitive behavior therapy with a child because that's not where they are developmentally. And so it was really, it was just really helpful for me to realize, okay, my job is when I'm working with parents or teaching therapists to work to do this work is to help educate the parent about what is play and listen to what they have to say, or what is play therapy. And also the value of play, which is very undervalued in our, in our world, in our society.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (24:15):
Yeah. How do you talk about that with parents to kind of bring them into this world of seeing play as, as a language, rather than just you know, kind of something the kids are doing with their time?
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (24:27):
That's a very good question. I just have to think for a minute. So sometimes I will, well, first of all, start by saying, as you just said, play is the language of children. Well, what does that mean? If play is your language. So why, you know, why would that be the case? So then I might talk a little bit about how we have the left and the right hemisphere or two parts to our brain. And our, the part that we come with in terms of from birth and early childhood is the nonverbal right hemisphere, which is where emotions are, and for the most part attachment and creativity and play and play is how all humans, mammals, probably birds. I don't know so much about that pre-mamal. I mean, earlier things, but play is where that is part of an essential part of development.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (25:38):
But because it doesn't have words for the most part then, or it doesn't have certainly doesn't have adult words, children who play do not play in adult words, then it doesn't seem sensible in a way that play should be helpful because it's not what we would think of as help. Yeah. So the other piece of this is a talk about the difference between the presenting problem rather than the underlying issue, and it's very easy to give examples of how that works. I mean, sometimes I'll say, well, like if your car doesn't start, that's the problem. But you don't know why it's not starting. Is it out of gas? Do you need a starter? and so forth. Or if, you know, if you have a headache and you decide to take aspirin, but you have repeated headaches, there's probably another problem there, but you don't know what that is.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (26:48):
And if you don't know the underlying issue, then you're not going to come up with the right solution. What play does, non-directive and also directive play, is it allows the child to let you know what the underlying issue is. So what can look like the same problem, like let's say temper tantrums. Biggie. Right. Well, you don't know because a child is having frequent temper tantrums what the issue is. Do they have a sensory issue? Do they have a situation where there's big sibling rivalry that's never been recognized? I mean, there's all kinds of things. Recently, somebody who consults with me gave this really totally extreme example, but it really, helps to understand where this goes.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (27:45):
She, the therapist, was seeing an eight year old, who was starving herself. She had started about three months before, and there were two babies in this family, like a two-year-old and a newborn, I think. This girl was starving herself to the point that she had to be hospitalized. And when she came back, well, I kept saying, if there's a problem that started a certain time, then it'd be really be good to figure out what happened during that time. And conceivably, I mean, if with an eight year old and two siblings, two babies, you might think it might have something to do with a sibling issue while it turned out that what happened was her mother had been been bedridden.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (28:49):
During the pregnancy. And one day, forgot to feed her, that little girl. And somehow, this became that if her mother would, in this child's mind, if her mother would feed her, then her mother would die or something like that. And this came out in a session, and I wasn't there, so I don't remember the exact details, but through drawing or play or a nonverbal thing, that that was what this girl was carrying with her. And so she wasn't eating. And so once that became clear, they were able to, you know, talk about it, deal with it, help her understand that, you know, what the truth was. And now, like I said, that is extreme. But it was such a powerful example of how that happens. I actually had an example myself of this child, and I just think this is so valuable.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (30:00):
So I was seeing a family, a dad and two children and the mom had died of cancer about a year before. The youngest boy was eight, and the older boy was 11 or so. And the younger boy had never cried. And this family, they were very intelligent children, and they were very open about what happened to the mom. So she died. It was hospice. They knew that she was dying. The children went to a funeral. There was nothing hidden. There were no secrets. But the boy, one day in the family session, he kind of, all of a sudden, he said, “I know where mom is. She ran away from home. She told us that if we didn't listen, she was gonna run away.”
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (30:59):
And we were like, because there was the reality, but he couldn't deal. I mean, he was just so in his state of denial of grief that even though that was the reality, he couldn't accept it. And so that's the kind of thing like you don't know from the presenting problem, what the underlying issue is, and that's a really big way to help parents to see why play, what play does, how play allows a child to safely, let us know what it is that's going on with them. And it's a metaphor, usually, so it's not always exactly easy to understand, but in child-centered Filial, I say, not by myself in saying this, we don't really have to understand. I mean, yes, we, as adults, we want to understand, we want to know what's going on. But in terms of the child, they don't care if we know what it's all about. They care that we're present that we're accepting what they're doing as long as it's safe. That’s what they need to do during this special time. Yeah. That has a clear beginning and a clear end to it. So it keeps, it kind of differentiates it from regular daily life, just like a therapy session does.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (32:24):
Definitely. Yeah. It's kind of creating that space. Right. And, I think about it too, with the younger children in play. I do some, you know, work with younger children, but more adolescents, you know, with the adolescents, you know, we're kind of helping create that space for them to talk to their parents about kind of what's going on. And teaching parents on how to draw them out. And I kind of conceptualize it with the child work that, you know, by teaching parents, some of these play therapy skills and so on, we're helping them create that space and to draw the kids out, to be able to share some of these emotions and so on, which might come out in metaphor, might come out directly in a drawing or, you know, these kinds of things. And so, you know, yeah. Really giving them the tools of the therapist. So that eventually, I say, that they can eventually put me out of a job.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (33:14):
Great. Exactly.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (33:15):
On there. Um, exactly.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (33:19):
Yeah. The one difference, the one thing I didn't say about Filial, is that it's done diadically and hopefully, every diad, every parent-child diad that is, meaning whoever it is, that's taking care of the child, so that every parent-child diad, that that relationship would get like, uh, what's the word I want not improved -
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (33:50):
Strengthening it.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (33:51):
It strengthened. Thank you. That every relationship would be strengthened and in that way, it's considered a family therapy, which is different than other kinds of, you know, family therapy where it's the whole family or part of the family, or yeah. You know, however that goes.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (34:12):
So often it's just, you know, particularly in, in kind of, um, a gender normative heterosexual family that, if there's both parents, you know, that it might just be the mother and the child, and sometimes therapists don't also include the father, or it sounds like you're saying that you kind of work with both that, or if there's, you know, blended family or, you know, that those kinds of older people.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (34:34):
Ideally.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (34:35):
Caregivers. That might be involved.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (34:37):
Yeah. Ideally, of course, that doesn't always happen, and there's reality, but ideally, we want to involve every diad. And if it were some older kids, like teens in the family, then you would substitute some kind of special time that wouldn't be play. So a half hour a week. Once the parents trained, so a half-hour week where the parent and child would do something that the child wanted to do, but not buying things of course.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (35:06):
Sure, sure. Yeah. It reminds me of, parent-child interaction therapy kind of, where they first start off with some kind of non-directed play where they're doing some reinforcement, or there's that, uh, I think they use the acronym drip or pride of like describing reflecting, imitating, praise and so on. When I was working at a preschool my first year in grad school, we were kind of taught to do that with the kids, and the kids just loved it when you followed along, and kind of imitated what they were doing and kind of them having the lead really, seemed to really light them up.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (35:39):
Oh yeah. Yeah. Because it's so different because kids don't really, they don't have the power. The one difference though, is with the praise in child-centered and Filial, you don't use praise because praise is directive, just like you wouldn't criticize. You know, you want the child to be able to, um, you know, follow themselves. You're really working on helping a child develop their core sense of self by giving them this kind of opportunity. Along with, and it's not like you wouldn't use praise in regular life. You would. Because praise is about encouraging a child to do something a certain way. You use encouragement if that fits and you certainly use lots of, and I mean, the tools are reflection, um, you know, and deepening the reflection and taking on joining in the play, if the child wants you to include role play, but always you're always following the child's lead.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (36:44):
Yeah. And you know, sand tray and art, is also helpful with adults too and adolescents, right. I mean, it's kind of helping to access that right brain, kind of that creative part or that nonverbal and, and, you know, various ways of expressing oneself or even kind of accessing, you know, underlying beliefs or unconscious thinking. Um, do you do that at all with the parents, and kind of bring that piece in with the kids?
