Play Therapy Across the Lifespan: Nurturing Healing Through Symbolic Repair (Best Of)

Welcome to Lessons from the Playroom. In this podcast, Lisa DeAnne will help you explore the little things that make a big difference in play therapy. Lisa is a fatter of energetic play therapy. You know, sometimes therapists get all caught up trying to study big, serious, mastering techniques to help children like me. But sometimes it's the little things we show you along the way that make the biggest difference. Finally, Lisa, as you teach us some of the little lessons that children are trying to communicate to you, so that you can help us in the best ways possible. And on behalf of all the kids you work with, thanks for listening and believing in us. Let's get started. Hi, listeners. Thank you so much for joining for the latest episode from the Lessons from the Playroom podcast. I have with me two incredible guests on a topic that we have never covered in this entire podcast series. And I know that this is going to be a very enlightening and enriching conversation. So I hope you have something to take notes with. Let me go ahead and introduce my special guest. I just want to say that I love these two women so much. Really professionally, they are the two women that are part of PIP solutions. We have Karen O'Neill and Tara McDonald. I'm going to tell you a little bit about them as a duo. So they met about 15 years ago in a training. Realize that they had a lot in common. Realize that they were destined to partner and create magical things on this planet for like therapists and thus created PIP solutions. So for those of you that are not familiar with PIP solutions, it is an organization that provides high level quality training and supports for clinicians, educators, parents as well covering a whole whole slew of topics. You both are based out of England, although you have reached globally and people from all over can take your courses. I will let you both say a little bit more about PIP solutions, but I want to say a little bit more about each one of you individually. So Karen, you're in a private practice and this was fun to learn this about you. I didn't know that you were a nurse before you became a therapist. You work with adults, your play therapist, your therapist practitioner, your clinical supervisor, you do EMDR and you're currently getting your doctorate right now. And your research is quite intriguing. It's on how play therapists engage with attachment, theory and non-directive play therapy, an interpretive phenomenon logical analysis. Big words, big, big words. And then Tara, also in private practice, also work with adults, play therapist, their play practitioner, fill you play therapy, yeah, fill you play coach, clinical supervisor and then something that I knew about you a little bit but got to learn more about you in your bio is that you spent a lot of time working for a nonprofit in Asia, delivering attachment focus training to social workers, focusing on developmental needs of infants, etc, etc. And you're both in the process of writing a book on polypagol theory and hopefully we'll see it in the next year. Yes, fingers crossed. So welcome both of you for I'm even announcing what we're going to be talking about. We're going to talk about play therapy across the lifespan with an added focus on symbolic repair. And I'm like so intrigued because play therapists have so many questions, what does play therapy look like with teens and adults and so thank you both so much for being on this podcast. It's lovely to be here. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. So Tara, let me start with you. Anything that you would like to add, anything you'd like the listeners to know before we jump into this topic? Well, I think it's really interesting because when we think about play therapy across the lifespan, the thing about play therapy is its title, isn't it? Because that's the clincher. As we sort of move a few different ages and stages, the name changes. We call it expressive therapy or creative therapies when we're moving older, when we're working with younger babies and infants who might call it infant mental health. But fundamentally what we're really interested in what we want to talk about is the fact that essentially that is play therapy and that play has a place in whatever demographic we're working with, play has a place and it is therapeutic play that we're doing. So it's really just thinking about giving people permission to be playful with their clients, whether or not they're working with an infant parent, dyad or whether they're working with an elderly person in their 70s. But that clinical component is going to be, we think essential throughout the therapeutic and healing process. I'm so excited to get into this. I know that one of the things that you're both going to talk about is what does this actually look like. So I'm excited to go there. Karen, anything that you want to add before we go there? I don't think so. I would agree with Tara said. I think just to say really that we know that play therapy has, you know, integrates a range of mediums, a range of modalities and it can mean different things to different practitioners. So being playful can mean different things to different practitioners. And there's