Powered by RedCircle
Episode Description
Leah Band applied to about 50 therapy jobs after grad school, and nobody called her back. So, she took the one job that did call: knocking on doors as a child welfare intake caseworker.
It was the hardest work of her life, and she doesn’t regret a minute of it.
In this episode, Ashley Charbonneau and Morgen Villegas talk with Leah, a child and teen therapist in Louisville, Colorado, about what CPS looks like from the front lines. They talk about who decides what “safe enough” means, why the system works more like a band-aid than a fix, and how the systems that harm our clients are often the same ones that made us good clinicians.
Then the conversation moves into the playroom. Leah explains Synergetic Play Therapy, why she won’t do it over telehealth, and what it means when a child leaves your playroom in total chaos. (It’s rarely just a mess.) She also shares why good play therapists bring parents into the work. And yes, you can bill insurance for it.
In this episode:
Life as a CPS intake caseworker
Who defines child safety, and what “safe enough” costs
Parental rights vs. the best interest of the child
Synergetic Play Therapy and nervous system regulation
What a messy playroom tells you about a child
How to involve parents in play therapy
GUEST BIO:
Leah Band, LCSW, is a Certified Synergetic Play Therapist with nearly 20 years of experience. She earned her MSW from the University of Denver in 2011. Over her career she has worked in child welfare, residential treatment, schools, community mental health, and group practice. Today she runs a private practice in Louisville, CO, where she works with kids, teens, and their parents. She also provides clinical supervision to pre-licensed clinicians on their way to independent practice.
Transcript
Welcome and Guest Intro
Ashley C.: This is The Art of Being a Therapist, the space between training and real life. I'm Ashley, one of your hosts.
Morgen V.: And I'm Morgan, your other host. This podcast is for therapists who wanna think critically, stay open to feedback, and engage in the nuance of practice while remaining accountable to the people that they serve.
Leah B.: Today, our guest is Leah.
Ashley C.: Leah brings nearly two decades of experience to her practice. She received her Master of Social Work degree from the University of Denver in 2011, and her clinical social work license in 2017. She has worked in numerous settings over the years, from child welfare agencies to residential treatment centers, schools, community mental health, and group and private practice settings.
She currently has a private practice in Colorado, where she focuses on working with kids, teens, and their parents. She recently began the next step in her career by providing clinical supervision to pre-licensed clinicians working towards practicing independently.
Leah B.: Oh, thanks so much for having me.
Morgen V.: So usually we, we start off with an important question, but also could take a lot of different twists and turns.
We ask about your career journey. You graduated in 2011, and we understand that it was hard to get a clinical job. The economy wasn't in a good place, and so you ended up in child welfare. Will you tell us about that experience? This has not come up on our podcast yet, so we're- Yeah ... looking forward to hearing about your story.
Leah's Start in Child Welfare
Leah B.: So when I went to graduate school, I had a goal set on being a family therapist. That was what I intended to do. That was the track I followed in grad school. My father has been a clinical psychologist for close to 50 years. That was just what I was gonna do. And went to grad school, got out of grad school, and could not get a clinical job.
Applied for, I don't know, probably 50 jobs, and couldn't get anybody to call me back. And I ended up getting a call back from a child welfare agency in the metro area, and got hired, and had no clue what I was in for at all. There's some folks in grad school who know that's what they wanna do, and so they do their practicum or they do their internship at a child welfare agency, and get a stipend, and so they know the world that they're stepping into, and I really didn't know the world I was stepping into.
And it was the hardest work I've ever done in my life. I don't regret it for a minute. I know I'm the social worker I am because of that work. I know I'm the therapist I am. I know I'm the mom that I am. I'm also a crier, so just me. I didn't think that was gonna bring up anything for me, but it does, 'cause it was, um, it was a really powerful time in my life.