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (37:13):
You mean separately or activities together?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (37:15):
Separately or together, or, yeah.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (37:17):
Yeah, absolutely. There are all kinds of family, art activities, and family play activities that you can do together. And I think that's wonderful too. One of the things that's kind of fun to do I learned from a play therapist named Eliana Gill. Who's also an art therapist. She's wonderful, wonderful person. I smile when I think of her, not only because I've been lucky enough to be at number of her trainings, but also she was one of the people that got me started when I came out to California and was like a lost soul, what do I do now? And she introduced wonderful people to me at Alameda Family Service. But she has just really a whole set of wonderful activities to do with, families, and one of them, in fact, the family that I was talking about with the boy who couldn't come to terms with his mom dying,
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (38:16):
it so happened that Eliana Gill was in Philadelphia, where I was studying and working with this family, came to a training, and she did a session with the puppet show. She has this wonderful puppet show involving the whole family. Where the family, creates the puppet show and the therapist is the audience. And I don't remember if she does this or not, but I video tape it. And then I play it back for the family. And then the idea is that you interview the puppet characters, and then you ultimately ask, you know, whatever the theme of it is, bring that up in real life. So you go through these stages where you're actually working with, you know, both creativity, non-direction, metaphor, and then bringing it, finding ways to, to bring it.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (39:14):
There's kinda a whole process that you go through.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (39:15):
You have a whole process. Right.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (39:17):
Oh, wonderful.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (39:18):
It is always so interesting. I so enjoy how much the families love. We don't do this and not, they love seeing themselves on videotape and with equipment we have today, especially iPad because it's big enough, to do this, it's easy, you know, you can just play it right back.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (39:40):
Oh, great. Wonderful. Yeah. I imagine I was gonna say, I imagine a lot of the therapists coming to you are already kind of, you know, interested in play, or so on, but I was wondering about, um, yeah. What do you find when you’re kind of either helping therapists to be able to play more or helping parents to be able to play more, do you ever run into any challenges around that? Or is that something that most people can pick up pretty quickly?
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (40:10):
Oh yeah. It's very, you know, it can be extremely challenging. I'm making it sound like it's easy, but it's not. Um, so the parents that are the easiest to teach in my experience have been, like people that are really tuned into child development actually, because they just kind of get like where the child is and when you're following a child. And anyway, they're familiar with the basic territory. Some of the parents that are the hardest are the very, sometimes teachers of older kids and intellectuals, because you're teaching non-directive, you're teaching that the child is in charge of the play. So the charge the child can call, you know, a dog, a dinosaur, they want Uhhuh <affirmative> and there's this, no, no, that's a dog.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (41:23):
Or that's a, you know, certain kind of dog or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. So there's kind of like, that's, it's great that you wanna teach your child, but I always go back to the child, your teacher, some parents, I, I'm not successful with every parent. I don't know anybody that is, but it's really with parents, I think with parents and therapists, there's two different, two different issues. Parents are usually pretty anxious about doing this because you're asking them to let go of being of their regular role as of being in charge as a parent. And so the role of the therapist is really to be as reflective with the parent as they are, if they were doing the play therapy, because you're asking the parent to be reflective with their child. And the child's not necessarily gonna do what the parent wants them to do. I mean, usually children in play are very, uh, or can be, you know, uh, very directive to the parent. Right now you are the student, oh, I'm the teacher you flunked. But what they're saying is this is what I feel like anyway. So, so some examples with parents are helpful and some parents just, you know, sometimes it just, it doesn't work.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (42:55):
Yeah.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (42:55):
Yeah. It's not like Filial, like anything else always works with therapists. Well, people, I mean, generally people that come for training and play therapy are interested in play. Right. Um, I mean I can remember experiences where I, I remember one experience early where I went to talk to a social work class and there, I remember, and I was talking about, I guess I was talking about play, but I was also talking about reflective listening and I remember this one student saying, and I always do it like a little exercise to so that, you know, a diad where one person listens and the other person does something playful with a character. And it's told, you know, you can't ask questions, just listen and reflect. Um, but I remember this one guy saying “I'm never gonna do this”.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (43:48):
<laugh>
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (43:49):
“I've never worked with kids. I'm never gonna do this”. I was like, okay. <laugh>
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (43:54):
Yeah. I think it ends up being intimidating for some folks I think, or going into uncomfortable space or their own kind of experiential, like even with, uh, you know, some parents that I work with, you know, sometimes they're like, oh, like I don't like to play because
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (44:07):
Of right.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (44:09):
You know, kind, um, uh, dysregulating, you know, to kind of not have the structure, just be kind of following or so on.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (44:16):
So one of the gifts that I got from particularly Risa Van Fleet, teaching Filial was humor.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (44:24):
Mm.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (44:25):
Humor is actually, this doesn't happen. It can't, it can't really happen. And you can't train parents without humor and play is about humor. I mean it, you know, play in humor, they kind of go together. So when I have interested a parent sufficiently that I get the opportunity to train them, and this goes with therapists also at comfort trainings, um, I create very ridiculous situations. And where that are so bizarre. There was this one dad who was just had a really hard time being in any way kind of playful. He was very serious. And I made the situation where I role play the child when I teach. So I told him he was a clown standing one foot. Then at one point, I made him a snake.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (45:27):
Uh-huh.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (45:28):
So that he couldn't speak. And I told him, you can't, you started to talk, I'm a snake. I said, no, you have to be a snake. Snakes don’t talk. You as a therapist, have to be playful.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (45:37):
Yes. Yes.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (45:38):
And so it's the creative, I think the creative piece of how to teach in a way that gets past the anxiety. A lot of it's anxiety, as you said.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (45:52):
You kind of have to have confidence too, to be able to be that goofy with a client or with, you know, parents or things like that. The kids are easy. Usually. Um,
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (45:59):
Kids are usually. Although there's another thing that happens a lot that this reminds me of is you get kids who are very intellectualized beyond their age. And I always try to find the playful place with them or encourage therapists, particularly. Parents will say, my child doesn't need to play. They're too grown, you know? And they're like seven.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (46:28):
Yeah.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (46:28):
And I said, that's the problem, because that means that child is disconnected from this whole part of themselves. That's about creativity and sensory learning and just all those things that make us human. So, um, there's a lot of science and neuroscience that really backs the value of play. And so depending on who you're talking, who, you know, who I'm talking to or who you're talking to, you vary the approach. So sometimes explaining it or talking about it more scientifically with therapists also, as well as parents, because therapists really need to understand, well, why is this valuable is not play for some other to get to some other means it's, it's play for getting to the core self.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (47:24):
Yeah. The play in and of itself is the core value rather than, uh, it being a means to an end.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (47:29):
Now you had mentioned about wanting to go back to the sand tray. Can you talk more about that?
