330 | From Over-Attachment to Avoidance: Making Sense of Child Responses in CCPT

In this episode, I respond to a listener question that highlights two very different—but equally important—play therapy dynamics. One child clings to the therapist immediately, handcuffing herself to me in the first session and refusing to leave in the second. Another child dives deep into intense work right away, only to recoil and resist in subsequent sessions.

I unpack both situations and explain how these behaviors reveal underlying attachment needs, relational fractures, and the natural ebb and flow of the CCPT process. From recognizing maladaptive coping strategies, to understanding why children sometimes bypass initiation and resistance phases, I share how to stay grounded, reflect feelings, and trust the therapeutic process. Whether a child is overly eager or pushing us away, both are doing important work—and both scenarios remind us why consistency and adherence to the model matter so much.

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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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APT Approved Play Therapy CE courses: https://childcenteredtraining.com
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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.
Landreth, G.L., & Bratton, S.C. (2019). Child-Parent Relationship Therapy (CPRT): An Evidence-Based 10-Session Filial Therapy Model (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315537948
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 am answering a question from Allie in Arkansas.
Hello to all of you out there in
the other side of the country.
So I've actually never been to Arkansas.
I would like to go
and I've heard Little Rock is lovely.
So some,
someday maybe I'll make it out there.
But
unfortunately,
there are no baseball teams there,

(00:41):
and that's usually why we travel to follow the Rays to a baseball stadium.
So
I'll have to figure out where I'm gonna go when I head out there.
But anyway,
thank you to all of you listening out in Arkansas.
Thank you,
Allie,
for the question.
So this is actually kind of
two cases worked into one question.
And you'll see what I mean once I get into this a little bit.
So

(01:01):
let me read parts of the email and then we'll dive in together.
I wanted to say that I listen to your podcast every day
on the way to and from work during my hour commute.
I graduated from the USF Master of Social Work program in 2021.
I'm wondering if that is my USF,
University of South Florida,
and if it is,
go Bulls,
and have been working with trauma and addiction until two months ago.

(01:23):
My play therapy supervision is only every 6 weeks,
so your podcast has been a godsend.
Thank you for everything you contribute to the field
and for convincing me to be 100% CCPT.
Well,
here's a high five,
Allie,
and a hug.
To go from trauma and addiction two months ago to all in CCPT,
what a huge shift.

(01:43):
And I'm so happy that CCPT found you and you've decided that it's what you want to do.
So I'm very excited for you.
All right,
so on to the question.
I have a new 9 year old girl.
She handcuffed me
in our first session and our first time meeting.
Handcuffed herself to me.
Sorry.
At the end of the session,
she also hugged me really tight and didn't want to let me go.

(02:04):
She must have hugged me about 10 times before her mom was able to get her to leave.
During the second session,
she clung to my leg and refused to leave.
She cried and said she didn't want to wait a whole week to come back,
and her mom basically had to drag her out the door.
All right,
so that's kind of part one of the question.
Now I'll continue.
Next,
you mentioned in one of your episodes that resistance

(02:25):
lasting longer than a couple weeks is rare.
I have an 8 year old boy who loved his first
session and asked his parents when he was coming back.
During the second session,
he let out a ton of rage on Bobo,
hitting and screaming at him,
and then asking me to hit and scream at Bobo.
The 3rd,
4th,
and 5th session,
he did not want to come back,
complained about being bored.

(02:45):
There's nothing to do.
And tells me he doesn't like me,
makes up riddles about how much I suck,
essentially.
We've all,
we've all
had riddles made up about how much we suck
and creates games where he engages in room wrecks
and then demands that I clean it all up.
I've been going along with it,
but I'm not sure what to do.
I'm having whiplash.

(03:06):
OK.
So very different starts to sessions with different kids
and I'll kind of address both and,
and we'll kind of unpack each one of these.
So let's start with the girl.
So when she handcuffs herself to you,
when she hugs you,
when she
doesn't want to let you go.
That is all

(03:27):
unhealthy maladaptive coping.
In other words,
she is using physical touch,
she's using physical contact,
she's using connection with people
to meet her needs in some way.
I suspect that she either has some attachment stuff.
She feels that someone in her life has either not accepted her,

(03:51):
not supported her,
not cared for her.
There's usually some kind of history that makes sense
with that kind of behavior.
They're very quick to be affectionate.
They're very quick to say they love you.
They're very quick to
feel like you're the most important person in the world to them.
That is pretty standard with certain backgrounds and histories of children.

(04:13):
So when that happens and then the second session,
she clings to your leg and refuses to leave and says,
I don't want to wait a whole week to come back.
She's having trouble
with the distance,
which further supports that there's probably some kind of relational fracture,
attachment issue,
something going on for her.
All right,
in that scenario,
she is desperately trying to create a relationship that is not present yet.