I was very green, didn't really know what I was doing, and I got hired as an intake caseworker, so I was the front of the line. So calls would come in, allegations of abuse or neglect, and I went out to investigate. So here I am, a white girl from an upper middle class family from West LA, moving to Colorado and knocking on people's doors and saying, "Hey, got a report about you beating the shit out of your kid.
Wanna tell me about it?" "Nope. I don't want you here." I got doors slammed in my face. I removed kids from homes that parents were actively smoking meth in the home. I think that was one of the hardest ones, having to physically remove a child from his mother's arms while he wailed and screamed.
Ashley C.: Oh my gosh.
Leah B.: That's pretty much as bad as it gets.
Assumptions vs Reality in CPS
Ashley C.: To zoom out a little bit- Sure ... what assumptions do you think people have about child welfare versus the reality? You definitely shared- Mm ... some pieces of the reality with us, but- Yeah ... I had a recent supervisee say, "The system does right by kids." And I was like- Yeah ... "In theory, but not in reality."
Yes. And it was this moment for me where I was like, "Am I gonna break this supervisee's heart, burst this bubble?" And also where- Yes ... does that assumption come from? So- For sure ... what have you seen, assumptions versus reality?
Leah B.: That's an awesome question. So I think it's been a long time since I was in that system, so I wanna be clear about that.
I left that system in 2016, and have not been directly involved in it. So things... That's 10 years ago. 10 years ago, right? And in 10 years a lot can change, right? But when I was there, the child welfare system is a band-aid. Or was a bandaid. That was really how I saw it, especially as an intake worker when things did not rise to the level enough of needing to open what's called an ongoing case, right?
So on the front of the line, you can have open and closed, right? Come in, do an investigation, kids are safe, you close the door, we're done. Other times, no, the needs rise to such a level that there needs to be some ongoing oversight, and so then there's more of an opportunity for resources to come into play, for the court system to be involved, for treatment to happen, et cetera.
And it doesn't necessarily address the poverty issues that come into play that are a huge factor in neglect especially, but abuse and neglect. It doesn't address a lot of times the trauma, the generational trauma that is contributing to the reasons that child welfare workers are going out. They try, but so many of the folks that are involved, it's generational that they've been involved in child welfare, right?
Their parents were, they were removed as a kid, their parents were removed as a kid, et cetera, generation to generation. So I think people have a perception that it's this great system that is out there to help save children, and that's the idea, right? But I think because there's so many different systems at play, it's not possible to fix everything that needs to be fixed.
There isn't enough funding. There aren't enough hours in the day. There aren't enough people who wanna do the work. There's so many factors that make it hard to actually make lasting change happen for these families.
Defining Safety and Decision Power
Ashley C.: Who decides what is safe, and how is safety defined?
Leah B.: Right. When I was there, it was, there's something called the Children's Code, right?
Which is the rules and the law that child welfare has to abide by that dictate this is what's safe, this is what's not safe. You have to look at are these things happening? Are the children's needs being met, right? Are they not being harmed? Okay, well, they're safe enough. Safe enough. That was what I always struggled with as a caseworker.
I had to walk away sometimes, or I wanted to do more in the system and my supervisors were saying, "Nope, we can't do that. Nope, there's no funding. Nope." Or the family saying, "Fuck you. Get out of my life. I don't want you here." The state determines what those child welfare laws need to look like, what the standards need to look like, and then child welfare systems have to abide by this criteria, right?
And things shifted even while I was there, that there was new ways of assessing because it was such a system 40 years ago of take kids, ask questions later, which is what gave sort of CPS a bad name, right? That they implemented a lot of different structures and criteria to have better decision-making around what safety looked like, around what support systems look like, community support, how to help people with their natural support systems, and those kinds of things.
So it's way higher up. It's way higher up who makes those determinations about what safety needs to look like. And then it's a person's decision, right? It's on the back of a caseworker and their supervisor, which always was really hard for me. That feels like you're making this decision. And even now as a child clinician, right?
