Ohio Counseling Conversations
Ohio Counseling Conversations
Conversation 42 - Psychodrama For Real Life
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Talk therapy is powerful, but sometimes words are the slowest route to the truth. We sit down with Amanda Cole, LPCC-S, counselor educator, and doctoral candidate, to unpack psychodrama as an experiential action method that helps clients move from “thinking about it” to actually feeling it safely in the room. Amanda breaks down what psychodrama is (and what it is not), why warm-ups matter so much for pacing and containment, and how group cohesion makes deeper work possible without turning therapy into a performance.
From there, we get extremely practical about telehealth counseling. Amanda shares how to adapt sociometry, spectrograms, and even empty chair work to online groups using features like renaming, chat, shared whiteboards, and collaborative tools. We also talk about why telehealth is not a one-to-one copy of in-person therapy, and how changing expectations can open up new ways to build rapport and engagement rather than getting stuck comparing formats.
If you work with youth, this conversation is packed with real, usable ideas for online child and adolescent therapy: normalizing movement, planning multiple backup activities, using virtual sand tray and shared screen games, sending a “therapy box” packet, doing room tours for clinical context, and using music and playlists to connect with teens. We also connect psychodrama principles to counselor supervision and training, including role reversal for empathy and doubling to name what might be unspoken. Subscribe, share this with a colleague, and leave a review with the creative intervention you want to try next.
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Created by the OCA's Media, Public Relations, and Membership (MPRM) Committee & its Podcast Subcommittee
·Hosted by Marisa Cargill
·Pre-Production & Coordination by Marisa Cargill, Victoria Frazier, and Shannon O'Mara
·Editing by Marisa Cargill
·Original music selections by Elijah Satoru Wood
Welcome And Amanda’s Path
SPEAKER_00Again, welcome back to Ohio Counseling Conversations. I'm your host, Dr. Marissa Cargill, and today I am joined by Amanda Cole, a licensed professional clinical counselor, a doctoral candidate at Kent State University, and faculty member at the University of Akron. Amanda brings over a decade of clinical experience across various settings, including community agencies, university counseling centers, and yes, an animal-assisted therapy farm. She's a psychodrama enthusiast, a supervisor, a researcher, and a fierce advocate for LGBTQIA plus youth and their families. In today's conversation, we're covering a lot of ground from the basics of psychodrama and experiential warmups to practical strategies for doing creative, playful, and genuinely therapeutic work with kids and teens via telehealth. Whether you're a seasoned clinician or still in your training, I think you're going to walk away from this one with something you can actually use this week. Amanda, welcome to the show. We are so excited to have you here. Now, to kick things off, I know I just shared a little bit of a bio to bring you in, but could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey into the counseling profession?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I'm Amanda Cole. I use she and her pronouns. I've been a licensed professional clinical counselor and supervisor for about 15 years and came into the field maybe like other people. I had an experience when I was sixth where I went to a counselor and thought that he had the best job. And so I say that I wanted to be a counselor before I knew how to spell it. It was just such an impactful experience in my life and never looked back. So I've been, yeah, in the field for a while. I'm an assistant professor of instruction of the University of Macron, a doctoral candidate at Kent State. And I've worked all over the place in community agencies and private practice. I got to work at an animal assisted therapy form. So I've been in a number of different settings too.
SPEAKER_00So in the lead-in here and in prepping for this interview, we have learned that like psychodrama is a very big passion and area of interest for you. So for listeners who's maybe like lack familiarity with what psychodrama is, could you describe it and like what drew you to this approach?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, definitely. The name sometimes is difficult to get behind. Psychodrama, the easiest way to think about it is an experiential action method in group. And it is an experience that I've also had personally that absolutely changed the trajectory of my life before
What Psychodrama Really Is
SPEAKER_01I was a counselor. My dad is trained in the method and uses psychodrama for lawyers, for attorneys. And I got exposed to that many years ago and started to do some workshops and some trainings. And it was, it set me free in many ways. And so I never want to sit on a secret and want people to know more about what psychodrama is. But primarily, if you think about action in groups, so there are theater components. The creator of psychodrama, JL Moreno, was a psychiatrist, but also was part of an improv theater troupe. And so both of those pieces sort of combine. And it's about role training and movement and spontaneity and reenactments. So it's in the body, it's about externalizing internal experiences, but it's a lot of theater language plus group.