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (47:35):
Sure. You know, I love to talk about sand tray. So sand tray is, you know, on one hand, well, first of all, sand tray is really wonderful for people of all ages. It's not just for children. And once that's understood even teens who can be reluctant because this is a baby thing, you know, I don't do that once they realize that it's really not for children. I mean, not just for children, obviously children do it, but they do it in a different way. So on one hand, sand tray seems like, why should this what's the big deal? It's a container, a box of some kind and it's got sand in it, and then there's miniatures that are supposed to represent all aspects of the world. So why, why that, what does that do? You know, but it allows for a lot of things to go on at the same time, even the sand, even sand itself, for most people, not everybody for most people, is very soothing, is very calming.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (48:41):
Some therapists just have some sand in their office, just to have adults as well as children just put their hands in it. Yeah. Because of that, a container, um, creates a, you know, a limit, a boundary and the miniatures allow for people to go deeper into what might be going on, what is going on under the surface. And yeah. It's like, it's almost like a conversation with the right hemisphere. And I tell, you know, whether it's clients or therapists, um, tell them there's only one rule in my office, there's only one rule about sand tray. And that is when you are choosing objects, let your heart, let your hand choose the objects. Don't try to use to figure out what it is you're going to say or do or create because if you do, you're cutting off your inner wisdom. Sand tray is like, like waking dream really.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (49:54):
It’s very much in that same part of our, our being. Kids do sand tray, usually in different ways than adults, because they're different. They tend to tell stories, action stories. It'd be very unusual for an adult or even a teen to do that. Adults do sand tray generally quietly. 90% of the time, they don't talk while they're creating a sand tray. So they're going into a deeper space and the goal is, like I said, it's like having this conversation with the deeper part of yourself, because the way I, I do it, everybody does different ways of doing things, but the way I've learned to do it is have the person look at the tray, take a few moments to really take it in and then begin to talk about the tray. And the therapist is to help the person go role is to help go deeper into what they're saying, not to interpret. I'm not, as you might guess, I'm not into interpretation,
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (51:03):
Sure. Sure. Got it.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP(51:04):
And when I train therapists to do sand tray, I say, okay, another rule for training therapists do not ask why.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (51:14):
Uhhuh. Mm-hmm
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (51:15):
Do not ask why, because why means that you're switching out of that deeper self and you're going into a cognitive place and it's going to take you away from what you really can get out of it. The “why” you'll come to that. If you let the process happen, you will arrive at it, or you'll arrive at, I don't know, and that's okay, too. But, so what I've discovered in doing my own sand trays and, and helping people do sand tray, teaching sand tray, is that it's always a discovery. There's always, if a person allows themselves to get into it, there's something that will come up. That's not what they expected and that's helpful. That's useful. It's like, okay. Oh, I didn't know that I was still grieving about my father. Let's say. Or I didn't know I wanted to quit this job. I really hate it cause the agency is squashing me.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (52:21):
Well, I imagine too, there's that aspect of, I know you talked about your gestalt training and, and kind of that, you know, putting that into the, the play or the sand tray, you know, I imagine kind of, that's also kind of allowing that space for it to, to unfold.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (52:35):
Yeah. Um, yes. And a Gestalt approach is pretty much the same as it would be for dreams, that everything that let's say it's my sand tray, everything I put into the sand tray is me, is a part of me. So therefore I can have, I can look at the tray. I can see where there might be oppositions in the tray. Um, I can have the characters talk to each other. The sand is also part of the world, obviously, so I can have the sand speak. So that's the underlying framework and, so it's another way of using, you know, Gestalt ideas of working with polarities. That's the word I want working with polarities.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (53:30):
Yeah. Wonderful. Well, you're doing such great work and I'm so glad that you're training, you know, therapists in this approach. And really, you know, I think that this aspect of the non-directive, but at the same time, kind of not interpretive as well as kind of bringing in the family, and helping to train them as, you know, kind of the, the play therapist are such unique pieces that I think are so important. So I'm so glad that you're continuing to train and supervise folks in, in this approach and bringing it out here to the West Coast. Um, because it's definitely been wonderful me for me to learn from you. And I know a lot of folks have, have really enjoyed it. Well, thank you so much for coming on today. I really appreciate it. And, you know, I know that you've got a number of different trainings and so on and, we can put a link to that in your bio and so on on the website. Um, but yeah, this is wonderful. Thank you so much for spending time today. Speaking about your work.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (54:26):
Thank you. Thank you for having me. Great.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (54:28):
Good pleasure. Good to see you. Take care.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (54:31):
Bye bye.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (54:33):
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Welcome to therapy on the cutting edge, a podcast for therapists who want to be up to date on the latest advancements in the field of psychotherapy. I'm your host, Keith Sutton, a psychologist in the San Francisco bay area and the director of the Institute for the advancement of psychotherapy. Today, I'll be speaking with Karen Pernet, who is a licensed clinical social worker, registered play therapist, supervised licensed clinical social worker, registered play therapist supervisor, and somatic experiencing practitioner. Karen returned to school to obtain her MSW at Brian Mar College of Social Work and Social Research in midlife after a career in child welfare. She's known for her encouraging and down-to-earth approach and has been described as knowledgeable, supportive, and playful. Karen's postgraduate education includes certificates in gestalt therapy, somatic experience, and heliotherapy. In addition, she has had intensive training in child-centered play therapy, sand tray therapy, gestalt play therapy, trauma treatment, interpersonal neurobiology, and internal family systems. Karen is in private practice in Oakland, California, and provides professional trainings, consultation and supervision. From 2006 to 2021 she was a certified therapy trainer with the Family Enhancement and Play Therapy Center. And currently heliotherapy supervisor with the National Institute of a Relationship Enhancement. Let's listen to the interview.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (01:51):
Well, welcome Karen. Thanks for joining me today.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (01:55):
Well, thank you, it's been interesting and fun to be here.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (01:58):
Yeah. So Karen, I forget exactly how we originally connected, but you had been part of my group practice many years ago and had done a number of trainings for us on your work with children and play therapy and families. I know you've got a history of doing some training and I think research around, helio-family therapy. I've been able to bring my own kids to your office, and my daughter when she was little with your so many figurines and just walls and walls of toys. It was amazing. So yeah, would love to hear about your work and before we kind of get to that, you know, how you got to doing what you're doing, you know, I'm always interested in the evolution of folks' kind of thinking.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (02:41):