I guide parents and I help parents make these decisions, and I'm like How do I know that this is for sure the right thing for this kid? I don't. And that's where it can be a scary place to sit as a clinician or as a caseworker.
Looking Back and System Limits
Morgen V.: What is your perspective on child welfare now that you've had, I think, a long cushion of time to really reflect and integrate your experiences?
There's a movement now in social work around the decarceral practice of looking at these systems and mandated reporting and just the punitive ways that the system has really harmed people, but there's not really a solution that I'm aware of at this point to replace it. Curious about your thoughts on it now.
Leah B.: I get frustrated with the system, with the child welfare system, 'cause I make reports all the time, right? I work with kids and their families, and so I make reports, and I still continue to work with the Medicaid population because I believe so strongly in providing services to families that can't afford therapy on their own, and I always will provide Medicaid services.
And so with that comes a lot of trauma. With that comes situations that are very scary, and I have been frustrated on this side of it because I felt like the system wasn't doing enough to protect my clients with very serious abuse allegations. They did not protect my clients what they should have. Not every county functions the same.
I have opinions about certain counties versus other counties. So how much can they do? I've had to work really hard to get my clients services that they need. As a clinician, a social worker, that is deep down in my soul, right? Advocate, advocate. Help them access resources and get their needs met and all of those pieces, and the system doesn't allow for that to happen easily, right?
Some of these folks really- Don't know how to do that, and the system does not make it easy for them to do it. It makes it really hard. Whether we're talking food stamps, Medicaid, applying for Medicaid, right? Whatever the case may be, they, it's a difficult system to navigate for anyone. For me, with a master's degree and 20 years experience in social work, it's hard for people to navigate the system, and that's bad because the system is supposed to be there to help support these people.
Ashley C.: My understanding is in recent years there's been more focus on parental rights, and so there's this question of preservation of parental rights- Yes ... at what cost to children. Mm-hmm. And how do you weigh allegations about legal rights of the parent versus the best interest of the child? And I have no words sometimes as to how decisions are made.
Something that I think is very clear-cut, there's no intervention. Something where I'm like, "Really? That case that they decided to intervene with? That doesn't make sense to me." That reflects the human part of our profession, for sure. As you said, at the end of the day, there's humans making the decisions based on law and policies and procedures.
Leah B.: Yeah.
Ashley C.: And as you also said, humans can't figure out the system. Medicaid paperwork specifically is impossible to figure out, and then you get rejected, and then you have to fill it out again, and then you miss a box, and then you fill it out again.
Leah B.: And because of the way that the policies, the laws, the procedures are all written and how they've shifted over the last 10, 15 years, you're right.
There is more desire to give parents the opportunities, but at what cost? I wholeheartedly believe if parents can be safe and appropriate- Kids have a right to maintain that relationship and that attachment to their parent, as long as the parent can be safe and appropriate and meet their needs, right? If parent is showing that they can't do that, then we gotta create safety for them.
But just because a parent has struggles and isn't capable of meeting a child's every need doesn't mean that they shouldn't have a relationship with their child. Maybe that means the child doesn't live there full time. Maybe that means they do visits every Saturday for three hours, right? They go to the park and play, right?
Maybe it means mom doesn't put the kid to bed because she doesn't always do everything that she's supposed to do, right? I think that's what the child welfare departments are trying to do, right? Trying to maintain that attachment, trying to help kids have that relationship continue with their birth parents because it's so important.
We know that as clinicians, right? There is trauma that occurs through disrupted attachment. Whether there was harm happening or not, a baby is adopted at birth, there is still a disruption there in that little brain, right? So if that relationship can be maintained and it can be safe, I think that's where everybody's coming from, right?
But sometimes people miss the mark, and sometimes kids are in environments that they really shouldn't be in, and then the department misses that when I make 10 reports about the safety in this home.