no right or wrong to this. And I guess that's about giving us individually used practitioners permission to be and to be intuitive about work. Beautiful. So as we get into this, what you also just introduced, because I know that we're going to touch on this idea of symbolic repair, how do you want us to be thinking about this as you and Tara talk about therapy across the lifespan? If I may just say something about it to start off with, really, I thought about it a few years ago. I think as adult therapists, we hear a lot about reparation, reparation of the relationship in adults like therapy. We know that exists absolutely and happens in child therapy work. But it's not really named per se in the play therapy world in the work. And my feeling was certainly working with diads over years that sometimes parents are not able to actually hold their children in that diadic relationship when we're in, when we're working with them and because and it may be harmful, they may not be able to or willing to hold their children within the therapeutic alliance. So I became curious about, well, we as therapists are there, the children and we know that we're secondary. We can be secondary attachment figures for the children. And then I started to think about play therapy and thinking about, well, we are using the creative mediums, the creative tools and through that process that does support reparation. So symbolic repair was born out of that really. The idea that we are using metaphorical symbolic processes through psychotherapy to be able to support the heat process of the child, the reparation. That's where it emerged. And just thinking about how then that can be utilized throughout the lifespan, which is what Tara and I are going to speak about in this podcast. Oh, I was so excited. Now let's jump in, where and I'll start with Tara, where should we start in this conversation? Should we do it developmentally? Should we do it? Yeah, great. So let's go there. Yeah. So, so we're going to start with talking about babies and Karen's going to sort of give her experience and the way that she works with babies. I've done a lot of infant mental health work, but not for a while, Karen's in that process, in that world at the moment. So she's going to start us off there and think about what play therapy might look like when supporting infant mental health. which is of course working with the with the diet, working with the primary caregiver or caregiver and the baby. So yeah, so Karen. So as Tara said at the moment, part of my work is working in that area with parent and babies, parent, infant, mental health, trying to support the diet. So what we would be looking at really thinking about play therapy with this population is certainly that it would be a dietic piece with the parent and the baby. And we would be thinking about things like nanobytes, yes, shoe rhymes, and infant massage, things like stories, playful stories using the body to be able to to support that. So those are the things that we would really be talking about. Offering playful interactions. Also thinking about the way that we gently, carefully, from a nurturing perspective work with the body in those massage pieces and the story, the story play which Janet Courtney talks about the first play. So it's those sorts of things really we're talking about in terms of in terms of babies and obviously the prosody, the inflammation and the cold winter valve and talks about and he's his parent is. So what you just said got my attention on two friends, Karen. One is that if we're working in the diet, we're obviously bringing in play the strengthen the attachment bond between the child and whoever it is that's in the room. But if there's been a rupture, then there's also the healing. So even peekaboo can be a way of repairing a rupture or you know learning how to touch the baby in a new way that feels safe can can then be you know a rupture. So I just have that in mind with what you were sharing of yeah a beautiful strengthening and multiple friends. And we know about we're going to talk a little bit about peekaboo a little bit later on but just to say with peekaboo we know that it is how babies really learn about relationships in those early days. I think it's like initiation of relationships you know how we initiate relationships or experiences, how we perhaps maintain those experiences in the peekaboo thinking about how we avoid know in the peekaboo and how the baby moves ahead and avoids but also termination as well. So endings many many things in peekaboo without are important in terms of relationships, building and strengthening, incredibly important. Absolutely. Do you want to try any pieces you want to add to that or Well I just think that it's it's just so interesting because when we're working with that sort of you know parent infant diet or actually parent child diet we're also very much holding the parent in that process and we are we're trying very hard we're trying very hard to go developmentally but it's so hard because when you're talking about infant mental health obviously you know you're holding the baby but you're also holding the parent in that process. So there is that sort of interaction of play within that. I know that in my experience of sort of training training social