SPEAKER_00OK. Okay. I wonder, like, for some folks, it might seem a little intimidating compared to like our traditional talk therapy training. And so, you know, like certainly counselors are humans. And so there's like maybe some beliefs about stuff where like, ooh, I don't want to step out of my comfort zone. What are some common misconceptions about psycho drama in like group work or just in general? And how do we help like counselors enter into this space?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Again, the name, the name alone sometimes does us a disservice in that way. But I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that it is performance-based, that it is theatrical. Yes, it's theater language, but it's all from an authenticity place. So it aligns naturally with how we live our lives as experiential beings rather than we talk through our lives.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So we it isn't it is ingrained in our lived experience already.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But also, I think a maybe a misconception is that it's very intense.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That it is intensive, that it's overwhelming, that it is very all encompassing and overly emotional in some ways, or it's hard to keep contained, maybe.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01Can be true. There is some intensity to the work. A hallmark of psychodrama is about being warmed up, is about being ready, is about pacing and containment and group safety and trust. There's a lot of sharing and group cohesion and things that will intentionally start to scaffold who might be ready for some of the work.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Some of what we think about in lower stakes experiences might look like an empty chair. Uh-huh. We use metaphor. We use role play in a lot of other traditional talk therapy. And so some borrowing some aspects of that. Yeah. I think it is just an another component that that we can dispel. It is intense because it's different than how we have approached the issue. Sure. And so it can unlock some of those things, but it's also it goes through you and then it dissipates in many ways. So is it a time saver? In both aspects. The other thing I would say that maybe is intimidating about the work or a misconception is that the practitioner has to have a high degree of training to be able to do it. And there is some truth to that. I'm not a certified psychodramatist. There's a certain path to certification that is intensive and needs to be if you're full-time doing this work to attend to all of the potential issues and make sure that that safety and containment is there. But then also there are plenty of uh warm-ups and concepts and embodied role training that we can use that is accessible. So maybe some of the things that we might talk about today or what might get experienced in different trainings for folks is some of those takeaways that while we're not psychodramatists, there are ways to borrow some of the brilliance of the method in your daily practice.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you don't need to be an Academy Award winner or even just a former theater kid as a counselor to be able to integrate some of these approaches into your work. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yes, there's no there isn't a script because you don't really know the story. Right. And that there is some discomfort in trying. And is that where growth lives? Yes, the discomfort is where growth lives, but that clients don't have to know what comes next. That the counselor, and in psychodrama language, we call the counselor, the director, will help know some of where to go. But you're right, that you don't have to be a theater kid to do this.
SPEAKER_00You might or an extrovert. You might enjoy it if you were, but like but it's not a requirement, it's not a prerequisite. Okay. So you mentioned like warmups are a really important element in these groups, in psychodrama groups. What roles do you feel like they play in really preparing people for the deeper work?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. So a traditional drama to think about the psychodrama method is that there are three phases. The first phase is the warm-up. The second phase is the drama itself, and the third phase is the sharing component. And Moreno believed that the bulk of the work and the catharsis and the connection
Warm-Ups For Safety And Readiness
SPEAKER_01happens in the sharing and not always necessarily through the drama itself, while very important, but the sharing was the emphasis in a lot of ways. We can't get to any of that or identify the drama, which is just the content of a session, the content or the heart of what we would would do in the group without the warm-up. So the warm-up is to help group members or to help any client feel like they are present, that they are prepared in terms of relational components of the group itself, that they're connected to each other, that there's some actual physical kinds of warm-up and waking up your body in those ways. But partly what we're trying to do is get clients to go from the cognitive logical thought component, move from your head into your feet to be more present, to not overthink, to to let your your muscle memory and your and your body and your play lead the way. It's supposed to help decrease some of that hesitancy to want to jump in so that people can feel safer, more comfortable, more I think, trusting of one another. So the warm-up is not only for individuals, but it's the warm-up of the energy of the group. So we think about some systems components with psychodrama as well, in the way that the warm-up sometimes identifies what the group needs for the day. So if the agenda is not set and we're working on spontaneity, doing some of these warm-ups brings you present physically, hopefully takes you out of your head, connects you to the other people who are nearby, helps you feel safer, gives you cover in case you'll be brave enough to step in for a drama.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But also, where is the heat? Where is the energy? What is the group gravitating towards? And we navigate all of that spatially through those warmups. It gets us to the drama.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I like that because I think in so many approaches to supporting clients, it's about providing safety, right? Like we talk about how important the relationship is, but like when we when we boil that down a little bit, it is about safety. Like they feel safe enough to like go there. And so I I think that that's really well taken. Mind sharing some practical warm-up activities, a few that like counselors could incorporate into their groups.