Morgen V.: There's like the staffing issues and then the level of clinical expertise. This is another- Yeah ... example of the greenest clinicians going into the most complicated situations and getting paid the least- Absolutely
and having the most moral injury, feeling the most demoralized in the least safety. Right. I'm talking about the clinician safety, not kiddo. And so it's like I can just picture all of these intersecting energies happening, right? Yeah, yeah. The 10 reports and it still doesn't get flagged or it doesn't get followed up on.
I can just feel how draining and despairing that would be. And we're talking about just one hypothetical case. Yeah. How many people did you actually have on your caseload?
Leah B.: I can't even remember. But what I do remember, it was a lot. It's a lot, right?
Morgen V.: Like hundred?
Leah B.: Not hundreds at a time.
Morgen V.: Okay. But- But over the time
Leah B.: Oh, yeah, 100.
I stuck it out for 18 months doing intake casework, and then I moved to a different position within the department, so I was still involved in child welfare, but I was, it was less direct. I wasn't on the frontline. But it took a good six weeks probably for my nervous system to regulate again after leaving.
You're constantly existing in an activated nervous system when you work in that environment. Constantly. There's no way not to be. There's stuff constantly coming at you, and emergencies, and law enforcement involvement, and trauma, and hospitals, and all of this stuff, and it's so hard on the nervous system.
Ashley C.: I have a question for both of you. Mm-hmm. And I'll answer as well. What is the most amount of child welfare calls you've seen on one kid? I guess Leia and I probably both served in roles where we could see the total number of calls for a kid made at any time throughout their childhood. For me, it was 107.
I'll always remember that client.
Leah B.: I don't think I ever saw that many. I can't recall, but that's a lot, Ashley.
Morgen V.: I mean, to me seems like a lot, right? When I was in community mental health and doing agency work, it might be an average of, I would say, eight to 10 calls per either family or kid.
Leah B.: That's crazy.
That is like, what is the system doing? There's something going on, right? If so many community members, teachers, whoever, mandated reporters, are making that many calls for this poor child over the course of their childhood, something is really fucking wrong.
Ashley C.: Yeah, I'm with you. And it was a heartbreaking case, as you can imagine.
From Child Welfare to Play Therapy
Morgen V.: I'm really getting a full picture of what this work meant, and I heard you say really clearly and at the beginning you wouldn't change it, right? 'Cause it seems like it was a bridge that led you to your work now. Are you okay with maybe reflecting on what that looks like now? Totally.
Leah B.: Yeah. So as I said, when we first started, family therapy was like, that was my goal.
I was gonna be a family therapist. And I ended up in child welfare and loved the one-to-one connection, relationship building that I could do with these kids that I was meeting with. The trauma work felt really important to me, so to say I love that, but wanting to make a difference there, I always felt really envious of the therapists who were sitting on these teams that I was a part of.
I was like, "I wanna be that person. I wanna be doing that. I don't wanna be sitting here. I wanna be doing that." And a girlfriend of mine who worked at the same agency said to me, 'cause she and I connected in a lot of ways, she's like, "I've come across this, this model of play therapy, and I really think you might connect with it.
It's called Synergetic Play Therapy." And this was in, when was that? 2011. So SPT was, like, pretty new back then. It still was, like, controversial and people didn't really know what was happening with it. Lisa Dion, the founder of Synergetic Play Therapy, had not blown up in the way that she has now, and she's an amazing world traveling teacher and just brilliant So then my friend Megan said, "I really think you should look into this because I think you'll connect with it."
And I started exploring it, and I was like, "Oh my God, this is literally my way to work with kids. This is what I'm gonna do." And so I put that on the back burner, but I really shifted my thinking into I really wanna do one-to-one treatment for kids. Obviously, as a child therapist, you work with the family.
There's no way around it, but I didn't wanna be a, quote-unquote, family therapist anymore. That felt too big to me, too much. And so I, during my time in Boulder County, I was able to earn my clinical license, and that was a huge blessing, right? I got supervision, I earned my clinical hours, all this stuff.
