Transcription:
A Jump into the Theraplay Method

Carl Maronich: Welcome to the Well Within Reach podcast. I'm Carl Maronich. And today, we're going to be talking about Theraplay and how that's used here at Riverside to help kids out. And I've got two great theraplay Counselors -- I'll use that term until they correct me -- with us today on the podcast, Kelsy Kerrigan and Jessi Otto. Welcome.

Jessi Otto: Thank you.

Kelsy Kerrigan: Hi. Thank you.

Carl Maronich: Let me start with Jessi and ask and have you both kind of talk a little bit about your background.

Jessi Otto: My background is I'm a licensed professional counselor. I have been a counselor for about six years now. I graduated from Olivet here.

Carl Maronich: Oh, very good. Go Tigers!

Jessi Otto: I set up groups for segregation for prisons, my first job out of here. So I set up to release from segregation. And then I worked at a residential. I was lead therapist at a residential in Champaign, and I was recruited to work for outpatient clinician.

Carl Maronich: Here at Riverside. Very good. And Kelsy?

Kelsy Kerrigan: Yeah, so I am a licensed clinical professional counselor. I've been a counselor for about eight years. I actually moved to the area from northeastern Illinois. I got a job at a residential treatment facility and moved to down here for that job. So, I was a therapist there before becoming a clinical supervisor for a while. And then, I actually got to open a program for boys ages 10 to 14 with a lot of emotional behavioral dysregulation, trauma history. So, Theraplay was always something on my radar, but not something we ever got trained in. So I was super excited that we did that. And then probably about three and a half months ago, I started with Riverside.

Carl Maronich: Very good. Well, welcome. And some great experience for both of, so you're able to bring that to Riverside and to the Theraplay program. And let's start by talking about what Theraplay is. And Jessi, you want to start and kind of give little definition, if you will, or examples of what Theraplay really involves?

Jessi Otto: Yes, so Theraplay is a trauma-based, trauma-focused treatment. It's a hands-on. It's another way to get adolescent or older teens to talk while you're doing something and playing with them to give them that like encouragement. And it's fun, so not everything is so serious. And it gives them the ability to be encouraged and it's just for trauma-based because sometimes you just need to let them play.

Carl Maronich: Sure. Kelsy, anything to add to that definition?

Kelsy Kerrigan: A lot of times when you have kids with trauma, they don't regulate their emotions or behaviors very well. So the activities that you would do in Theraplay actually help them practice regulating their emotions and behaviors. So, sometimes it helps them control anger better, have better peer relationships. And really, they say you can do it with all ages. We're just doing it with our adolescents right now.

Carl Maronich: So what age group is that?

Jessi Otto: Eleven to seventeen.

Carl Maronich: Okay. Good.

Kelsy Kerrigan: But you can really do it with anyone and we do it in a group setting, but you can also do it with just you and one other person, you can do it with families.

Carl Maronich: These are kids that are part of the Pathways Program going through this. So really, it's another tool to use to help in their progress, right? So let's start by talking a little bit about how you train specifically for Theraplay. You learn so you can teach, if you will, and use Theraplay as part of your therapy.

Jessi Otto: We went to Kankakee School district. We did two days. We practiced, we even ran groups. We practiced the groups, learned the history of it, the rules.

Carl Maronich: Well, let me ask this. You're both professionals already in this field, was this training vastly different from the kind of training you've been exposed to through other things that you've learned as part of your career?

Kelsy Kerrigan: Not entirely. I mean, my background is in trauma, so a lot of the science behind it was similar. A lot of the ideas behind why you do it and the purpose of it and even the benefits of it were the same. So it just kind of gave me additional ideas and additional tools.

Carl Maronich: Sure. For those who may not fully understand when you say trauma, what the variety of things we could be talking about, but when you say that a child that's been through trauma, you know, give us some examples some of the things that that could include.

Kelsy Kerrigan: It's subjective. So trauma is different for everyone. A lot of people think of like being abused, being in natural disasters, a terrible car accident. But it could be divorce, family conflict, witnessing someone else go through something very scary. So it's a variety of things and I think the impact of trauma and kind of the pervasive nature of it is just now being realized, so school systems didn't really have it incorporated in their models and things like that. So that's why it's really wonderful that Kankakee was doing this to get that in there.

Carl Maronich: And as you said, trauma is different for everybody and how people internalize things, especially kids can be very different for different kids, right? So, through use of Theraplay, in a group setting, you have kids that have been through different experiences, how does Theraplay or how were you able to use it to impact a group in which you might have kids who've gone through very different experiences, yet this is really going to be a benefit to all of them. Does that make sense?

Jessi Otto: Theraplay doesn't have any processing to do with it. So if I'm understanding your question right, we're not talking about the different traumas. The kids don't usually talk about their traumas, like in the Theraplay. It's more like, "Let's see how you complete this task that we're doing" and we're visualizing how the kids can do it, how they encourage each other, how if they help themselves, whether if they're helping somebody else. It's more of like their behavior, and then if it comes out like later, like, "You know what that made me think of..." later on when you're talking to them, like on one-on-one therapy session, you would talk about how that makes them feel.