So, I went to graduate school in midlife, in my forties, before that I worked for children in youth, child welfare in Philadelphia for many years. I also had two children, who by the time I went to graduate school, were mostly grown. So when I worked for children in youth there, I would come in contact with play therapists, but it didn't make any sense to me. I absolutely did not understand what they were doing. It was like, "Okay, but I don't get it. Your therapy work is not tuned into the presenting problem," was how I thought at the time. I went to graduate school, I learned a lot. I loved my graduate school, which I'm a social worker. And there was nothing really directly on working with children. After graduate school I would say I served my time, meaning I owed the agency two years. And then I worked for a family. Then I went to work for a family therapy agency. Well, of course, in a family therapy agency, there are families, and children. And so I realized that I had no experience doing therapy with children. And so in the break room of this agency, there was stuff on the bulletin board and one of the items was play therapy, play therapy training. So that was what originally peaked my interest. And this agency also had an art therapist come in, and that was not play therapy, but in that realm of nonverbal therapies. After graduate school, I studied gestalt therapy.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (04:44):
And in my interest in play therapy, I learned that there was a gestalt play therapist named Violet Oakland, who is just an amazing, wonderful person who died. She just died in her guess late eighties recently. I was lucky enough to go take a two week training with her, which actually it was my first visit to California in Santa Barbara. And I was just enamored with combining gestalt therapy and play. And it was a tremendous self-growth for me also. Then back to Philadelphia, back to working with kids and families. And I realized I was missing another big piece, which was child development. I didn't feel that I had a solid understanding of the child development that I would need if I'm gonna work with families and kids. And it so happened that in my neighborhood, like three blocks away, a woman named Dotty Higgins Klein started a family and play therapy training institute.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (05:58):
And so she was offering a two year course in child development. So I was like, "Okay, well, this is just, meant to be!" Her specialty was a combination of child-centered play therapy and mindfulness. So I then started learning about child-centered play therapy, which is basically -- what's his name? Carl Roger. It's basically rogerian therapy that was developed by Virginia Axline into working into a version where you could work with children, where basically the child needs the play. And so then I continued, I did an internship at the Family and Play Therapy Institute doing primarily play therapy with children, with some involvement with parents, but there was, I was dissatisfied. Because I didn't feel that parents were sufficiently involved. Well at this program, Dotty had different play therapists, well-known play therapists come and do, trainings like for small group trainings, and one of them was Louise Guerney. Louise Guerney and her husband developed filio therapy, and filio therapy -- filio is not a common word. And she often said she regretted calling it that, but that's what it's called. And her meaning of it was parent and child. And so what filio therapy is, is teaching parents how to do non-directed play sessions with their children, and doing it in a, what's the word I want, parent-child, like one a diet (incoherent). Doing it dietically with one parent and child at a time. And the therapist teaches, supervises, and helps. The goal is to move the sessions to home and apply it to regular life so that you're getting to the underlying issues. And you're really working on the relationship between parent and child in a different kind of way where the parent gets to see their child.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (08:18):
So I was so excited about this, that I did what I would not recommend anybody do, but I went to this all day training. I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna do this." And I had a very difficult situation that I was working with where a mom, she was a black mom raised in foster care, had lost two children to the system already, and was on the brink of losing her little five year old, who was quite challenging. And she was of the belief that unfortunately, a lot of parents of all kinds have that, "If my loved me, they would obey me." And so for her, her child didn't love her. And so we did a version beginning version of filio therapy. And I taught basically she and I played with her son and I led the way.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (09:12):
And in this play, she began to see him for who he was. She began to see that his behavior was not because he was disobedient, but because he was in the state of turmoil because of the circumstances of his life, which included her, dropping him off with his father who was a drug dealer. And so you can imagine, and even more importantly or more, what really, I guess what really grabbed me was during this one session, he took this little bunch of little mini bunch of plastic flowers that he had, and he gave it to his mom. And he said, I love you. And it was like, I don't know. It was like, she never heard the words before she didn't, or she never took it in. But it just was such a change. And it made this shift and she began to see him for who he was and that she needed to make some changes and what she was doing, especially dropping him off with his father was not a good thing. And so I always say, I don't think she became mother of the year, but she became the mother that this boy needed. And as I was able to go back to the, the child welfare system and say, this child can stay, should my recommendation is this child stay with the mom. So that was the beginning. And then I decided, okay, then I need to get some training because surely a one day workshop is not sufficient. And so, there was two, there was a first side training with a man named, Barry Ginsburg who was local to Philadelphia and was very well-known in the Philly community. And then I later found another woman who lived in mid-state Pennsylvania, Rise VanFleet. And I trained with her for a number of years and ultimately became a trainer, filio therapy trainer myself.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (11:18):
So that was my kind of story. I'm currently not with her any longer, but I'm with the original institute that that the Guerneys founded, and then also just backtracking a little bit. Because I wanna talk about sand tray. I never heard of sand tray in Philadelphia. I was like, I don't know what this is. This is back in the nineties -- mid nineties. So when I went to Violet Oakland, she among had all kinds of expressive arts as part of her play therapy, training, and sand tray was one of them. And I was, again, I was enamored. I loved miniatures as a child. If I could've built my room with doll houses and toys, I would've done it, which I think was part of it. But I also, what I also loved about sand tray was that it, unlike art, there was no talent that was involved because the objects were there and they called to that same part of us, that right hemisphere part of us to express what's going on more deeply. So kind of simultaneously, I fell in love with sand tray, and then a little bit later, I fell in love with filio therapy and I have continued those interests to the present.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (12:46):
Oh, great. Wonderful. Yeah. And I forget too, had you been involved with the writing of a manual or doing some research or so on at one of the programs? I might be mixing that up.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (12:59):
No, you're not mixing it up. It's an incomplete <laugh>.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (13:02):
Ah, got it. Got it.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (13:03):
So one of the things in Philadelphia that was really, just again, it was like very happenstance in a way that we got involved. So I had a colleague, her name's Wendy Kaplan, and I always sort of drug Wendy along with me in whatever my interests were. She also, she was a psychologist. She was also interested in working with children. So yeah. Anyway, after we had learned filio and she took the trainings with me,
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (13:35):
I mean, along with me, not by me. We had an opportunity to apply for a grant with the city of Philadelphia they were doing child abuse prevention and they had like a number of different, programs that they were funding. And because of, well, I think because we had something really worthwhile to offer, but also because I had worked for the department because she also had some contacts with the funders. And we had a good program, we were able to get funding. And what we did was we took Filial therapy, which actually was originally meant as a group program, designed as a group program. And we made it into a parenting program that was geared towards high-risk families, and it was open to the public. There was no charge, but there was a definite, you know, outreach to high-risk families. So we ran this program for probably about six years, and then what happened is, then we trained the staff and we worked with a children's mental health preschool. After we stopped, we trained the staff to do the program. We were supposed to write a manual, Andy and I, but that is incomplete, however, the program was, there was research given to the program, and we got high, you know, high marks.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (15:13):