And like I said, I moved from that position into another position at the county, and came to the realization I need to move on. And so I started the process of becoming a certified Synergetic Play therapist. I went to community mental health, which was like, "Oh, here we go again. Okay. All right, my nervous system's gonna be up here.
Okay, I'm gonna have 50 clients. Okay, billable hours. Okay." And I hated that system. I absolutely hated it. I was there 18 months But I was able to earn my certification in Synergistic Play Therapy because I had kids that I was working with one-on-one in school base, and was able to do all the video recording and do all the reflection.
And I had one kid that I worked with from the start of the school year all the way through, so I was able to do all of the hours I needed, and it was beautiful. And so again, as much as I will never work in community mental health again, I don't regret it because it opened up so many doors for me, and it opened and allowed me to develop this model that is in my soul and I know that I was literally put on this planet to do.
And then I applied for this job at this group practice that worked with kids and families, and was in Broomfield, and they were looking for play therapists on their staff. And I was there for almost five and a half years, and then I made the decision to launch my own solo practice, which was in July of '23.
And so now flying solo and love it. That was the best thing. I couldn't have gotten here without all of these other steps. I know that. There's no way that I could've jumped into private practice. Isn't
Ashley C.: it interesting that the three of us can critique the system that hurt us and hurt our clients, but those are the same systems who made us fantastic therapists.
100%. And I don't want new clinicians to suffer the way- Yeah ... that I probably did, but it goes to show if you don't work in a system, you might really struggle to understand the realities of your client's life.
Leah B.: Totally. 100%, Ashley. Coming from the privilege that I grew up with, that I absolutely recognize, but I have worked in those systems that they deal with every day.
And so I have a, I have some sense the stress that those systems cause.
What Makes a Good Therapist
Ashley C.: What else do you think makes a good therapist?
Leah B.: Relationship The ability to build relationship with people in an authentic way, and I will go to my grave saying that. I really will.
Ashley C.: Is that innate? Is that a talent? I- Is that a gift?
Leah B.: It's controversial, I think, to some degree, but I'm still gonna say it. Can you... It's a gift that can't be taught. It's who you are. Yeah. It's who you are in your soul.
Morgen V.: And I can sense that from you, the way that you're talking about your clients, the way that you're talking about Synergetic Play Therapy, that there's some kind of innate interest and joy and curiosity that you have to have about human beings.
I would love to hear more about this though, because I hear that it's controversial.
Ashley C.: I'll challenge that just a little bit because I don't think I had an innate gift to be a therapist. Mm. I think I have an innate gift, if you will, or trait or talent to build relationships, but I think learning how to be a therapist, it took a lot.
It took education. It took very strong supervisors. I didn't, quote-unquote, "get it" for a while. But I do think I have innate empathy and compassion and interest in humans. So that's the piece where I think some can be taught, whether it's skill specific to therapy or skill specific to relationship building, I think is to be determined.
Leah B.: No, I, and I love that pushback, Ashley. I love that challenge because I agree with you. I agree with you. I think for myself as a human, I've always been a big feeler. I've always been empathetic. I've always connected well with people from the time that I was a little kid. But I needed to learn the skills about how to be a good therapist.
So you're totally right. So I think, so I should reframe that, right, in that not everybody has the gift to sit with people and hold space, hold their big stuff, hold their heavy stuff with authenticity and comfort. But the therapeutic skills can be taught, totally. DBT can be taught. Synergetic Play Therapy can- Child-centered play therapy can be taught.
Ashley C.: I do think though some people can't learn that. We can teach and supervise, supervise. Yeah. And some, some clinicians can't get it in terms of the skill. So I'll challenge you right back.
Telehealth and SPT Basics
Ashley C.: We haven't talked about this on the podcast yet, how do you think telehealth impacts either therapy or the relationship or both?