SPEAKER_01Yes, absolutely. This is my favorite thing. There are many different things to think about. And so just a couple of ideas or what warmups could look like, and thinking about how this might even be tailored to individual work, but primarily we'll think about this in the group context. So there is a lot of terminology and language that psychodrama has, which maybe is another misconception or intimidating part to approaching it. There is this idea of sociometry,
Sociometry And Spectrogram Warm-Up Ideas
SPEAKER_01which one way to think about it is the spatial relationships in real time to people or concepts in the room. Think about it as a people map in a way. So it's easier to give an example. So one sociometric exercise that I like, particularly when group members do not know each other and haven't met before and are new to one another, is that everyone is typically standing because we put everybody in action as they're able. And what we would talk about in pre-group meetings and establishing some safety, is if everyone in the group is okay with a hand on the shoulder. So if you're okay with other group members putting their hand on your shoulder, some group members are not okay with that, and that's okay. Might be an elbow, might be sort of a hand at a distance. There's other ways. I hold on to one half of a scarf and you do. We don't have to use touch, but sometimes we'll do that. And so in a circle, without knowing and without giving more specifics to this, put a hand on the shoulder of the person in the room you'd like to know better. And everybody moves. And it might be that multiple people choose the same person, and that if somebody chose me, but I'm choosing someone else, I will walk to that other person, and whoever's on my shoulder follows me. So we start to build this map. And then you might see if a lot of people are sort of centralized on one person, that there's something there that might be in psychodrama, we would call it tele, T E L E, this unspoken connection between people. What's the energy there? Or is that a person of safety, or is that a person who's particularly vulnerable? And then part of the warm-up then would be turn to the person who you selected and tell them why. And there's a lot of you remind me of this someone in my life. Or if you want to give a different prompt, it could be put a hand on the shoulder of the person whose support you need today. So if we're going to be brave and share and do a drama, because sometimes in groups there are these hidden agendas or unspoken dynamics or some of these sort of side connections where people might be feeling left out. And when you externalize the internal, it helps create again a sense of safety. So put a hand on that person. Again, another example of sociometry, put a hand on the person, put a hand on the shoulder of the person who you would call in an emergency. And this is without having met, and this was in the first five minutes of group. So you don't need to know why. And then that might be someone later on who they call into their drama. So we're starting to build connections that way. Processing components, what was it like not to be chosen? There will inevitably be someone who doesn't have a hand on their shoulder. And that might be part of their story about abandonment or belonging or not chosen. Whatever happens outside of the group replicates itself inside of the group. So all of those things, processing points, but we put it in action to feel it first rather than logic it. Right. And then it could build from there. For one minute, show your partner what you see in them without knowing them. And that's the spontaneity piece that you just rely on the roles that you've already known in your life to inform some of those things. Yeah. So that's one example, sort of a sociometric example. Yeah. Um, but there's others. There's something called a spectrogram, which is also a spatial map in some ways, okay, where you would imagine a continuum, a line, an invisible line running through the room. And on one side of the line, I like to say, are you present? Are you warmed up? Are you here and ready to work? And on the other side of the line, I am distracted, I am elsewhere, I don't want to be here, I feel very nervous, I'm checked out, I am anywhere else. And put yourself somewhere along the line that resonates with you. Yeah. Inevitably, every time you ask someone how present they are, even if they aren't, it brings them forward. And then turn to the person next to you for why you put yourself there. And that can be anything. Over here on this line, as I handle my scary experiences from a flight perspective or a fight perspective over here. You can you can change the props however you'd like to potentially see if there are themes, lots of different ways to then turn to the person next to you and share why you are here, just those kinds of things. The map could also be a literal map. If our room was Ohio, and here is north, then here is south, then put yourself wherever it is that you live, and let's start to see who lives near one another. Lots of different ways that you put people in action and then you start to process. So there's sociometric exercises and spectrogram. There are lots of lots of imaginative ideas where I might have a box that represents a gift, a present. Or I don't have one. It is this imaginary thing, and I get out sort of my inner mind. And the warm-up would be to imagine that this wrapped box is the best birthday present you have ever received. The best birthday present you've ever gotten. And to see it and to know it and to put yourself back to how old you were when you got it and who gave it to you, and to start to get all of those connections back. But all that you share initially is what is the feeling that gets called up? Don't tell us what it is. We don't need to know that yet. What feeling gets caught up? What does this thing mean to you? What is receiving it meant to you? And then we start to share that way. So there's just lots of different things to identify themes, to help people feel connected to their emotions, to see if they're stuck energy, to meet each other. There's about a million more, but those are a couple that come to mind.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I like them. It sounds like it helps them get present, even if like maybe they're starting feeling distracted. It is something where it's like, you don't, like you said, I don't have the logic into this. I can just like participate and it sort of helps reorient me in that way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00One of the things that I think is so important when we take like context of like the profession into account is that a lot of stuff is happening virtually now. And so, how would you say like these psychodrama or experiential techniques can translate into like a telehealth group setting?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's yes, so lovely to think about everything is adaptable to telehealth. Everything, everything is adaptable to telehealth. So we can use movement, it's just that we're not all in the same room. So people would still be standing up in their space. And
Adapting Experiential Work For Telehealth
SPEAKER_01that instead of put your hand on the shoulder of the person, it is go in and change your name. So many online platforms have your name in one little corner. Change your name to the person that you would like to select to adopt a mannerism of the person that you would like to select. Lots of different things that way. You can certainly share in the chat, things like that. Some of it might be that you'll ask folks to have some materials on hand where they might be able to draw some of these components and then share their own personal map in that way. But when you think about Doing spectograms, a really successful way that I found is to do a whiteboard share. So to share on the screen either a blank word document or a whiteboard, depending on the nuance of the platform that you're using, and have people write or put an X or initial some of these things, and we can create visual maps. In some ways, it's easier to see the map because it's in front of us as we're using this. And so there's other, there's other components that, or I'm sorry, there's other platforms that will have some of those components. Big Jam and Miro and Padlet and different websites and apps that you can also drop into the chat and then do a shared screen so that people can be writing on things at the same time, things like that. But one of the other components that has been successful is another warm-up and sort of a maybe what almost feels like a stereotypical hallmark of psychodrama is around an empty chair. And the way that that can happen is that everybody else would go off screen. And the group agrees to have all of your microphones on so that you have to be dialed in while you're off screen. But the way that we can spotlight some of that chair. Or physically, I have a chair next to me. I can push the frame wide enough so that I am in one chair and I have my own, or I'm asking clients to have their own chair, and then I ask them to switch so they can reverse and I'm just directing a little more. So it might take a little bit of preparation or creativity, but the adaptability is more about thinking about what your goal is, what intervention you want to facilitate, and then work backwards for how it can be adapted. Every single thing can be adapted for telehealth. There's no, there's no limits to that. And I have personally participated in psychodrama training sessions during the pandemic and have been online, and that does not stop catharsis or a meaningful impact on the way that groups are able to build really strong relationships with one another.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned when we were doing some back and forth preparing for this episode, like that this approach also is really helpful when we think about like triadic supervision or group supervision and even like within the classroom spaces. So, how do you feel like these methods enhance learning and supervision for counselors and training?