Oh, good, good, wonderful.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (15:14):
And I think it may still be going on actually.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (15:16):
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. You know, from my understanding a lot of times when, you know, the play therapy with children is more from a psychodynamic perspective. And so sometimes that, you know, kind of creates these boundaries about involving parents or, you know, having them as collateral or so on. And, and sometimes the way I've heard it is, you know, the goal is to kind of create that attachment between the therapist and the child and kind of the reparenting work. But it sounds like you're doing something different where you're actually kind of building a relationship and then you're kind of helping to strengthen the relationship between the child and the parent for their kind of actual attachment figure.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (15:57):
That's a really, really great question because that gets to where Filial therapy came from. So Filial therapy and child-centered therapy, which is the core of Filial therapy. That's what we're teaching parents, non-directive play sessions, child-centered play therapy is not psychodynamic. Child-centered play therapy is basically child-led with the parents or the therapist creating safety by limiting setting and structure. But the essence of the play is the child is in charge with the understanding that the healing comes from within and from the relationship with the person with, I mean, with the person, whether it's therapist or parent. So back in the sixties, when Filial was developed, the guerneys were child-centered play therapists, and they were working out of a university in Pennsylvania or New Jersey rather. And they got the idea that if basically, if child-centered play therapy is so good for children and healing for children well, and the relationship is with the parent.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (17:18):
I mean, not with the parent, the relationship is with the therapist and the child, and that's the relationship that's getting strengthened that is safe, that is accepting, and all those wonderful things, wouldn't it be better if we involved the parents and trained them, and had the therapist train the parents, how to do this therapy, this non-directive therapy with their own child, because then we would be working on strengthening the relationship between a few things, parent and child, which is, and by well, by helping the parent, in child-centered or Filial therapy the child is the teacher of who he or she, or they are. And that's very different for parents because parents' job, so to speak, is teaching their child how to grow into the person that, you know, they should be, or they want to be, or will become.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (18:26):
So it can be often hard for parents to make the switch and say, in this time, not all the time, not not saying do this, you know, 24 7, but in this period of time in these play sessions, which are a half an hour, for the actual play session, let the child lead the play and the child is gonna let you know what is going on with them. And we, the professional will help you to kind of, to do this, teach you the skills, but also to understand what the meaning of this might be and how it relates to the presenting problem. So that is where it got started at the time.There was a lot of opposition to it from the profession, not from parents. From the professional community, for kind of the reasons that you say that you're talking about.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (19:19):
Well, you know, you don't, that, that means that the parents are going to, you know, get into basically be therapists. We're not training the parents, you know? Yeah. And, and, and also the thinking in the professional community at the time was because this was kind of the pre-family therapy also. So we're very much into psychodynamic time where, you know, if children needed therapy, the child would see a therapist. If the, and the parents, hopefully they would be in therapy, individual therapy. So, and then maybe everything would get worked out and they'd all go back together. Uh, you know, I'm simplifying things well,
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (20:02):
And I think there is still a lot of agencies that do that. They'll give everybody, every kid, a different therapist or every, you know, the parent, a therapist and so on, but never actually having them together.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (20:12):
Right. Right. So, so that, so anyway, so the professional community was like, well, parents, basically, if the child needs therapy, then the parents cause the problem. So you can't possibly put them together. Basically. Um, so that was the opposition. And so the Gurneys and they later taught for years and years at Penn state and they, as teachers, they had lots of students who needed Detroit dissertations as I'm sure, you know, as a psychologist. So they had research that was built in. So partly, you know, because of the opposition, but any, but I think they would've had research anyway, but Louise Gurney would say, if, look, if this doesn't, if the research doesn't hold up, then we'll come up with something else. Yeah. It wasn't that it had to be Filial. But over the years there's been a lot of research on Filial therapy, and it has come up, there was a big research study. It was written kind of underwritten by the, I think, or undertaken by the university of North Texas a while back sometime in the twenties, two thousand rather. However it came out that Filial therapy was the most effective kind of play therapy.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (21:32):
Oh, great. Wow.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (21:33):
So it's well, at this point, well established, um, when I'm moved out to California in 2006, nobody knew what I was talking about. Yeah. Yeah. So that was kind of, I decided, well, this must be what I'm supposed to be doing then is bringing physiotherapy at least to this part of California, to central California.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (21:56):
Yeah. That's wonderful. Yeah. I, I think that, you know, oftentimes, uh, many people, even when I was in grad school, I was in the child and family track, and most of the therapists who were, you know, folks that were getting their doctorate all pretty much wanted to do individual therapy, uh, play therapy with the kids. And you know, sometimes I think that maybe I wouldn't say easier, but sometimes it's a little more comfortable for the therapist to just be working with the kid and not with the parent and child together. Um, you know, and, and uh, sometimes you know, that that kind of bridging that gap can be, can be difficult. Or like you're saying sometimes the therapist jumps to conclusion that, oh, it's a parent that's causing this. But again, kind of not thinking about how we can change this in the system.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (22:38):
Right. Yeah. I mean, I think that's true. A lot of play therapists really love working with children and it's wonderful. I mean, I love, I too love and have loved over the years, working with children and have learned so much. Working with parents is a very different thing. And it took me a while to, uh, fully understand what I might see as resistance from a parent is actually I had to remember back to who I used, who I was when I didn't understand how play therapy worked at all.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (23:15):
Yeah.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (23:17):
And, and so I came to understand, well, parents, there is no reason that anybody but a play therapist, including therapists that work with adults, should really understand how the value of play and what play is, you know, the essence of it and what it's really about and how play is in metaphor. It's not straight out not gonna do cognitive behavioral therapy, normal cognitive behavior therapy with a child because that's not where they are developmentally. And so it was really, it was just really helpful for me to realize, okay, my job is when I'm working with parents or teaching therapists to work to do this work is to help educate the parent about what is play and listen to what they have to say, or what is play therapy. And also the value of play, which is very undervalued in our, in our world, in our society.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (24:15):
Yeah. How do you talk about that with parents to kind of bring them into this world of seeing play as, as a language, rather than just you know, kind of something the kids are doing with their time?