Leah B.: I hate it. I hate telehealth.
Ashley C.: Me too. Me too.
Leah B.: I say that initially, and then I'm gonna pull it back because I have a client who's been with me for years and years. We're able to still meet because of telehealth, right? So we didn't have to end that relationship, and she didn't have to find somebody new, 'cause I've literally been with her since she was a middle schooler, right?
Because of telehealth. So do I much prefer when she is on summer break and she can come to my office and share space with me and sit? Absolutely, right? But do I think that is a good way to build relationship therapeutically? No. I don't.
Ashley C.: And I think there is a difference too, though, when you start in person- Totally
and then either transition to telehealth temporarily or even permanent- Totally. ... Versus starting on telehealth.
Morgen V.: Can you tell us a little bit about Synergetic Play Therapy and what that looks like, I guess either via telehealth or in person or both?
Leah B.: So I don't do Synergetic Play Therapy via telehealth because it does- I don't believe that it works.
There are folks who practice this model and can do SPT over the computer, and more power to them. But SPT is a model of play therapy that comes, pulls from a lot of different theories and perspectives. It's about interpersonal neurobiology is a big part of SPT, so neuroscience, brain science is a huge piece of it.
It's about re-patterning of the nervous system. It's about therapist authenticity. It's about attunement, and it's a child-led process. That is the thing that I think is one of the most important pieces of SPT. There's different models of play therapy, and some are more directive and some are more non-directive.
SPT is a non-directive model of play therapy. I have a playroom, lots of toys, all different kinds of stuff. Kiddo comes into the room, and it's their show. So they choose whatever they wanna play with, and I follow. So sometimes that's them playing independently, and I'm observing and making observational statements and talking about how my body's feeling and reflecting on what I'm seeing happening in the room, things like that.
Sometimes it's play together. They invite me into their play, and we engage together in play, and I'm still doing the same thing, observing, talking about my body, modeling regulation, different kinds of things like that. Sometimes it's non-verbal. Sometimes kids don't talk at all. For folks who don't understand about play therapy, the easiest, most simple way to understand it is that kids don't participate in therapy in the same way that adults do, right?
Adults can sit in a room across from somebody, have a conversation, process cognitively the struggles, the challenges that they're going through. Kids can't do that yet. And so the best way that kids can communicate what's happening for them internally is onto the toys. And so they show us their internal worlds onto the toys, and then I as their therapist can make reflections back to them about what I'm seeing.
I can show them new ways to respond to challenges. It's a lot about connection. It's very relationship based. That's what I love, and that's why I connected to SBT so well, because it's really about forming a relationship with the kid and the family to create safety within the space and within the relationship and within their body, and connecting to themselves.
Because a lot of kids get disconnected from their selves, which is why they have a hard time managing their emotions.
Morgen V.: Okay. So I'm just gonna refer to my own kiddo because I don't have any kid clients. Yeah. Let's just say he's there because he's having trouble with not screaming for different emotional reasons, right?
He's six. He just started first grade. He's coming in. We want h- we want him to feel our love and our support, but we can't somehow communicate that verbally. He needs a lot of side door strategies. So I would call you, he'd come in, and then you would go and play and observe, like, how he plays, and you would name out loud, "I see that you're playing with clay, and my body feels really scared because it seems like you're throwing that clay really hard."
Leah B.: So there's observational statements, literally observing what is happening in the room, and then there's kind of self-reflective observations. I'm noticing, so a lot of it is somatic, "Oh, my tummy feels very swirly right now. Oh, it's hard to take a deep breath. Oh, I'm gonna... Oh, I'm gonna take a deep breath.
Oh, that feels better. Oh, my hands are really tingly right now. I'm gonna shake it out, see how that feels." And a lot of times in the beginning of treatment, kids will be like, "Miss Leia, what are you doing? That is so weird. Like, why are you taking those breaths?" Then five, six, seven sessions down the line, I take a deep breath and they take a deep breath and don't even say anything.