workers to support parents so that there was no so that they didn't relinquish their babies in the area that I was working in. It was just so extraordinary how by giving parents permission to play with their babies and actually delighting in their babies and building that relationship through play that really did have an impact on whether or not they decided that they were good enough parents for their child. I'm working in situations where there was you know huge socioeconomic difficulties. There was a sense that their baby would be you know better held somewhere else and actually it was through play that there were relationships that were actually strengthened and that that choice was changed, that decision was changed. So the impact of play in that dynamic is it cannot be over you know over-assumated it's huge. It's a triadic piece of work really isn't it if you think about it. So let's move a little bit older and now moving into the age where most play therapists get their training and feel a little bit more comfortable. What do you want to say about that developmental stage that feels important to me? We're not really going to talk about children so to speak because we feel like that's kind of covered but what we did want to look at a little bit was kind of three four-year-olds because although as play therapists that is an age that we are trained to work with and you know it's entirely appropriate I think that we need to give ourselves permission as play therapists to really look at where the child is developmentally and sometimes play therapy is not going to be play therapy. What I mean by that is you know children at that age still very much need to be delighted in there still needs to be play, play for play's sake and that as therapists that's great that you know that the sort of doing of therapy if you like may not be necessary because for some children at that age they may not have been delighted in they may not have had those sort of experiences of someone allowing them to just get on and discover and explore that sitting back and reading a story to a child for the entire session the prosody of voice that sort of you know back and forth guarantees conversation all of that is hugely therapeutic and and you know as a supervised when I supervise people sometimes there's a kind of you know there's that question that therapists often ask am I am I doing therapy is this therapeutic and I think you know the answer most of the time is yes anyway but particularly with this age group sometimes they need you to just be there to be a sort of the nine presence and just just allow them to explore and that that is the therapy in and of itself. Yeah it makes me think of how sometimes play therapists don't take it into account emotional age and they're so fixated on you know their chronological age and what I'm here and you say is that we in it we may not even be ready to get into the symbolic nature of play yet we still may be working on earlier milestones around like you said just exploring being relationship 101 and then that that that maybe where we're at and so how do we meet the child in that rather than oh you're four so therefore we need to draw you know or we need to whatever it is yeah yeah and and I and I think you know with this age group in particular we really need to be attuned to sort of stages of play so the work of Melody Parton you know thinking about where there are and actually you know a child might still be in the parallel play stage which doesn't mean that they're avoidant or that they you know don't know how to have a relationship it means that developmentally that's where there are and so just having the kind of much broader lens and that you are therapeutically holding them very authentically it's a holding position rather than sort of being a therapist if you know what I mean if that makes sense yes yes beautiful yeah thank you for adding that adding that piece in so I talked about so much so thank you so am I hearing now that we want to scoot through until preteen teen is that we want to do now in the in the conversation yes okay so who wants to go there so I'm going to take this group of children teenagers and interestingly enough we we also think that probably this we feel that this group is also about almost pre-lay therapy but in a different way because if we think about how a teenager presents and what they need really they need us to get into their world really I mean it would say that with any any child any client but teenagers need us to be creative and we need to be thinking about maybe video games we need to be thinking about music we need to be thinking about tags we need to be thinking about the way they dress their piercings their makeup and being being mindful but playful with that so there is something about again the always the therapeutic holding but how we perhaps put our responses to them offer our responses. Maybe more about not perceiving it as play therapy, creative therapy per se, that we are linking into something that is perhaps a little bit younger, that is needed, but really respecting the fact that they're teenagers. Because I think there is that sort of-- some people say you don't know that teenagers can often be bigger children in sort. But with the brain plasticity and the