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (24:27):
That's a very good question. I just have to think for a minute. So sometimes I will, well, first of all, start by saying, as you just said, play is the language of children. Well, what does that mean? If play is your language. So why, you know, why would that be the case? So then I might talk a little bit about how we have the left and the right hemisphere or two parts to our brain. And our, the part that we come with in terms of from birth and early childhood is the nonverbal right hemisphere, which is where emotions are, and for the most part attachment and creativity and play and play is how all humans, mammals, probably birds. I don't know so much about that pre-mamal. I mean, earlier things, but play is where that is part of an essential part of development.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (25:38):
But because it doesn't have words for the most part then, or it doesn't have certainly doesn't have adult words, children who play do not play in adult words, then it doesn't seem sensible in a way that play should be helpful because it's not what we would think of as help. Yeah. So the other piece of this is a talk about the difference between the presenting problem rather than the underlying issue, and it's very easy to give examples of how that works. I mean, sometimes I'll say, well, like if your car doesn't start, that's the problem. But you don't know why it's not starting. Is it out of gas? Do you need a starter? and so forth. Or if, you know, if you have a headache and you decide to take aspirin, but you have repeated headaches, there's probably another problem there, but you don't know what that is.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (26:48):
And if you don't know the underlying issue, then you're not going to come up with the right solution. What play does, non-directive and also directive play, is it allows the child to let you know what the underlying issue is. So what can look like the same problem, like let's say temper tantrums. Biggie. Right. Well, you don't know because a child is having frequent temper tantrums what the issue is. Do they have a sensory issue? Do they have a situation where there's big sibling rivalry that's never been recognized? I mean, there's all kinds of things. Recently, somebody who consults with me gave this really totally extreme example, but it really, helps to understand where this goes.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (27:45):
She, the therapist, was seeing an eight year old, who was starving herself. She had started about three months before, and there were two babies in this family, like a two-year-old and a newborn, I think. This girl was starving herself to the point that she had to be hospitalized. And when she came back, well, I kept saying, if there's a problem that started a certain time, then it'd be really be good to figure out what happened during that time. And conceivably, I mean, if with an eight year old and two siblings, two babies, you might think it might have something to do with a sibling issue while it turned out that what happened was her mother had been been bedridden.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (28:49):
During the pregnancy. And one day, forgot to feed her, that little girl. And somehow, this became that if her mother would, in this child's mind, if her mother would feed her, then her mother would die or something like that. And this came out in a session, and I wasn't there, so I don't remember the exact details, but through drawing or play or a nonverbal thing, that that was what this girl was carrying with her. And so she wasn't eating. And so once that became clear, they were able to, you know, talk about it, deal with it, help her understand that, you know, what the truth was. And now, like I said, that is extreme. But it was such a powerful example of how that happens. I actually had an example myself of this child, and I just think this is so valuable.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (30:00):
So I was seeing a family, a dad and two children and the mom had died of cancer about a year before. The youngest boy was eight, and the older boy was 11 or so. And the younger boy had never cried. And this family, they were very intelligent children, and they were very open about what happened to the mom. So she died. It was hospice. They knew that she was dying. The children went to a funeral. There was nothing hidden. There were no secrets. But the boy, one day in the family session, he kind of, all of a sudden, he said, “I know where mom is. She ran away from home. She told us that if we didn't listen, she was gonna run away.”
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (30:59):
And we were like, because there was the reality, but he couldn't deal. I mean, he was just so in his state of denial of grief that even though that was the reality, he couldn't accept it. And so that's the kind of thing like you don't know from the presenting problem, what the underlying issue is, and that's a really big way to help parents to see why play, what play does, how play allows a child to safely, let us know what it is that's going on with them. And it's a metaphor, usually, so it's not always exactly easy to understand, but in child-centered Filial, I say, not by myself in saying this, we don't really have to understand. I mean, yes, we, as adults, we want to understand, we want to know what's going on. But in terms of the child, they don't care if we know what it's all about. They care that we're present that we're accepting what they're doing as long as it's safe. That’s what they need to do during this special time. Yeah. That has a clear beginning and a clear end to it. So it keeps, it kind of differentiates it from regular daily life, just like a therapy session does.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (32:24):
Definitely. Yeah. It's kind of creating that space. Right. And, I think about it too, with the younger children in play. I do some, you know, work with younger children, but more adolescents, you know, with the adolescents, you know, we're kind of helping create that space for them to talk to their parents about kind of what's going on. And teaching parents on how to draw them out. And I kind of conceptualize it with the child work that, you know, by teaching parents, some of these play therapy skills and so on, we're helping them create that space and to draw the kids out, to be able to share some of these emotions and so on, which might come out in metaphor, might come out directly in a drawing or, you know, these kinds of things. And so, you know, yeah. Really giving them the tools of the therapist. So that eventually, I say, that they can eventually put me out of a job.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (33:14):
Great. Exactly.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (33:15):
On there. Um, exactly.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (33:19):
Yeah. The one difference, the one thing I didn't say about Filial, is that it's done diadically and hopefully, every diad, every parent-child diad that is, meaning whoever it is, that's taking care of the child, so that every parent-child diad, that that relationship would get like, uh, what's the word I want not improved -
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (33:50):
Strengthening it.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (33:51):
It strengthened. Thank you. That every relationship would be strengthened and in that way, it's considered a family therapy, which is different than other kinds of, you know, family therapy where it's the whole family or part of the family, or yeah. You know, however that goes.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (34:12):
So often it's just, you know, particularly in, in kind of, um, a gender normative heterosexual family that, if there's both parents, you know, that it might just be the mother and the child, and sometimes therapists don't also include the father, or it sounds like you're saying that you kind of work with both that, or if there's, you know, blended family or, you know, that those kinds of older people.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (34:34):
Ideally.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (34:35):
Caregivers. That might be involved.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (34:37):
Yeah. Ideally, of course, that doesn't always happen, and there's reality, but ideally, we want to involve every diad. And if it were some older kids, like teens in the family, then you would substitute some kind of special time that wouldn't be play. So a half hour a week. Once the parents trained, so a half-hour week where the parent and child would do something that the child wanted to do, but not buying things of course.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (35:06):
Sure, sure. Yeah. It reminds me of, parent-child interaction therapy kind of, where they first start off with some kind of non-directed play where they're doing some reinforcement, or there's that, uh, I think they use the acronym drip or pride of like describing reflecting, imitating, praise and so on. When I was working at a preschool my first year in grad school, we were kind of taught to do that with the kids, and the kids just loved it when you followed along, and kind of imitated what they were doing and kind of them having the lead really, seemed to really light them up.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (35:39):
Oh yeah. Yeah. Because it's so different because kids don't really, they don't have the power. The one difference though, is with the praise in child-centered and Filial, you don't use praise because praise is directive, just like you wouldn't criticize. You know, you want the child to be able to, um, you know, follow themselves. You're really working on helping a child develop their core sense of self by giving them this kind of opportunity. Along with, and it's not like you wouldn't use praise in regular life. You would. Because praise is about encouraging a child to do something a certain way. You use encouragement if that fits and you certainly use lots of, and I mean, the tools are reflection, um, you know, and deepening the reflection and taking on joining in the play, if the child wants you to include role play, but always you're always following the child's lead.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (36:44):
Yeah. And you know, sand tray and art, is also helpful with adults too and adolescents, right. I mean, it's kind of helping to access that right brain, kind of that creative part or that nonverbal and, and, you know, various ways of expressing oneself or even kind of accessing, you know, underlying beliefs or unconscious thinking. Um, do you do that at all with the parents, and kind of bring that piece in with the kids?