SPEAKER_01Yes, absolutely. So, some of the things that we can do, if we do think about either an empty chair or if we think about a warm-up, one of the things that we can do is put clients in the empty chair. So that it's different
Psychodrama In Supervision And Training
SPEAKER_01than practicing what a supervisee might say to a client in a sort of a traditional role play of try this intervention. It is more maybe before we get there, let us distill this down and truly what would you like to say to this client? And then the hallmark of that is you reverse roles. And so then the client gets to respond. And I think that's some of the uniqueness of psychodrama is there's a dialogue where you are switching these chairs. So the supervisee gets into the role of their client, and that's a different kind of case conceptualization, a different kind of understanding of knowing their client. We talk about walking a mile in someone's shoes. Yeah. But in psychodrama, we say, I will take your eyes and place them instead of mine and look at you with your eyes. And so it's more than that because you are embodying that. Another thing when you sit in that chair, the supervisor, a supervisor might say to a trainee or to their supervisee, tell me a little bit about what your day has been like. And in the role of their client, the supervisee would say, Well, my name is this, and I and I work here, or I'm I'm struggling to find work. And the supervisor will then make some prompts about helping them really get dialed into who their client is. And it's questions that I'll ask, like, How did you get to counseling today? How many bus transfers did it take to get here? And when did you have to leave your house? And what are the sounds like at your home and potential chaotic sounds or painful silence, or tell me about from the moment you woke up? And then the supervisee responds as if they're the client. If we are walking a mile in someone's shoes or seeing them with their own eyes, then we have to do that. We have to physically help them walk. So sometimes it will be that a milling exercise where the supervisee is walking as if the client walks and not in a way that again is a caricature or is mimicking or in any way that is that is not respectful of the client. Like you said, it's embodying.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't help but think, like, while you're saying that, like, oh, this is going to really help foster empathy when we're trying to embody the client, like that. What, like, what might it feel like, right? To have how would my body feel if I had had several bus transfers to get here today? How you know, like sleeping in my home where there is silence or noise or what have you, like that that all those layers really do foster empathy and like give us maybe a different sense of what our client experiences. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yes. It's a it's a beautiful way and relatively quick to access some of those things for a different kind of conceptualization. Yeah. But other things too. So if it's again an empty chair, then sometimes I will put the independently licensed version of that supervisee in the chair for them to have a conversation with their future self. Yeah. And it's different than encouragers or ways to have goal setting to really use that, not even an imaginative way, that but sometimes in psychodrama, we we call it a place of knowing. There is a place of knowing within you that that you might know what that version of you was already living through and going through. And so, what is it like from your side of this? And was all of this stress and worry and work worth it? And what advice do you have for me? And things like that in terms of maybe mitigating some burnout or providing a little bit of hope, ways to get at supervision goals in a more embodied or creative way. So those kinds of things to put in the chair, or the six-year-old me who first went to counseling, and what she has to inform me about in my work with children. And she was a child client of counseling, and she has a lot to say. And so let's call her forward and bring her here and put her in the chair. Again, in a supervision context, not in a therapeutic context. So some of the interview questions in that way will be pretty pointed. But then when you think about triadic supervision in psychodrama, there are many different aspects where people who are either audience members who are observing the action. So if it's a supervisor and a supervisee having a conversation and there's someone else in supervision or the group supervision that they might feel like the audience, right? There are some things that we do in terms of what is called doubling, where someone will, an audience member will stand behind the person who's speaking, stand behind the supervisee, or stand behind the client, stand behind the protagonist, we would say, and say something that they feel like that supervisee isn't saying. Or if they have some insight about what they're observing, it's an active way for audience members, for other supervisees who are observing this conversation to also participate and contribute because they have to get really tapped into their colleagues' experience. So if supervisee, for example, is talking about levels of frustration with a client, then a double might come in, stand behind that person, and speak as if they are talking through the mouth of the supervisee by saying, When I say I'm frustrated with a client, what I really mean is I'm ineffective as a counselor. And so they might give just a little voice to what isn't being said. And then the supervisee, the rule in psychodrama always is if it's right, say it. If it's not, change it. So if that's true, then that supervisee would say, Yeah, I'm really worried that I'm not effective as a counselor. And that changes the nature of supervision. So it's everybody is connecting, everybody has a role to play from either one-on-one, triadic, or even to group supervision. So just a lot of different experiential components to to maybe add some variety to getting at some of the same elements in supervision.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's sometimes the creative or different approach gets us to different places.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And so maybe that's not, you know, all of the time by any means, but some of what's so helpful about this is just having a couple of these interventions or exercises in your back pocket to just experiment and see if that's something that maybe moves some of that stock energy or just offers a different perspective.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So one of the other areas that you mentioned like is like a pretty big area of passion for you is working with younger folks, kiddos, teens, adolescents. And some counselors are really uncertain or unsure about that kind of work, especially via telehealth. And so in that vein, what are maybe some myths or like cons misconceptions, concerns that you hear from folks that that you can help dispel here today?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So first of all, my very first telehealth session ever in my career was on March 18th,
Telehealth Myths With Kids And Teens
