295 | Confidentiality, Character Toys, and Religious Topics in CCPT

In this episode, I answer a thoughtful series of questions from Mikayla in Illinois that touch on several important topics in CCPT practice: confidentiality when sharing success stories, using neutral versus character-based toys, the use of books and bibliotherapy, and how to respond to religious topics in sessions.

I talk through how we define confidentiality based on whether a client can be identified—not whether we reference general age, issues, or outcomes. I also explain the rationale for keeping toys neutral in the playroom and why CCPT does not include books as part of session work. Finally, I discuss how religious topics naturally emerge in play when a child has a faith background and how to observe and reflect that content neutrally. Each of these questions highlights the nuance and intentionality behind staying fully aligned with the CCPT model.

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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,
I am answering a question from Mikayla in Illinois.

(00:22):
Actually several questions.
It's,
it's kind of a,
a trifecta of questions.
And we'll be diving into topics such
as making sure we're not breaching confidentiality
and having neutral toys in the playroom
and
religious themes in sessions.
So an interesting mix of questions.

(00:43):
We'll dive into each of those.
Thank you so much,
Mikayla,
for emailing.
And just a reminder,
our live event for the 300th episode is coming up May 16th,
Friday at 1:30 Eastern.
So please,
if you are able to join.
Make sure you go to playtherapypodcast.com/live so that
you can get signed up for that.
There's not a limit on people.
I,
we just need to know how many are coming and

(01:04):
we'll be able to send you reminders for the event.
All right,
so let me read parts of Mikayla's email
and then we'll dive in.
I'll read one question at a time so things don't get muddy.
So the first,
I'm wondering if you have any advice regarding sharing client
stories with parents about CCPT success without breaching confidentiality.
For example,
if I have a new 10 year old client,

(01:26):
is sharing,
yes,
I've used CCPT with another 10 year old client and it's been successful,
a breach.
How do you discern this in practice and in making podcast episodes?
All right,
so this question has actually come up several times
in maybe the last month or so just about
protecting client confidentiality in general.
So I'm actually really glad that we're talking about this.

(01:47):
I think that
the litigious nature of society has
scared us all.
I think our legal and ethical requirements for CEUs and for grad school
has scared us all.
And I think that we as a field walk around really worried about doing
anything that is going to get us in trouble.

(02:08):
And while I believe that we should be cautious and we should be careful
and we should be diligent and we should be
ethical and we should make informed wise decisions.
I also think that the line has become really skewed
about what
breaching confidentiality actually is.
So let's go back to
our understanding of confidentiality.

(02:30):
We cannot reveal identifying information.
To where someone would be able to know who you're talking about.
So,
let's
reverse engineer this.
If I say that one of my client's name is Matt.
That is not a breach of confidentiality.

(02:50):
Even though
I just said that across the airwaves
everywhere around the world.
The name Matt is not a breach of
confidentiality because there's no identifying information in there.
None of you have any idea who my I don't have a client named Matt,
by the way,
but I'm just saying
you would have no idea if I did have a Matt client,

(03:13):
you would not be able to identify who he is
because there's not identifying information
in that disclosure.
Likewise,
to say,
I've worked with another 10 year old,
no identifying information is revealed in that.
I've used CCPT
with other clients.
There is no breach of confidentiality in that.

(03:36):
So we have to be intentional
about
our understanding and definition
of confidentiality.
Because
if I were to give you details.
The client is this old,
this is their name.
They live in this city.
They have two siblings.
They go to such and such school.
Now all of a sudden

(03:56):
there might be one or two listeners that live locally
that might be able to say,
oh,
I bet I know who that is.
So,
therefore,
yes,
we're not going to reveal specific details.
But we are able to talk in generalities and,
and let's enlarge this to just therapy in general.

(04:18):
When adult therapists work with,
well,
I guess all therapists are adults,
when therapists work with adult clients.
They will often say,
one of my clients is really struggling in their marriage.
That is
in a piece of information about a client,
but
I have no idea

(04:39):
who
might be struggling with their marriage because of that.
Lots of people struggle in their marriages,
that's not identifying information.
One might say,
yeah,
I mean,
I have a client that is just so anxious.
I mean like diagnosably anxious right now.
That's a specific detail,
but it's not identifying.
So similarly,

(05:00):
if we say,
I have a child who
is struggling with aggression,
or I have a child who is getting kicked out of school,
or I have a child who is really struggling because of a move.
It's
details,
it's information,
but it is not identifying.
So I hope that that's helpful because I think that we have really started to miss

(05:23):
attribute
con
confidentiality concerns
and say,
oh we're not allowed to say anything.
You're not allowed to say anything that's going to help someone go,
oh,
I know exactly who you're talking about.
Otherwise,
you can speak in generalities even with information
as long as no one is going to be able to figure out who your client is.
So I hope that that is helpful.