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (37:13):
You mean separately or activities together?
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (37:15):
Separately or together, or, yeah.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (37:17):
Yeah, absolutely. There are all kinds of family, art activities, and family play activities that you can do together. And I think that's wonderful too. One of the things that's kind of fun to do I learned from a play therapist named Eliana Gill. Who's also an art therapist. She's wonderful, wonderful person. I smile when I think of her, not only because I've been lucky enough to be at number of her trainings, but also she was one of the people that got me started when I came out to California and was like a lost soul, what do I do now? And she introduced wonderful people to me at Alameda Family Service. But she has just really a whole set of wonderful activities to do with, families, and one of them, in fact, the family that I was talking about with the boy who couldn't come to terms with his mom dying,
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (38:16):
it so happened that Eliana Gill was in Philadelphia, where I was studying and working with this family, came to a training, and she did a session with the puppet show. She has this wonderful puppet show involving the whole family. Where the family, creates the puppet show and the therapist is the audience. And I don't remember if she does this or not, but I video tape it. And then I play it back for the family. And then the idea is that you interview the puppet characters, and then you ultimately ask, you know, whatever the theme of it is, bring that up in real life. So you go through these stages where you're actually working with, you know, both creativity, non-direction, metaphor, and then bringing it, finding ways to, to bring it.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (39:14):
There's kinda a whole process that you go through.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (39:15):
You have a whole process. Right.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (39:17):
Oh, wonderful.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (39:18):
It is always so interesting. I so enjoy how much the families love. We don't do this and not, they love seeing themselves on videotape and with equipment we have today, especially iPad because it's big enough, to do this, it's easy, you know, you can just play it right back.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (39:40):
Oh, great. Wonderful. Yeah. I imagine I was gonna say, I imagine a lot of the therapists coming to you are already kind of, you know, interested in play, or so on, but I was wondering about, um, yeah. What do you find when you’re kind of either helping therapists to be able to play more or helping parents to be able to play more, do you ever run into any challenges around that? Or is that something that most people can pick up pretty quickly?
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (40:10):
Oh yeah. It's very, you know, it can be extremely challenging. I'm making it sound like it's easy, but it's not. Um, so the parents that are the easiest to teach in my experience have been, like people that are really tuned into child development actually, because they just kind of get like where the child is and when you're following a child. And anyway, they're familiar with the basic territory. Some of the parents that are the hardest are the very, sometimes teachers of older kids and intellectuals, because you're teaching non-directive, you're teaching that the child is in charge of the play. So the charge the child can call, you know, a dog, a dinosaur, they want Uhhuh <affirmative> and there's this, no, no, that's a dog.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (41:23):
Or that's a, you know, certain kind of dog or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. So there's kind of like, that's, it's great that you wanna teach your child, but I always go back to the child, your teacher, some parents, I, I'm not successful with every parent. I don't know anybody that is, but it's really with parents, I think with parents and therapists, there's two different, two different issues. Parents are usually pretty anxious about doing this because you're asking them to let go of being of their regular role as of being in charge as a parent. And so the role of the therapist is really to be as reflective with the parent as they are, if they were doing the play therapy, because you're asking the parent to be reflective with their child. And the child's not necessarily gonna do what the parent wants them to do. I mean, usually children in play are very, uh, or can be, you know, uh, very directive to the parent. Right now you are the student, oh, I'm the teacher you flunked. But what they're saying is this is what I feel like anyway. So, so some examples with parents are helpful and some parents just, you know, sometimes it just, it doesn't work.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (42:55):
Yeah.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (42:55):
Yeah. It's not like Filial, like anything else always works with therapists. Well, people, I mean, generally people that come for training and play therapy are interested in play. Right. Um, I mean I can remember experiences where I, I remember one experience early where I went to talk to a social work class and there, I remember, and I was talking about, I guess I was talking about play, but I was also talking about reflective listening and I remember this one student saying, and I always do it like a little exercise to so that, you know, a diad where one person listens and the other person does something playful with a character. And it's told, you know, you can't ask questions, just listen and reflect. Um, but I remember this one guy saying “I'm never gonna do this”.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (43:48):
<laugh>
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (43:49):
“I've never worked with kids. I'm never gonna do this”. I was like, okay. <laugh>
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (43:54):
Yeah. I think it ends up being intimidating for some folks I think, or going into uncomfortable space or their own kind of experiential, like even with, uh, you know, some parents that I work with, you know, sometimes they're like, oh, like I don't like to play because
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (44:07):
Of right.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (44:09):
You know, kind, um, uh, dysregulating, you know, to kind of not have the structure, just be kind of following or so on.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (44:16):
So one of the gifts that I got from particularly Risa Van Fleet, teaching Filial was humor.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (44:24):
Mm.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (44:25):
Humor is actually, this doesn't happen. It can't, it can't really happen. And you can't train parents without humor and play is about humor. I mean it, you know, play in humor, they kind of go together. So when I have interested a parent sufficiently that I get the opportunity to train them, and this goes with therapists also at comfort trainings, um, I create very ridiculous situations. And where that are so bizarre. There was this one dad who was just had a really hard time being in any way kind of playful. He was very serious. And I made the situation where I role play the child when I teach. So I told him he was a clown standing one foot. Then at one point, I made him a snake.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (45:27):
Uh-huh.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (45:28):
So that he couldn't speak. And I told him, you can't, you started to talk, I'm a snake. I said, no, you have to be a snake. Snakes don’t talk. You as a therapist, have to be playful.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (45:37):
Yes. Yes.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (45:38):