workings, maybe, of a little one. So we feel that that's really important to hold teenagers in this way, but absolutely respecting as well where they're at. I love the invitation to consider the things that they're doing as their form of play. Just because they're not using a miniature does not mean that it's not play or because it's not a puppet. It's not play, but music is play. Socializing is play. I'm talking about their sports. That's a form of play. So I love the invitation to go over the rigidity around the definition of what play means and what play actually looks like. I love it. And I-- sorry, just to add, I also think that we-- there's a real fear of gaming and computer gaming. And I'm actually really getting into that world, too. I mean, I'm not suggesting that we as therapists all have to be experts on every single game out there, but respecting that that is an entire world, which needs to be respected and have curiosity about, because there is so much play. I mean, that is all about play. It's all about play. It's just a play that brings up a lot for the adults in their lives because of various reasons. And I think fundamentally, because we don't really understand it very well. Yes, exactly. Thank you for bringing that one in there also. Sometimes I hear play therapist say, my client wanted to bring in my video game. And so I told him I couldn't bring it in. And I feel sad when I hear that. No, bring it in. That's your platform for the day. Go into it. Get curious about it. Yeah, absolutely. OK, anything else you want to say about this particular developmental stage? Anything Karen, you want to add in? Bring you back to the symbolic repair at this particular stage. I think what I would say is that if we can enter their worlds, so if we just think about the gaming then, there can be so much reparation through that metaphorical experience for them because that provides a lot of scaffolding. And if we get the scaffolding, then we can start to whatever terminology we want to use, whether strengthening, where we go, building their confidence, whatever that may be. But I think the symbolic repair really shows itself within the teenage population because a lot of it is metaphorical, but it has to be the right metaphorical processes for them. Yeah. Well, I've even thinking that the therapist's curiosity or even willingness to go into their world symbolically gives the message, you're important, and what's interesting to you is important. And I think of so many teens that are struggling with, I'm not OK. I'm not good enough or I should be different. And then to have someone just say, I want to go into your world. I want to get to know you and I want to get a sense of what's important to you. I mean, that's just so healing in and of itself. I must be OK if someone wants to be in my world. I'd like there must be something cool about me. There must be something worthy about me. Someone wants to join me in this place. So I love-- yeah, it's so good. It's really-- we talk, Caroline, and I talk a lot about Dan Hughes' pace model and using sort of playfulness acceptance, curiosity, and empathy, and the curiosity, certainly, with the adolescent population is just absolutely vital. I mean, curiosity is important the whole way through. But that sort of-- yeah, really showing your interest, really showing that you want to find out that their story's matter. And I think that's the other thing with the adolescent population is that a lot of time you might be doing creative activities or, you know, San Tray, or, as you say, art. But actually, a lot of time it's going to be storytelling. It's going to be storytelling about their worlds. It's going to be storytelling about what's happening at school. And that's still playful. You can be playful with that. You can engage in that in a playful way. And again, delight in their experience, delighting their successes, delight in the gossip, and just be interested and show that their lived experience is relevance and important when they're in the room with you. Yeah, beautiful. Well, let's keep inching down the timeline. So we've arrived to the adult years now. So do you want to talk about adult years as a whole group or different parts of the adult years? How would you like to tackle this one? Yeah, I mean, I think we'll talk about it as a whole group. I think that there is-- I mean, there's just so much breadth for play therapy with adults. I mean, if we just look at adults as adults, not talking about parents yet, we know as play therapists that it invites regression into the play room. That happens. But actually, regression doesn't stop when you hit whatever adulthood might be. In fact, there is a continuous regressive experience, particularly when we're looking out or exploring things that may have happened to us when we were children. So there's still going to be that lack of being able to use left brain functioning or things that happened when we were smaller. So being able to use playful interventions in those moments, whether it's inviting somebody into the sanitary or asking them to express it through art, or just again, asking people, having a curiosity about how do you play? Because a lot of people don't play, or don't give themselves permission to play. So even just bringing play up as