(05:44):
Let's dive into toys now.
So the next question,
I recall back from your toys episode that you
described having more generic neutral toys in your room,
nothing very character specific like Disney or Marvel.
I'm curious about your thoughts on this.
I find some kids really enjoy them,
especially the inside out characters when using them in the sand.
It seems to help them with emotional expression

(06:04):
when they can identify with anxiety or fear,
etc.
Curious to know your thoughts and or rationale and keeping your toys more neutral.
OK.
So,
there,
there's never.
An extreme
in any of
the guidelines.
However,
generally speaking,
a child-centered playroom is designed to be neutral,

(06:26):
toys are designed to be neutral.
There are miniatures
that are going to
be part of a movie,
a TV show.
They're recognizable,
they have a storyline.
Superheroes are recognizable,
movie characters are recognizable,
cartoon characters are recognizable.
Beloved characters from childhood like Winnie the

(06:47):
Pooh and Mickey Mouse and Daffy Duck,
those are recognizable characters.
So yes,
of course,
the playroom often includes things like that.
But generally speaking,
you want that to be the exception,
not the rule.
And here's what happens when you have
characters with storylines.
So I have Simba

(07:07):
from The Lion King in my room.
And I use this illustration to parents every time
I give a playroom tour.
So when I invite parents in the
initial parent consult so they can see the playroom and
I talk them through the categories of toys and I
show them the miniatures in the sand every single time
I pull Simba off the shelf
and I explain it like this.

(07:29):
So when you have
neutral figures,
the child can be creative and imaginative,
and they write their story and they can give any narration that they want.
When you have a recognizable character such as Simba,
the child has two choices.
They can be imaginative,
creative,
and they can write any narrative they want about a lion cub.

(07:50):
Or
they can use Simba's storyline,
and they can work that into their play and into their story.
And so it serves dual purpose
when you have
characters,
if you will.
And so you mentioned Inside Out.
There's an association
with the character and therefore the feeling

(08:12):
because of that movie.
So a child can absolutely make use of that
in their play,
but it is a little bit prescriptive.
So
you want to make sure that there are far more neutral toys
that have no ascribed storyline
or no ascribed narrative
because then they really truly are able to just play freely in whatever emerges

(08:36):
in the playroom.
But if you have characters
that do have a storyline,
a history,
something recognizable about them,
the child can choose how they're going to play with those toys.
So I hope that that is helpful.
You very also quickly
referenced bibliotherapy,
and you said you have several books that you typically select for

(08:58):
the client and lay them out.
True CCPT does not include books in the playroom.
So if we're fully adherent,
we do not have bibliotherapy or books in the playroom.
I have lots of books in the lobby
and kids love to read books while they're waiting for appointments and or siblings
of clients are able to read books in the lobby with parents or alone.

(09:20):
But we,
if you look at the layout of a child-centered playroom,
they do not have books as part of
the playroom generally speaking.
And while a child,
you mentioned that a child sometimes use it as a prep uses it as
a prep for their session or a way to regulate themselves at the end.
If there are no books in the playroom,
they will do that in other ways.

(09:41):
So that's just means to an end because the books are there,
but a child would do that in a different manner if they did not have books,
and they would still prepare to play and they
would still regulate at the end of a session.
So I hope that that's helpful.
And then the final question about religious themes.
I'm wondering if you've ever observed religious play themes
in your work with a child who is Christian,

(10:02):
Muslim,
Hindu,
etc.
I'm curious how you might interpret this play.
Would it fall into a nurturing category or an aggressive play,
or is it,
is it its own category of the child exploring and trying
to make sense of the world and seeking safety in it?
Do you see a difference of play in kids who grow up with
a religious background versus not and what
do those parent conversations look like?

(10:24):
OK,
so yes,
religious play is worked into sessions if the child
has faith as part of their reality.
So a child that has any faith background,
whatever it happens to be,
it will almost always make its way into their
play and or into the conversations while they play.
Many kids

(10:44):
will
bring it up,
mention it or play it out because it's important to them.
We know that kids bring things that are important to them into the playroom.
We learn about their pets,
we learn about their sports,
we learn about their families,
we learn about their school,
we learn about their interests,
we learn about the things that they hate,
we learn about their faith.
It's just
in the list of things that kids bring into the playroom.

(11:06):
So absolutely you will see it work its way in.
And you don't particularly have to categorize it.
It's just
what they're letting you
in on.
So it's connective,
it's relational,
and it's important to them.
So if they're playing out anything related to faith or religion,
it's because it's something that matters or that they're trying to sort out.

(11:29):
So that would just be a standard part of play,
not necessarily categorrizable.
And yes,
absolutely,
I see a difference in play
of play in kids who grow up with religious backgrounds and not
as I mentioned,
it will come up if it's an important element of their family,
and it won't if it's not.
And then what do those parent conversations look like?

(11:49):
If it is something that's persistent and I can acknowledge that it's a repetitive
symbolic play or repetitive theme in their play,
then I bring it up in a consultation just like I would bring up any other kind of play.
In a very neutral way,
such as,
and your child is definitely bringing faith into their play,
so that's certainly something that is important to them

(12:10):
and that they represent in their play pretty consistently.
So it would just be a pretty general commentary
on an observation of how that has been woven into their play.
All right.
So,
Mikayla,
thank you so much for the questions,
and I hope that that was helpful for all of you.
If you would like to reach out to me with a question,
I would love to hear from you,
or if you just want to say hello,

(12:31):
or
you just want to
Just have a chat,
whatever.
I love it when y'all reach out to me.
So you can feel free [e-mail],
and I hopefully will see you on the live call.
Really looking forward to that.
I know it's a couple of weeks out,
but
it's exciting to think about getting to see faces on a on an episode,
which I usually just stare at my sound panels.

(12:53):
So I,
I'm very much looking forward to seeing you when we have our meeting on the 16th.
Love y'all.
We'll talk again soon.
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.