SPEAKER_012020, with an eight-year-old kid on Skype. Okay. Because it was the wild west, right? And we were the best we could in real time. Pioneering I have changed things and don't use Skype and things like that. But I think that you know, a myth is that the kid might have difficulty engaging, or that they're distracted, or that rapport can't be built through a screen, or that maybe you lose a sense of play because maybe sometimes telehealth feels very formal, or if you're not there to help do some gentle redirects, even physically, to kind of help structure the session a little bit. I have certainly had kid clients who will put maybe an iPad down and I will just have a ceiling view of their house and they'll run away, and there's nothing I can do about it. Right. So I I certainly understand some of the hesitancy or feeling as though there are lots of uncontrollables. So I do understand that. In particular, that kids are digital natives. Yeah. This is form for many kids. And if we can lean into a medium that is the norm for them, that perhaps it's our own discomfort and not theirs that might be coming through. Sure. And that engagement just has to look different, that we can't put the same emphasis, requirement, pressure, structure on telehealth. You have to know that it's different. It's not a one-for-one equal translation. So some creativity shifts. Rapor doesn't disappear and engagement doesn't disappear. We just have to change our expectation for what might be possible, whether that's time frame, whether that's time of day. A lot of things that I think about for telehealth are easier levels of engagement. I don't know how to replicate them in the in-person space. And I would love to think about ways to make it more adaptable in person, even. So it is, it's very possible to engage kids over telehealth.
SPEAKER_00What are some simple ways you feel like you can foster or build that engagement and connection with kiddos or teens when it's happening through the screen?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So some of what was talked about with psychodrama. So sometimes it might be a shared screen where if it's even a worksheet that you're trying to move through that we're sharing that, but the annotate feature is on that kids can color right on the page with you. And so from an observational standpoint, you can see that happening a little better sometimes, and instead of kind of looking over their shoulder or things like that. Yeah.
Screen-Based Play That Actually Works
SPEAKER_01So a screen share is always helpful. One of the other things is to normalize movement, that kids do not have to be a still body in front of a screen. That you might change the expectation a little bit of maybe push push the laptop farther away just so I can see you. But we can be moving around. And so again, changing kids have wiggles that need to get out. And so letting that be that. Building in movement in that way. We can do lots of dress-up days. We can play games, particularly games that are guess who or battleship or games that have sort of two screens type things. Yeah. Yes. In that way. Virtual sand tray. There's virtual sand tray options to do shared screens in that way. Or we can be building cartoons. There's lots of different platforms to build storyboards and cartoons and collaborate online in that way. Another thing that I find successful, which does take some preparation and planning, is to send a packet home to a kid's parents ahead of time and sort of a manila envelope with some different notes on it. So if I want them to use some specific worksheet, or I use origami a lot with kids, for example. So I'll send some origami paper along with that or different materials that could be helpful at different times. Yeah. And then they'll have that. So sending those ahead of time. If it's financially appropriate for families, I also might ask parents to compile just a few different materials for us to have on hand: crayons, colored pencils, markers, rocks and stones that kids can go out and find. And then we do maybe some painting or markers on rocks, dice, yeah. A couple of different things. And then they put it in a box and it's their therapy box, research counseling box. Help bring that out. So set the scene ahead of time, help them get those kinds of materials. Emojis as check-ins in the chat. Oh, yeah. Lots of different roots. I love a room tour. We never get that in in-person. And if the environment is loud, that gives you information. And if it's hard for them to have privacy, that gives you information. Whatever it is is incredibly useful to have those kinds of things. One of the other things that will connect with, particularly with adolescents, is music. For me as a teenager, for many teenage clients and beyond, music is such an important part of our identity and our expression and how we feel validated and heard. And so being able to pull up YouTube videos or Spotify playlists, that kind of shared experience is easier. Building therapeutic playlists, I almost don't know how to do that as well in person anymore. So leaning in, it isn't a barrier. Maybe rapport takes time or engagement is shorter or movement looks different. Yeah. Set the scene. Provide the materials and don't try to directly translate one for one an exact replica of in-person. That's an unfair ask.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. Managing expectations is always important, but like in this transition or like dynamic, like, yeah, it can't be the same. So don't expect it to be identical, but like, how can we make it meaningful? You've mentioned so much. And and I especially like even with adults, like I work primarily with adults and on occasion adolescents, but playlists, we actually have a soft plug, an episode of let's unpack that coming up about like therapeutic playlists and like songs that just hit, right? Like where you're like, wow, that kind of like taught me something that like we've been working on in therapy. Like, how did the song like so like accurately just get it? So for those of you who are like avid listeners, be prepared and and share some songs. We're gonna put some stuff out on social media where you can share it, like and create our own playlist. That's an aside, but to to like the interventions you're mentioning, like that's so much. Like for especially younger clients, like, are there any other specifics that we didn't touch on, like activities or tools or approaches that you feel are especially useful with the younger crowd?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think just lots of structure on your end in terms of ready to switch gears. So I would have probably five or six different interventions planned to see if a kid was super distracted or if this game did not play out like I thought it would. So there's the imperfect part where you try and you experiment. I do try to have supervisees play. Some of those games out with one another first as a trial and error to see how that goes. Right. But in practice, that sometimes it just falls flat. And so one of the things is maybe not anything necessarily specific beyond what we've shared, but to have multiple in case something just isn't landing that we can use miniatures and play. And the best part is it's their miniatures. And so they can introduce some of those things. And I always have, I don't know why this is sitting here, but I always have my own Bert inside out. Anyway, there's just there's always something to to reach for. And so I can be doing some of those things as well for you to play and look silly and to get up yourself and do some of those wiggles. Or again, show