a conversation and looking at it as being a really important function in all of our lives-- I mean, it's something which we really need to do if we're going to be OK in the rest of our lives. So just having play as part of that conversation as we're moving through is just hugely important. And then when we're thinking more specifically about sort of parent group, a lot of times we as play therapist, for example, might ask or invite the parents that we're working with to play with our children. That might be part of something that we think would be beneficial for the child. But actually, who played with them? Did they ever have any playful experiences as children? I think one of the questions that I almost always ask parents when I'm working with them is, are you parenting your child in the way that you were parented? Or are you parenting your child in a different way? The majority of parents are trying to parent in a different way. And my next question will be, and who played with you. How did you play when you were little? Because I think that when we think about the sort of demands that we put on parents and things that we want to help them support to change, we have to find out the very basics. And actually, for some people playing is really frightening. They just-- it's not something they're comfortable with. And so even just asking those questions, and if you build up a good enough therapeutic alliance with the parent, then there is an invitation to be playful together. It might start off by asking them to do a santry of their relationship with their child or doing some artwork or something like that. But it not only gives parents their own experience of being able to express what's going on for them, also invites them to know what their kids are up to. Great. Yeah. So powerful. And yes, a lot of parents so scary. I think I'd like to add as well as a lot of adults when they come into the room are very scared of the previous videos. They really are. And we can see that in children as well. But with adults, it's very, very different. And I think we have to gently go into the play therapy with adults, keeping them safe, obviously, but also for them to feel that it's worth the risk. And it may be that we really do have to, again, model using the San Trae, showing them and inviting them in quite regularly when you see that they're perhaps risk adverse, you know, that they're really struggling. It may be that we just have to check that in every week. I hope that you can take that risk. I have a little story that I want to share that just came up as we were talking about this. I worked with a gentleman who was in his mid-50s and he had a very analytical approach to life and very cut off emotionally. And going into that world was really challenging. But there was one day when I saw him looking over at the San Trae. And so I invited, are you curious? What do you do with that? And you just play with it or whatever? Anyway, I invited him into the world of San Trae. And I won't go into details of what he created, but there was a particular miniature that he chose that ended up being really important. And I could tell it was important. And so I actually said, would you like to take it home? So I sent that one home. And it was about four years later, I got an email from him. And he said, Lisa, I just have to tell you we did amazing work together. And that, but I still have that miniature on my desk. And that is the thing that I remember the story of what happened to that character more than anything else that we did in our entire process. And he still kept it. It was a little bunny rabbit. And he had this little bunny rabbit just sitting on his office desk. The power of it, right? That's wonderful. Yeah, it's just so powerful. It's so powerful. Yeah. I have a story to share. I worked with her. She was a little girl at the time when I first saw her. She was seven. And she had suffered a bereavement, and she ran the area. And we worked together for quite a while. And then I saw her again when she was 11. And she came into the room. And there was a particular cat. She used to work with age seven. She came into the room for years, age, and age. And she didn't have the cat carry. And she was just, wow, that's that held so much for her. If you think about symbolic repair, so much for her in terms of her journey of grief. It was incredibly powerful. And that was a real lesson for me that you have to be really, really careful when thinking about tidying up your symbols or removing your symbols. They may not be used. They may not have been used for a very long time, but I can't expect again when he's looking for that symbol. So infants, three and four-year-olds, teenagers, adults, parents, elderly? Yes, absolutely. I have some elderly clients. And I mean, it's a really beautiful process of, again, as we've said before, have been very gentle and titrating and just gently inviting a different way of perceiving things and exploring things. And again, particularly when there's an attempt to recollect or re-experience or remember situations that from sort of long, long ago now. And it is just, there's just something magical that happens when you give adults permission to be playful. There's something there about the inner child does get woken up if