(04:38):
We know that we're an initiation,
we know that that's what is taking place.
She is in fact building relationship,
but to be that attached falsely,
that quickly,
it's maladaptive coping.
It will naturally sort itself out.
She will naturally feel that even if she doesn't see you for a whole week,
you're still gonna be there,

(04:58):
you're still going to be excited to play with her.
The relationship will persist even in the absence.
She will come to those conclusions and it will naturally just kind of reduce itself.
But in the meantime,
she's really struggling with that.
The fact that mom had to drag her out the door.
I'm not really sure exactly what that looked like,
but practically speaking,

(05:19):
just based on the words,
that was not a helpful way to handle that.
So what we're going to do in a scenario like that
is reflect feelings,
ad nauseam.
And we're going to remind her that she gets to come back again.
We're going to reflect feelings,
validate,
make sure she feels heard and understood,
but you know you get to come see me again,

(05:39):
and you don't want to wait a whole week,
but you could choose to write me letters
before you see me and give them to me next time.
So you're going to give her choices and
make sure she feels very understood and validated,
and then she chooses willingly to leave.
She doesn't get dragged out the door.
I don't know if that was kind of figurative or literal or somewhere in between,

(06:03):
but we wanna make sure that she is willing and able to leave
after she's given the time and space to work through some of those big feelings.
That's another component.
I suspect she's probably a really
emotional,
very sensitive,
big feeling kid.
So that's usually another component
of children that act like this early on in the process.

(06:25):
They're usually really big emotors and they are very sensitive to their feelings.
So that's probably another component.
All right,
so now let's move on to your little guy.
He loved his first session,
asked his parents when he was coming back.
Second session,
let out a ton of rage,
hitting,
screaming.
And asked you to do the same.
All right,

(06:45):
let's pause there for a second.
Coming in and loving it,
and then diving into work that fast.
We know
that that was too much.
We know it was too quick.
Too far,
too deep,
too fast,
too hard,
all of it.
He bypassed initiation and he bypassed resistance.

(07:05):
He dove straight into work.
When kids do that,
now,
it was obviously
that pressing.
When a kid jumps in that quick to that level of play,
they've needed to get it out for so long and they've been hanging on to it
forever and it's finally like,
oh,
thank God I can
have somewhere and someone that I can let this out.

(07:26):
So that's what happened.
It was just need
to release that.
It was a channel.
The outlet was there,
so he took it.
But
it almost always causes recoil.
It almost always causes a kid to go,
wow,
I,
I can't handle that.
I can't do that again.
I wasn't ready for that.
I don't even know this person.
I don't feel safe yet.

(07:47):
I don't even know what this whole play therapy thing's about.
I am so confused.
That was overwhelming.
I,
I just don't want to deal with it.
I'm going to avoid it at all costs.
He's now backpedaling
and kids will have to go through the phases,
but it's not always in 1234 order.
Well,
4 is always last,
but
we always terminate at the end,

(08:08):
but the 1 and the 2 and the 3 are not necessarily in numerical order.
So he jumped to 3,
he might be going back to 2,
and then he's going to have to go to 1
because he has to build rapport and bond with you
before he can move
further into therapy.
And so the fact that he 34,

(08:29):
and 5 session.
I don't want to come back.
I'm bored.
There's nothing to do.
I don't like you.
You suck in riddles,
and he room wrecks and then demands that you clean it all up.
Now,
that's,
that's the
Noteworthy piece right there.
He room wrecks.
I'm gonna get to that in a second,
but the rest of it.
I'm bored.
There's nothing to do.
I don't like you,

(08:50):
you suck in riddles and I don't want to come back and I'm gonna complain about it.
That's resistant
behavior,
that's avoidant behavior.
Whether we're actually in resistance phase,
I'm not sure,
but he is absolutely saying I can't go through that again.
I'm not ready to deal with it.
It is too much for me,
no thanks.

(09:11):
So he's paying lip service to what he thinks are the reasons that he
can't be there.
What he's saying is not truth.
It's his way of trying to communicate.
I,
I can't face this right now.
And that's the normal part of the therapeutic process.
Now,
the really important piece is that he room wrecked and told you you had to clean it up.

(09:34):
That's
playing.
That's power and control.
That is him engaging
and doing work that he needs to do.
So if you would have told me he never went into the playroom again,
3rd,
4th,
and 5th session,
and he sat in the lobby the whole time,
that's very different.
He's coming back into your room.
He's wrecking your room,

(09:55):
he's insisting that you clean it up.
That is still engaging in the CCPT process.
That's still doing meaningful work.
That's interacting with you
in therapeutically valuable ways.
So that's something to celebrate.
I certainly do not think that
this is a hindrance right now.
This is just his process.

(10:16):
He jumped to phase 3,
so now he's going back to 1 and 2.
That's a very common process.
They do not go in numerical order,
always,
sometimes they do,
sometimes they don't.
So we need to be mindful that when kids change the order,
we're going to watch them go in
kind of a
loop de loop

(10:37):
process instead of up and right.
So Allie,
I hope that that is helpful.
I hope that's helpful to each and every one of you because
when we have opposite ends of the spectrum kids like that,
one comes in and they're all in and they just love
you to death and then one comes in and they're like,
you're the worst person ever.
I never want to see you again.
That can be a little bit overwhelming and I get

(10:58):
the notion of whiplash there.
So,
Allie,
thanks so much for the email.
I hope that that was helpful for all of you.
I hope that you know how very much I appreciate you.
Thank you for hanging out with me each week.
Thank you for taking me on your commutes
and your treadmill jogs and all the other things that you do with me.
I love you all.
We'll talk again soon.
Bye.

(11:19):
Thank you for listening to the Play Therapy Podcast with Dr.
Brenna Hicks.
For more episodes and resources,
please go to www.playtherapypodcast.com.