And so it's the creative, I think the creative piece of how to teach in a way that gets past the anxiety. A lot of it's anxiety, as you said.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (45:52):
You kind of have to have confidence too, to be able to be that goofy with a client or with, you know, parents or things like that. The kids are easy. Usually. Um,
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (45:59):
Kids are usually. Although there's another thing that happens a lot that this reminds me of is you get kids who are very intellectualized beyond their age. And I always try to find the playful place with them or encourage therapists, particularly. Parents will say, my child doesn't need to play. They're too grown, you know? And they're like seven.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (46:28):
Yeah.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (46:28):
And I said, that's the problem, because that means that child is disconnected from this whole part of themselves. That's about creativity and sensory learning and just all those things that make us human. So, um, there's a lot of science and neuroscience that really backs the value of play. And so depending on who you're talking, who, you know, who I'm talking to or who you're talking to, you vary the approach. So sometimes explaining it or talking about it more scientifically with therapists also, as well as parents, because therapists really need to understand, well, why is this valuable is not play for some other to get to some other means it's, it's play for getting to the core self.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (47:24):
Yeah. The play in and of itself is the core value rather than, uh, it being a means to an end.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (47:29):
Now you had mentioned about wanting to go back to the sand tray. Can you talk more about that?
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (47:35):
Sure. You know, I love to talk about sand tray. So sand tray is, you know, on one hand, well, first of all, sand tray is really wonderful for people of all ages. It's not just for children. And once that's understood even teens who can be reluctant because this is a baby thing, you know, I don't do that once they realize that it's really not for children. I mean, not just for children, obviously children do it, but they do it in a different way. So on one hand, sand tray seems like, why should this what's the big deal? It's a container, a box of some kind and it's got sand in it, and then there's miniatures that are supposed to represent all aspects of the world. So why, why that, what does that do? You know, but it allows for a lot of things to go on at the same time, even the sand, even sand itself, for most people, not everybody for most people, is very soothing, is very calming.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (48:41):
Some therapists just have some sand in their office, just to have adults as well as children just put their hands in it. Yeah. Because of that, a container, um, creates a, you know, a limit, a boundary and the miniatures allow for people to go deeper into what might be going on, what is going on under the surface. And yeah. It's like, it's almost like a conversation with the right hemisphere. And I tell, you know, whether it's clients or therapists, um, tell them there's only one rule in my office, there's only one rule about sand tray. And that is when you are choosing objects, let your heart, let your hand choose the objects. Don't try to use to figure out what it is you're going to say or do or create because if you do, you're cutting off your inner wisdom. Sand tray is like, like waking dream really.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (49:54):
It’s very much in that same part of our, our being. Kids do sand tray, usually in different ways than adults, because they're different. They tend to tell stories, action stories. It'd be very unusual for an adult or even a teen to do that. Adults do sand tray generally quietly. 90% of the time, they don't talk while they're creating a sand tray. So they're going into a deeper space and the goal is, like I said, it's like having this conversation with the deeper part of yourself, because the way I, I do it, everybody does different ways of doing things, but the way I've learned to do it is have the person look at the tray, take a few moments to really take it in and then begin to talk about the tray. And the therapist is to help the person go role is to help go deeper into what they're saying, not to interpret. I'm not, as you might guess, I'm not into interpretation,
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (51:03):
Sure. Sure. Got it.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP(51:04):
And when I train therapists to do sand tray, I say, okay, another rule for training therapists do not ask why.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (51:14):
Uhhuh. Mm-hmm
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (51:15):
Do not ask why, because why means that you're switching out of that deeper self and you're going into a cognitive place and it's going to take you away from what you really can get out of it. The “why” you'll come to that. If you let the process happen, you will arrive at it, or you'll arrive at, I don't know, and that's okay, too. But, so what I've discovered in doing my own sand trays and, and helping people do sand tray, teaching sand tray, is that it's always a discovery. There's always, if a person allows themselves to get into it, there's something that will come up. That's not what they expected and that's helpful. That's useful. It's like, okay. Oh, I didn't know that I was still grieving about my father. Let's say. Or I didn't know I wanted to quit this job. I really hate it cause the agency is squashing me.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (52:21):
Well, I imagine too, there's that aspect of, I know you talked about your gestalt training and, and kind of that, you know, putting that into the, the play or the sand tray, you know, I imagine kind of, that's also kind of allowing that space for it to, to unfold.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (52:35):
Yeah. Um, yes. And a Gestalt approach is pretty much the same as it would be for dreams, that everything that let's say it's my sand tray, everything I put into the sand tray is me, is a part of me. So therefore I can have, I can look at the tray. I can see where there might be oppositions in the tray. Um, I can have the characters talk to each other. The sand is also part of the world, obviously, so I can have the sand speak. So that's the underlying framework and, so it's another way of using, you know, Gestalt ideas of working with polarities. That's the word I want working with polarities.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (53:30):
Yeah. Wonderful. Well, you're doing such great work and I'm so glad that you're training, you know, therapists in this approach. And really, you know, I think that this aspect of the non-directive, but at the same time, kind of not interpretive as well as kind of bringing in the family, and helping to train them as, you know, kind of the, the play therapist are such unique pieces that I think are so important. So I'm so glad that you're continuing to train and supervise folks in, in this approach and bringing it out here to the West Coast. Um, because it's definitely been wonderful me for me to learn from you. And I know a lot of folks have, have really enjoyed it. Well, thank you so much for coming on today. I really appreciate it. And, you know, I know that you've got a number of different trainings and so on and, we can put a link to that in your bio and so on on the website. Um, but yeah, this is wonderful. Thank you so much for spending time today. Speaking about your work.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (54:26):
Thank you. Thank you for having me. Great.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (54:28):
Good pleasure. Good to see you. Take care.
Karen Pernet, LCSW, RPT-S, SEP (54:31):
Bye bye.
Keith Sutton, Psy.D. (54:33):
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