it's held very carefully. And we know this. The opportunity for our harm moments for people or for a settling is just a real privilege to see that. So yes, I mean with elderly clients in the same way as with other adults, it's that process of just, I would say, unless you are presenting yourself as a creative therapist, that is what you're doing and there's a contract, but that will be the work otherwise. There needs to be a secure relationship in place first because it can be very frightening, as Karen has said. But I also think there's something around your presence like a playfulness to you is also incredibly important because I think that there is, you know, therapy is not always sad. I mean, a lot of the time it's sad, but a lot of the time there's laughter, right? And there should be and there should be a playful quality to it. So for example, I might say something like, I bet you never thought you were going to be playing with a 49 year old and a basement and chant them, but you know, happening and we're you know, so it's just being sort of that silliness and yeah, it's still the up and down of delight and prosody and the voice that you use and just having a persistently playful stance in that we, you know, I'm offering to hold you throughout this process, but within that process we're going to explore all the emotions. We're going to explore play. We're going to explore joy. We're going to find ways for that play to come out and for you to experience that in the outside world. And this is what it might feel like in here in a place which is sort of safe for managing contained. I mean, what I'd like to add for that is I was just thinking about when I was nursing and one of my specialisms was Carefully Outlet and thinking about those elderly people who have dementia outside and thinking back now, at the time I wasn't a therapist, but actually how, how play was important to them? What the constant mind is a lady, a small lady, she was in her eighties and I remember I had some dollies that I took in and she really, really hooked him to one of these dollies and she would, she would be holding it and treating it like her baby. But I always felt that it was partly her, but also she was able to offer care to this dolly and the way that she would care for her family and she used to take it to bed and it was so, so important for her. And again, just thinking about this kind of, it was almost like a metaphorical attachment for her, if you think about symbol hair, that was really important for her and she seemed to have a dolly and talked to the dolly, all of those things that were so important. So maybe that was a play therapy per se, but there was something about the therapeutic holding of her in that process which was so powerful and gave her joy. That's joy in her day when she gets up and be with her baby. So I'm going to zoom us out here. So Karen, you said the beginning that we were going to talk a little bit more about peekaboo. I don't know if they want to add anything more into that. I don't know if we want to bring in metaphor anymore, but just any other little pieces that we want to make sure that we hit as we're rounding out this conversation. And I think that with peekaboo, just to say, a great believer that it's a forever gave, it goes right across the lifespan. It's right from babies right through to adults. And what do I mean by that? Well, we of course we do the peekaboo with babies. Then we get to children and this sort of develops into hide and seek. And I think we both have those children that played therapy room when they want to play hide and seek and make, and actually you're not really hiding, you know, your body, you can see your body. But you know, it's the integration isn't it? So I think we all have those children. Where are you? You know, that's trying the songs into hide and seek. And then of course we've got the hide and seek with the adolescence and that may be more about the sand trail. or however that is, but I really do play with adults. We also play peek-a-boo. It's more reunion things, but when I'm coming home from work, I arrive home, I open the door, and what is lovely about that is that my husband will delight in me. Hi, that is really, I peek-a-boo for adults. And we do it in all sorts of ways as adults. So I really, really feel that it's such an important game across the lifespan. That is there for all of us. - Just maybe think of how often parents have the ritual of going in and waking their kids up in the morning. Good morning. You know, or time to get up. Or, and even that has that flavor and that quality to it. - Yeah. And just thinking about how you might integrate that. I was just, you know, Karen, you years ago, I remember talking to you about an adolescent I was working with. And, you know, we were just 15 years ago and we'd play Connect for, you know, and you sort of suggested, because this was a child who's very much in their hoodie and hiding and that I couldn't, I couldn't boo them. I couldn't get to the boo, the peek-a-boo. And so, you know, as dropping in the, you know, the little pieces into the Connect for gain, there was an opportunity for me to peek-a-boo through that in an appropriate way for an adolescent person. But even that just kind of going, oh yeah, dropping the piece