311 | Two Questions, One Answer: Trust the Process in Child-Centered Play Therapy

In this episode, I answer two great questions from Joy in Maryland. First, we talk about kids who spend most of their session playing with slime. I explain why that kind of repetitive play often falls into the competence theme and why it’s important not to jump to conclusions until patterns emerge across sessions. I also highlight how subtle shifts—like reduced time spent with slime or changes in how it's used—can signal important progress.

The second question is about when (or if) we refer a child out to other modalities like EMDR or ERP for phobias or trauma. I walk through my thinking on when to refer, how to manage parallel therapies ethically, and why CCPT is effective for both trauma and phobias—without needing specialized toys or supplemental approaches. This episode is all about staying grounded in the model, trusting the child, and letting CCPT do the work it's meant to do.

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If you would like to ask me questions directly, check out www.ccptcollective.com, where I host two weekly Zoom calls filled with advanced CCPT case studies and session reviews, as well as member Q&A. You can take advantage of the two-week free trial to see if the CCPT Collective is right for you.

Ask Me Questions: Call ‪[phone]‬, or email: [e-mail]
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Common References:
Cochran, N., Nordling, W., & Cochran, J. (2010). Child-Centered Play Therapy (1st ed.). Wiley.
VanFleet, R., Sywulak, A. E., & Sniscak, C. C. (2010). Child-centered play therapy. Guilford Press.
Landreth, G.L. (2023). Play Therapy: The Art of the Relationship (4th ed.). Routledge.
Bratton, S. C., Landreth, G. L., Kellam, T., & Blackard, S. R. (2006). Child parent relationship therapy (CPRT) treatment manual: A 10-session filial therapy model for training parents. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.
Benedict, Helen. Themes in Play Therapy. Used with permission to Heartland Play Therapy Institute.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You're listening to the Play Therapy Podcast with Dr. Brenna Hicks,
your source for centered and focused play therapy coaching.
Hi,
I'm Dr. Brenna Hicks,
The Kid Counselor.
This is the Play Therapy Podcast where you get
a master class in child-centered play therapy
and practical support and application for your
work with children and their families.
In today's episode,

(00:20):
I'm answering two questions from Joy in Maryland.
And one is about slime,
and one is about when we might refer out to another type of therapy.
So very unrelated questions,
but both
helpful,
so we'll dive into each.
I'll read one at a time so we can kind of answer each one separately.
And Joy,
thank you so much for the email.

(00:41):
So the first question about slime,
I have some kids who play with slime for the majority of the session.
I track and reflect and behave as I do in any other play session,
but I do not notice as many themes during this play.
Is this common?
Am I missing something?
Do you say you're doing anything differently when working with slime?
We never say or do anything differently regardless
of what's going on in a CCPT playroom,

(01:03):
so that's an easy answer.
No,
never,
never with exclamation points in capitals.
We never change anything regardless of what's happening.
That's the beauty of the model.
We remain adherent and it's consistent and it's effective.
So regardless of
themes or no themes,
play being the same,
play being different,
child presenting with XYZ,

(01:23):
it doesn't matter.
We're always consistent across the board.
Kids that play with slime.
God love all of you who
have slime in your room.
I cannot.
So,
if you all are slime CCPTs,
here's a high five
from the girl in Florida that says no way.
I don't have any slime in my room,
but I know lots of you all do.

(01:44):
When a child comes in and plays with slime,
it's almost always in competence
theme,
but let's hold on,
let's,
let's back the train up for a second.
We have to be mindful,
just because a child plays with something one time does not make it a theme.
It needs to be consistent with sessions and across sessions.

(02:06):
So it would be symbolic
if it's just a one time scenario
if it presents itself multiple times within session and across sessions,
now we know it is theme.
So just
be aware sometimes we say,
oh what theme is that?
because something emerges,
we can't assume that it's a theme there has to be consistency there.

(02:28):
OK,
so now we can keep going down the track.
For those kids that come in and play with slime,
it's almost always competence based.
Now it can be rooted in some different things.
Sometimes it's
because they just want to show their
mastery and they're proving that they're competent.
Sometimes it's self challenging,
they've never done it before,

(02:48):
so they want to prove that they can.
Sometimes it's safe.
They're used to doing slime at home,
so especially early on in sessions,
you will see a child that might come
in and gravitate towards something that requires nothing but
comfort.
I know how to do slime slime is easy,
slime is predictable.
Nothing in my unconscious is gonna come up that I'm not ready for or prepared for.

(03:12):
Slime is safe.
That's another reason sometimes kids will consistently play with slime.
It is usually a temporary
segment of play.
Kids will not play with slime forever.
That's a temporary snippet in the process.
So the intention is
we

(03:32):
reflect,
we track,
we remain present,
we remain engaged,
we wait to see what unfolds.
If you notice shifts taking place.
We can point those out.
We also want to be mindful of paying attention to anything that changes.
So wherein maybe it used to be 30 or 35 minutes of the session,
we played with slime,

(03:53):
at some point it may reduce to 10 or 15 minutes.
That's noteworthy.
The need isn't as strong.
The compulsion to do that is not overriding the whole session.
It's just I still want to do it.
I still need to do it,
but I don't need to devote as much time.
So we're going,
when we see that very consistent repetitive play,
we're always looking for what is changing.