me something that you want to share that makes you proud of who you are, or if kids want to show their homework or whatever that is, just lean into the accessibility of their space. Yeah. Give yourself permission to experiment, follow a kid's lead, and also know that the way that you schedule those sessions, depending on a time of day, or to give yourself permission to have 20-minute sessions and to know that the parent will check back in at this point, or if a parent might help facilitate, I might need a water bottle and some dawn dish soap to make a sort of a calm down lava lamp. So do I need the parent to be actively engaged during that particular session? All of those kinds of things to just again a hallmark truly of psychodrama is spontaneity. So I would just always have backups, flexibility, adaptability. One other thing that's coming to mind, I don't know why I have forgotten, is story time. So kids, I think there are four words that every kid knows on this planet, and those are tell me a story. And the I mean, this is that communication vehicle that is ancient and within us, and story time and book reading and things like that are a big part not only of individual work with kids, but in my group work with children as well. And you can easily do that with platforms like Hooplaw or Libby or library apps that will allow you to check out ebooks, e-picture books. Yeah. And that's another shared screen. Yeah. Where I think it's easier to read a book in that way with every yeah. Yeah. And that just, you know, just knowing where those ebooks are, or sometimes there are almost animations of those books. And so if it might be some psychoeducation around fight or flight for kids, that there's videos that I show, Sesame Street clips. I was so glad you said it. Sesame streets.
SPEAKER_00Being someone who doesn't work with kiddos but who loves media, like as like interventions and like apps and things like that, like I've been recommending Sesame Street to my adult clients for their kiddos for over a decade. Yes.
SPEAKER_01And and so just playing that, yeah, or you know, a very specific clips from Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, all kinds of things that that again you can share in a way that might capture their attention. And it's not as awkward as maybe it would be in person, where you're both looking at your own computer and right, you know, things like that. So so book reading it, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, even trying to read a book when you think about like show and tell in person where you're like turning, like I have to read it, but I'm like trying to look at it from the side and show you pictures that the share screen makes it a lot more functional. Yes, I love it. I love it.
SPEAKER_01So yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I feel like you've given so many wonderful practical suggestions. And this one maybe might have some practical takeaways, but also maybe just some more like abstract takeaways, even as well. But like, what advice would you give to counselors who are worried that like telehealth limits their ability to be playful or creative with their younger clients?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think that it is understandable to feel that way. And that there were many things that I learned by doing, and plenty that I learned the hard way. I I've learned a lot more about what not to do.
When Telehealth Feels Less Creative
SPEAKER_01So whether or not it is a best fit for kids is one of the other things that we think about with telehealth. That if these barriers, if that engagement, if rapport isn't there, if it's not the best fit for the kid, then that's something different where we do, you know, make referrals and things like that to make sure that they're getting the services that they need. Right. But if it is for us in some of those intimidation aspects, or it feels overwhelming, or those barriers are there, you're just in good company. That a lot of people feel that way. And I did as well until I've seen it. And the necessity of the pandemic allowed me to have a front row seat to know that change is possible and very accessible in in that, you know, there were so many kids who would never be able to come to my office in any other way. Parents are stretched so thin and might not be able to facilitate a ride while they are taking care of the rest of the household and things like that. So, to hopefully, if I can sell it or provide a little bit of an encourager to lean in on what it gives us and not what's missing, to not compare to the in-person space. It is just going to be different. And that's okay. And a little bit of trial and error. But now some of my trial is in with group supervision or with a colleague, or I will, you know, ask my sister or something to pop up on a Zoom meeting or a Teams call or Doxie or whatever platform you're using. Yeah. To to check some of that out and see how that goes. So giving yourself permission to not do something perfectly to experiment. And then from an empowerment standpoint, asking kids what works, what doesn't work, what they like. They have been in online spaces, yeah, potentially, uh, particularly adolescents who were in elementary school during the pandemic, and they will know for themselves what works or what doesn't work. And taking a cue from clients is helpful, borrowing the best of some of what your colleagues are are doing as well. There's a lot of brilliant. So piecing it together for you. And if you feel like that rapport is drifting or waning, then that's you know an opportunity for a therapeutic exchange. Check it out and always assess if that's the best fit and regroup if it isn't. Yeah. But the comparison piece, I think, is what hurts us sometimes to think that it's not the same as the in-person space. Nope kidding, it's not supposed to be, it's not gonna be. And so changing expectations, I think, for that could be something else to maybe ease your mind a little, that there is not a performance aspect for you either when you're online. If it's helpful for you, sometimes I will also take a post-it note and cover up my own square once I know I, you know, perfectly in the uh screen for because we get our own sort of internet fatigue and things like that. Sure. One of the things that's also popping into my head randomly is I had a supervisee who used to have some post-it notes on the side of her laptop for some prompting questions. Yeah. That you might not be able to have in person. Oh, for sure. Or to ask about these components. So there's some cheat codes in a way that might help you. I have a cat, and sometimes a cat will pop up. Yeah. And so I'm accidentally doing maybe some animal-assisted work. Comparison is the death of joy. Don't compare it to the in-person space. Rapport and engagement is possible. Rethink what that could look like, be imperfect. We want our clients to know that it's okay to be imperfect, so that has to be true for us. The accessibility of their world is second to none in that way unless you're doing in-home work. And so if you can plan ahead for a little bit of play, you can still create some magic for kids. It's it's here to stay. Maybe the best advice I've ever had during my psychodrama training is to find a way in and not a way out. So lean in to this. Yeah. It's here. And the frustrations are real, but being frustrated won't make it go away. So you find a way in and not a way out.