is appearing coming back, you know, just finding ways because that is, you know, as you said, the reunion, the delight, the anticipation of hiding and the being found is so important for all of us. Some children will not have had that. They will not have had that delight experience. So thinking about ways that you can integrate peek-a-boo into your work going forward. Huge, hugely important. So just looking at that when you're working with older children, how can you still peek-a-boo them without infantilizing them? - Yeah, I love it. I love it, love it, love it. That's gonna get the creative wheels spinning. Listeners, take that one. (laughs) How creatively can you bring peek-a-boo into your work and into the relationship with your loved ones? - Yeah, absolutely. Well, ladies, as we are rounding out our time here, I imagine that there are listeners that are thinking, wow, these two ladies are incredibly knowledgeable. I might like to take a class from them. So how can they find you? Tell us a little bit more about PIP Solutions. - Yeah, so we have a website, which is PIPsolutions.co.uk and all our courses are online except for one. We have one very important in-person training that's happening in October this year. We have Lisa Dionne visiting the UK, she's coming to deliver a three-day introduction to a genetic play therapy in Cheshire, which we are super excited about. So we can't wait to see you again, Lisa. That's going to be a hand-on training. So you can find out about that, certainly on our website. Otherwise, our mission, our goal was to offer up a CPD, so ongoing professional development for qualified therapists. So we have a range of different courses. We have just relaunched a parenting course called Parenting Engagement in Action, Parental Engagement in Action, which sort of looks at a lot of these play for ways that we can engage parents. And all our courses, as I said, are online. We have a range of accredited courses where you can get CPD accreditation points for that. And then we also offer a monthly refresher session. And for that, you don't have to be there live. You can get recording. And those are ideas or suggestions that people have had on topics where we just deep dive into them. So it might be looking at WinnerCots theory or it might be looking at what's our next one, on Cartman's Drama Triangle. So just deep diving in. So we've got a range of courses on there. And part of our deal is that anyone who attends any of our trainings, you've got three months post-training support. So because we hate the idea, we've all been on trainings, we go on it and think, oh, this is brilliant. And then go to the client and think, ah, so-- - We've had it in full minute. - What to do? - What to do exactly. - I just say about training courses as well. What is important to Tarenia is that we think about our training courses that we put together because Tarenia always on training courses were always learning, we like doing that. But we also know that it's important that participants, learners have really good solid training. And we hope that that's what we did over through pick solutions. That is really important to us. And that was, I think, one of the draws of us coming together as well, that we both felt the same. - Tarenia, I'm with Tarenia. And I will vouch that you two are just phenomenal teachers and you put out amazing content. So listeners, you need another place to go and learn that inspired trainers. Go check out the pick solutions. You will not be disappointed. So thank you, Jason. - Thank you so much, both of you. What a lightning topic. Just so great to pull us out of our play therapy, blinders, if you will. And really think about play in such a just so much larger context and the significance of that across the lifespan. And then carrying this piece around how it really really can do, prepare, play at any point along the way. So any last last words before I close us out? - Just to say this is good, such a pleasure. And thank you very much for having us on. You listen to all your podcasts. So it's going to be amazing to, I don't know whether I'll listen. To listen to you. - I will listen to you. - Maybe. (laughing) - That's a judgement. - Do a San Trey while you're listening. - Okay, yeah. - You're okay, I will listen. That's a very good idea. (laughing) - And I just want to thank you as well. And really, we really love our collaboration with you Lisa. And you know, you've been a great supporter of us over the last, well, I think it was just before COVID, right? So the last four years now, and you know, we have appreciated that. And. - That a lot for me. We have learned and I'm completely absolutely. - Thank you. - My heart to both of you. And all the listeners you as well. Thank you so much for tuning in for being a part of this podcast, for wanting to learn, for taking the time to learn so that you can support your clients in the best way possible. And as always, take care of yourselves because you are the most important toy in that playroom. That's all I'm excited for. For more information on our courses and our classes, please go to our website at synergeticplaytherapy.com and check out what we have available to you. And as always, remember that you're the most important toy in that playroom. (upbeat music)