(04:15):
Is the child more free and uninhibited?
Maybe the child is willing to mix glitter or colors or something,
whereas before there was a lot of rigidity.
We're always looking for the subtle changes.
That's one of the things that we're able to observe change and growth.
So I hope that addresses the slime question.

(04:37):
As far as specific modalities,
let's dive into that question,
so let me read parts of the email.
If a child has a specific phobia,
would you refer them to ERP therapy in addition to play therapy or just
provide provide toys and in this case
the reference was specifically to emitophobia.
Do we provide specific toys such as throw up a doctor

(04:59):
kit for them to work through it on their own?
I wonder the same thing about whether to trust CCPT for trauma
or when to refer to EMDR.
Are there situations in which you would add
or refer for another type of therapy?
Generally speaking,
I'll get back to the specific phobia in a second,
but let's talk about,

(05:20):
for example,
referring to EMDR.
General rule,
we change one thing at a time.
If a parent pursues CCPT
that needs to be the only difference,
because as soon as you introduce a different type of therapy,
for example,
causality goes out the window.
We want to try to mitigate the amount of change as much as possible.

(05:42):
Parents say,
hey,
I really think my child needs therapy.
There's a lot of trauma,
this happened,
this happened,
whatever.
CCPT is effective with trauma.
And we certainly wouldn't want to introduce something else
because then at that point what's what's causing change?
We don't even know too many variables.
Second consideration is

(06:03):
we don't ever want the child to be overwhelmed
with too much therapy and that very much happens.
So if they're in CCPT
that is emotionally draining,
it's psychologically draining,
it's mentally draining,
it's physically draining,
then sending them to a different type of therapy.
That's going to be so much for a child to manage,

(06:24):
and that is unethical at that point.
We don't want to put a child in a compromised state
where they can't attend to either therapy because
it's just too much.
So again,
we're always trying to say one thing at a time.
My standard
in a scenario like that would be
let's do an entire round of CCPT.

(06:44):
We know that CCPT is effective for trauma
and if we get to the end and we feel like maybe
we need to pursue something else we can talk about that.
And I rarely if ever have anyone that still pursues something else
after CCPT because CCPT is effective.
Getting back to specific phobias,
phobia is just an irrational fear and an overwhelming level of anxiety.

(07:08):
So we treat that no differently than
any other anxiety-based
presentation.
We would not refer them to something else.
We also would not provide specific toys.
In other words,
I've worked with children,
with emitophobia,
I've worked with children
that refused to eat and were failure to thrive because they choked.

(07:30):
And they said,
I will not eat anything anymore,
so I literally,
I,
I played several sessions with a kid with an NG
tube taped to his nose in the back of his neck
and the tube hanging out of the back of his shirt with a Ziploc bag on it
because they'd put in a feeding tube for him.
And
I mean these are,
these are serious food related phobias.

(07:52):
I had one that had lost,
I think like 16 or 17 pounds
because he would only drink something,
he would not chew any food.
And they're all
based in
something that happened that was overwhelming and scary,
and so then it became a phobia.
In those scenarios,
I never once put special kinds of toys in the playroom.

(08:13):
But kids naturally worked through their food issues.
So a standard CCPT playroom has food,
a standard CCPT playroom has a doctor's kit.
So we would not add anything
to the playroom.
I wouldn't
intentionally put fake throw up in the room
because I know that a child is scared of that.
I would just let them

(08:34):
process things the way that they need to.
And the beauty of the playroom is if a child doesn't have what they ideally want,
they'll make something work.
So you don't have to have throw up for a kid to pretend that something is throw up.
And that's why we provide the three categories of toys,
and we trust the process.
They will use what they need to in creative and clever ways

(08:58):
if it's not present and they have to have it,
otherwise,
they don't have to have it and they'll use other things.
So the general rule is one thing at a time,
no changes,
and we do believe and know based on research
that CCPT works with phobias
and with trauma.
Therefore,
we're going to trust the child,

(09:19):
trust the process,
trust the model,
and we remain adherent.
And kids will work through what they need to.
So thank you,
Joy,
so much for both of those questions.
Hope that that encourages and helps y'all.
If you want to reach out,
please do [e-mail].
You can also,
if you're in the states,
call 813-812-5525 and I will answer a question

(09:40):
from your voicemail.
Otherwise,
have a great week.
We'll talk soon.
Love you all.
Bye.
Thank you for listening to the Play Therapy Podcast with Dr.
Brenna Hicks.
For more episodes and resources,
please go to www.playtherapypodcast.com.