Parents in Play Therapy and Closing
Morgen V.: Okay. How would you involve the family in that? Mm-hmm. 'Cause I think a lot of what happens when I'm referring them and their children to play therapists, they're like, "Oh, I tried play therapy and it just looked like they made a big mess." And then they didn't talk to me about the therapy, and then they didn't follow up, and I didn't know what was happening.
Yeah. And I always like to let them know. I feel like a good play therapist will involve the family in some way, shape, or form. Absolutely. So can you speak to that a little bit?
Leah B.: Absolutely. So if the clinician is not involving the parent, they need to advocate for their involvement. They need to send an email.
They need to phone call, "Hey, I'd love to set up a parent session with you. Can we do a check-in? I'm happy to come in. I'm happy to do a virtual. What's my kiddo exploring, right? What are they working on? What are the themes that you're seeing?" The way I practice, and I can't speak to other folks, but I know this is at least the FBT model, Lisa encourages us to work hand-in-hand with caregivers because the kid does not exist in a vacuum, right?
If you are not bringing those parents or caregivers, whoever it is, auntie, uncle, grandparents, whatever, into the process, good luck If a kiddo is struggling, there's probably a, a good chance that the parents need to shift some things that they're doing at home too to be able to support the kid during these big moments, these big emotional experiences, these big meltdowns.
So if parents can learn to shift what they're doing and interact with their kid in a different way, you have a better chance of seeing success than if just the kid comes into the playroom once a week, makes a big mess, which I could say a whole lot about what that big mess is about, but I'm not gonna go there, and then leaves, right?
And there's no parent, there's no nothing. But a- in my opinion, a good play therapist should at least be checking in very briefly before session or after session, and then setting up parent check-ins monthly or every six weeks, something like that. And if folks are like, "Well, I can't bill insurance," yes, you can.
Promise you. You can bill insurance to meet with parents. You don't get paid as much, but you can. I feel like that's very important. I love to be able to give parents ideas, and tell me what's happening at home. Tell me what you're struggling with. Here's some suggestions. Try this. Try that. Read this book.
Dan Siegel and Tina Payne are like godsends in the SPT world. And I'm like, "Read Whole-Brain Child. Please read Whole-Brain Child." So I love to give parents ideas, and I also love to bring parents into the room. That's not... If they wanna see the process, awesome. Come into the playroom, right? Be a part of this process.
Get on the floor with your kid. Let's play. Let me help you. Let me model for you what it looks like to help be the external regulator for your child, 'cause that's a big part of it too. Parents need to learn. A lot of parents, this is something that I have really reflected on a lot in the course of my career is we only parent the way that we were parented, right?
That's all, that's the only experience that we have, right? And so some parents don't know how to do it differently. If they're not happy with how it was in their own childhood, they don't know how to do it differently. So let me help you learn how to help your kid regulate, help you regulate. I'm gonna help model that for you, right?
What does that look like? What feels important to you? Let's talk about it.
Morgen V.: Can you briefly name the mess? Because I wanna hear what I wanna hear what to say to folks, 'cause I don't think it's a mess. So maybe- I know there's a reason around it ...around a mess.
Leah B.: So like I said, kids are showing you what their internal world feels like with the toys.
And a mess in a playroom typically means internally they feel chaotic. So they are creating chaos in the world, the playroom, the world around them. That's typically what that means. I can tell you I have kids who have kind of chaos in their lives, right? There's a rollercoaster. One week they'll come in and play will be very contained.
They will put something away after they play with it. They will stay focused on one thing, put it away, move on to the next thing. Two weeks later, because now mom has relapsed and she doesn't know where she's gonna be sleeping, my playroom will be a total disaster at the end of a session, and I walk them out into the waiting room and I turn around and I look in and I go, "Ooh, okay, she's...