SPEAKER_00And I I am sort of reflecting on some of my own experiences because I work solely in telehealth and part of like my informed consent with clients in and even ongoing informed consent too, because I try to empower clients to say, like, do whatever you need to do, even if that includes like movement during our sessions and things like that. But part of like in the beginning stages is that I acknowledge like telehealth is different, but I try to help them understand that like, and maybe this is just like my own authentic style. So, like, this is why I'm I'm spitballing here with you, is like the onus is on me to notice.
Owning The Space And Warming Up
SPEAKER_00Like, I can't see your foot fidgeting in telehealth, but I can be paying attention to other things that are going on in this space so that I can acknowledge if I need to adapt or I need to ask questions differently to make sure I'm gathering like how you're experiencing things. And I know that like with adolescents, obviously, like you can still have some of those conversations just directly with them. But even with like parents and like younger kids, there's a way to acknowledge, like, this is different. It's gonna be different than like if we were sitting in the same room together. But like, that's okay. And we can still have fun and and do some work here. Like, is that something that you find is helpful to just acknowledge this this space is different?
SPEAKER_01Very much, yeah. That's spot on, both for psychodrama group work and for adolescents or younger kids who are online to to name it and to acknowledge it. And also, it is on us in terms of we're still responsible for taking care of the space. And so one of the things that I might do certainly in psychodrama groups, but also with adolescents or folks online, is when we start the session, I will say if we need to, let's maybe put a timer up or take the next two minutes to do what you need to do to make the environment more comfortable. Do you need to make sure you have tea? Should we double check the window is closed? Do you need to, is this chair not the right it? Do you need a charger? Let's just let's take care of the space a little bit before we get going and set the scene a little bit more so that it is more comfortable. And that's my prompting. The other thing is what you think about with adolescents that we often talk about treatment compliance or resistant adolescence. And in my mind, resistance does not exist. There's no such thing as a resistant client. Resistant to what? Yeah. To me? Yeah. I'm some lady, I'm some stranger, I'm just a I'm just a square on a screen. No one is resistant to me. Again, to borrow language is that clients aren't warmed up. And that's my job to warm them up. So there's no resistant adolescent. And if they're having difficulty complying with the online space, it is because I need to do a better job at making sure that it is workable for them and set them up for success. The the compliance piece is on me. I'm I'm the one at work, you know. So all of that is my responsibility.
SPEAKER_00You've mentioned some links throughout our conversation, but do you see any like other connections that maybe we haven't discussed between like the psychodrama principles and telehealth work with kids and adolescents? Um yeah.