But in the group session, I think more of the Theraplay, we're looking at it of how they're encouraging and how they're helping one another, how they can get along, how they are getting frustrated with themselves. When are they moving? When are they like, "Hmm, I don't want to do that." You know, some kids, they back off, some kids get louder for attention and that's how we come in and we can kind of see how they're reacting to that. They don't really go over their trauma. So I think any trauma with children who can't speak about their trauma, because they have such a hard time, it comes out in their behaviors and that's how we recognize that.

Carl Maronich: Yeah. That makes sense. And I wasn't assuming that their specific traumas would be dealt with in that setting, but yeah, I think that's a great way to illustrate it. Let me ask, Riverside is fairly new to Theraplay, it sounds like it's been a few months, but what have you seen so far that really indicates and shows you that it does work?

Jessi Otto: A child, he's gone through a couple of things, but he came in the first day and real low mood, real low mood, didn't want to participate, felt kind of nervous, just kinda like you thought he was just a little labile, didn't understand things. But then when next day we did Theraplay, because we do our third play at the end, and then we do Theraplay, then we have another group, like a skills group, he did Theraplay and he was like a whole 'nother kid. It gave him the confidence to open up and it gave them the confidence to be like tell jokes and laugh with the other kids. So you see a difference afterwards. They're like, "Oh, and then this happened," and then they're just like really excited about it. So I think that was...

Kelsy Kerrigan: It was cool. Yeah, it was really cool.

Jessi Otto: But a lot of kids, we do see a lot of difference. They open up afterward. I like that we have group afterward skills groups, and they talk about it, like "Remember when you did this," and then they kind of bounce off and you can see a difference. It gives them that confidence, I think.

Kelsy Kerrigan: Yeah. And you're also having positive interactions with them. You're showing them that you're in charge. You're going to keep them safe. You're going to nurture them, you know, and not all those kids have had that. And even if they have had it, they always want more. Everyone likes to be nurtured and taken care of. It lets them have a lot of positive peer interactions too. Our kids, they're stressed, you know. They have trouble making friends, so it builds some group cohesion too with that. And really it does, I mean, it helps them kind of get ready to continue going about their day and going about the next group by getting them calm and getting some of that energy out if needed.

Carl Maronich: What has been the response with parents if they were skeptical or if you detail for them on the front end of what the kids are going to be going through and what Theraplay is, and how has it been received with the parents?

Jessi Otto: It's been so recent. We've only had about three weeks of doing it, so we've had the same kids that haven't discharged yet. But I have been telling the parents when they come in that we're going to do Theraplay, and then the parents that have had their kids in the system a while, it's kind of like, "Oh, you are, what kind of things do you guys do?" And then I kind of explain thatthe Theraplay, like we can encourage them and then we sing songs and everybody kind of helps each other finish the game. It's not really games, because it's not a competition. It's more everybody's equal.

Kelsy Kerrigan: You're just playing.

Jessi Otto: You're just playing. And they seem to be, "Oh, that seems like... oh, see, you'll have a good day," you know? So the parents seem to be excited because the kids are nervous when they first get there, so when I say, "Oh, but we play on last day of programming." I mean, we give you that good oomph before the weekend and then they're like, "Okay," and the kids do more relaxed. So it seems to be received well when I tell them what we're doing, but we just haven't had it like a three-week result, but we can see a difference after a day and a lot of parents have been pleased with the progress with their children the last three weeks.

Kelsy Kerrigan: And even when they know we're coming in and like, "Okay, guys. Today, we're going to play," the kids that have done it before get excited and they kind of fill the other kids who are nervous about it in on it. It's just an atmosphere change and it's really...

Jessi Otto: "Don't be embarrassed. It'll be fun and it'll be great."

Kelsy Kerrigan: "Yeah, it would be good. You'll just do this. And it's just..."

Jessi Otto: The older kids especially do the best. And a lot of people think that the older kids don't like it.

Carl Maronich: Might be more resistant to it.

Jessi Otto: Will be resistant, but they're like, "Okay, fine." And then they'll start doing it.

Kelsy Kerrigan: Everyone likes to have fun. Everybody likes to have fun.

Jessi Otto: Everybody wants to play. Even I do, like I like it.

Carl Maronich: Really? We wouldn't have known that Jessi likes to have fun. That's great. It sounds like you're already early on seeing real benefits of it.

Kelsy Kerrigan: Yes, absolutely.

Carl Maronich: And for those that want to learn more, they could go to the Theraplay website and learn more about that program specifically or go to the Riverside website through pathways and find out more of how we're implementing it here at Riverside. Ladies, anything I didn't mention that you want to talk about?

Kelsy Kerrigan: I just think that therapy is hard enough for these kids sometimes, and it's hard enough for a clinician, so anytime you can make it fun, let's do it.

Jessi Otto: Make it fun.

Carl Maronich: Yes. We all agree. Fun is fun, so let's have fun. Thanks for coming in and joining us today.

Jessi Otto: All right. Thank you.

Kelsy Kerrigan: Thank you.