Yeah, she's feeling some chaos." That's not always the case, but nine times out of 10 there's something internally that's feeling chaotic to them, and so they're creating that in the world around them and they're saying, "Hey, therapist. Hey. Hey. Look. Look, this is how it feels to be me. This, the chaos you're feeling as you look around this room?
Welcome to my world. That's what you're seeing right now. This is how I feel." That's pretty typical.
Ashley C.: Kids are communicating with us all the time, too. Able as adults- Yeah ... a lot of the time to speak their language.
Leah B.: Totally.
Morgen V.: I just learned something. Thank you so much. Yeah. I'll be regulating energy for my son, but it's hard sometimes with having to juggle another child and also other life things.
Yeah. But it is affirming to hear when I do name those things, "Oh, my, I feel so sad," or, "My body feels really tight when that scream is in my ear," or when, you know, when you're screaming about this thing with brother. But I just appreciate- Oh ... your perspective. We are starting to do a new kind of closing, and we don't wanna put you on the spot, but hopefully it's okay.
Ashley C.: Yeah. Right now we'd love to hear three thoughts about the mental health system. A thumbs up, a middle finger, and a thumbs down. So something that's going well, something that's not going well, and something that is we need to blow this shit up and start again.
Leah B.: So a thumbs up, in Colorado at least, is the amount of therapists that there are for people to go see, right?
There's so many of us in Colorado, which I think is awesome. So I think that's a thumbs up. I think- Oh God, a middle finger is insurance companies and how little they wanna fucking pay us, because I deserve more than what you're willing to fucking pay me, right? Mm. And a thumbs down, and I know you two have been covering the Lindsay Clancy case a lot, is maternal mental health, postpartum mental health gets a big fucking thumbs down, right?
It shouldn't have to be on everybody's radar because a mom killed her three kids because she didn't have the support that she needed, and she was desperately asking for it. So that's the big thumbs down, right? Is that goes a lot, that goes to other avenues of mental health too, but I think because it's just at the forefront of therapists' minds right now, that's a huge one.
Let's help moms postpartum and beyond, right? Just because we have a six-year-old, Morgan, you and I are in this together, six-year-old doesn't mean that our mental health doesn't matter anymore, right? It's hard to be a mom at every stage. It's really hard.
Ashley C.: I know. I'm like, "I'm postpartum for the rest of my life.
What are you talking..." I agree with all of those, and one of my thumbs ups this week, which I already shared with Morgan, has to do with your thumbs down. Oh. I run a group of adult men who are legal involved- Mm-hmm ... and this week we were talking about the endocrine system, and one of them raised their hand and said, "What happens after birth to serotonin?"
And I was like, "Oh my gosh, have you been watching the news?" And all of them were like, "No. What's happening in the news?" Okay, I thought we were going in a different direction, but yes, you're genuinely interested with no prompting? This is awesome. So any final thoughts before we close for today, Leah? Just really
Morgen V.: grateful for your perspective and the work that you do in our field.
I'm just like, okay, are you open to referrals? And also just any closing thoughts that you might have.
Leah B.: So I'm starting the supervision stuff and trying to shift my career in a couple different ways, so I am making space, but it's limited, but people are welcome to reach out. I'm always happy to chat with folks.
I don't have a website 'cause I have never needed one, but I have a Psychology Today page, so you can find me on Psychology Today, Leah Ban. I'm in Louisville, Colorado. And I'm just so grateful to be here and to, with you guys and to have this conversation. It felt so enriching and beautiful, and I love reflecting on my career.
It's so cool to take a step back sometimes and be like, "Wow, I've done a lot."
Morgen V.: Yeah, you really have, and it's so meaningful- Yeah ... and important, and it has a ripple effect.
Ashley C.: Leah, thank you so much for joining us today. It was lovely to share space with you, and I learned a lot. And for our listeners, thanks for being with us today.
Please give us a like or a follow, and we appreciate all support. Totally just winged that.