SPEAKER_01So one of the things, again to the doubling component where you might stand behind someone else, sometimes counselors will also act in that fashion. So sometimes we might be naming the emotion that a kid might not be able to name for themselves. Or when they're talking about, I got a bad grade and everybody's mad at me and no everyone will is on my case, or I'm I'm always in trouble, then I might, you know, from a doubling perspective, think about advancing that a little bit to say
Concretizing Feelings With Movement And Objects
SPEAKER_01I'm worried that I'm disappointing people in this really kind of tentative hedging kind of language. Yeah. And again, normed to whatever language is appropriate for kids, but it still is, if that's right, say it, if it's not, change it. And so maybe it's naming feelings that they can't articulate yet. But also because it is difficult to articulate, the language development we don't yet have in childhood does not mean that we haven't developed the complexity of feeling. Right. So it again is our job to be translators in many ways for kids to translate their physical experience. And so what psychodrama does is we call it concretizing something, where you make visible things that seem so abstract. Yeah. So show me where your anxiety lives in your body. Or maybe it's body tracings. And if that's online, then we can do a shared screen and it's sort of a you know, person and we can color those in. Yeah. And wouldn't you know so much of that worry lives in our belly and butterflies in our stomach and knots in our stomach, and just the worry that kids have about feeling sick and anxiety starts there, or positioning and size. So let's say that you have five different stuffies. I have two nieces, Ella and Chloe, and they are stuffy girls. Stuffed animals rule our world. And there's some pretty large ones, and then all the way to teeny. Yeah. And so maybe if I'm working with a kid on telehealth, if we're concretizing the problem, whatever the worry is or the issue is around adjustment or school or grades or divorce or whatever that will show the size of the problem based on the size of the stuffy. Yeah. That's awesome. And so concretizing it that way, and it's with their stuff. It's with their stuff. And so those kinds of things from that might be another way. Miniatures, you know, find the representation. If your dad was going to be a miniature, if your dad was going to be one of your toys, which one is it? And then why? So again, putting some of that concretizing component to that. And if you're in telehealth, then they can use their stuff, and that matters more. That's the language, those are the words, those miniatures. So all of those things. Kids are also really good at things like emotional charades. And so don't tell me, show me. And so when you're at school and you feel like you can't sit still in my office, exaggerate that. Or on telehealth, see how big you can make that. Get bigger with it. If you're bouncing around, if you're having a hard time, let's turn up the volume so that we can start to see how intense it might feel. Yeah. Freeze. And then we'll start to, you know, just putting things into movement in that way. Even if you're, you know, again, so making the abstract more accessible through through those kinds of items. Movement is information. And so sometimes I'll put a line in the middle of the room, or I will ask the kid to imagine a line on their bedroom floor, either way. And on one side is yes, and on the other side is no. And so then I might ask assessment questions or something like that. And they have to hop on both sides of the line.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Or when you hear somebody starting to fight downstairs, show me what your body does. Just those kinds of things to again embody that or use things from the inside that are really difficult to verbally communicate, to cognitively understand, does not mean that kids don't have nuance and complexity. It's just we have to help them find the translation that is validating for them. So kids are, for the most part, better at most of this because they are so tapped into spontaneity. They haven't learned self-consciousness yet, or the performance aspect is just more authentic or true. Kids are very good at acting those kinds of things out. If your stress had a color, what color would it be? There's no thought. It just they know it's purple. My stress is purple.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know, things like that.
SPEAKER_00If one of our listeners, a counselor, was you know, listening today and they said, I'm gonna try something new or experiential, a creative intervention this week, where would you suggest they start?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So if you think about the principle of show me, don't tell me, show me. So one of the things that you could do is an experiential activity that I really love that can happen individually as well. Sometimes clients, particularly adult clients who are very cerebral, might
One Intervention To Try This Week
SPEAKER_01need to suspend some of their hesitation about this. So if I can just get them to buy into it a little, but one of the things that I love to do is to introduce themselves to me through the eyes of someone who knows them. And so whether this is in group or this is an individual, you invite the client to think of someone who knows them well. And whoever that first person was is the right person. And whether this is somebody who likes them or not, it doesn't really matter. And whether this is someone who is living or not, or someone they have lost touch with or talked to today, none of that matters. So they will choose a friend, a partner, a family member, coworker, ex-spouse, child, pet. Pets are great for this mentor. And for a moment, as we've talked about before, they will spend a little bit of time walking around as if they are that person. And sometimes I might even take a walk in the hallway. And we're not talking, but we might just get out of the confines. Some of our offices are small, and so we can we'll do a little bit of a walk where they're milling about as if they are that person and getting tapped into that person. And then they come back into your office, or the group comes back to a circle, and they will. Introduce themselves to you or to the group from the point of view of another. And so the example that I give most typically is my best friend Juliet. And Juliet and I met when we were in the eighth grade, and we we live in different time zones now, and I don't get to see her very often, but she knows me. And so I would imagine I'm Jay throughout my day and what her day must have been like, or maybe us in the eighth grade, and get connected to her. And then when the circle comes back, I would say, I'm Juliet, and Amanda is my best friend. And let me tell you some of the things that I know about Amanda. And it's seeing them through the eyes of someone else. And if there's conflict with that person, if it's an adolescent who is talking from the role of their teacher or their parent, there are some truths that can come out. Yeah. And if they get stuck, there's just prompts of what might they appreciate about you, or what might they worry about you? What might they notice first? Or what is something that Amanda is reluctant to tell people? What do you know about her that other people don't? Just just kind of those um prompts. And then later on, it could be a processing of what is it like to hear about yourself in that way? What feels accurate or surprising? If you're doing this on telehealth, it's a quick rename again. So my name would be Amanda, it would be Juliet. To do that, it can let you know things about someone that you might want to check out further or just changes a level of vulnerability or perspective. So meeting someone from that position.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's just one of my favorite things.
SPEAKER_00I wrote it down for myself.
SPEAKER_01Lovely. Note to take in.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So Amanda, we asked the last question on the episode to all of our guests that we interview because the name of the podcast is called Ohio Counseling Conversations. And so a lot of what we discuss might be applicable sort of in the counseling profession in general. We really want to know from our guests what important conversations you think counseling professionals should be having with each other andor their clients in Ohio. But I guess that can expand beyond if you feel like it is more of a national or global conversation.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So from the adolescent perspective, conversations
Conversations Ohio Counselors Need Now
SPEAKER_01more about parent engagement that sometimes the teenagers that I will work with parents have been othered for many different reasons. And it does us no good to accidentally other the parent all of the time. Parents do well if they can. And if they can't, it's our job to find out why and to help address those issues. So parent engagement will always improve the outcomes for children and adolescents in counseling. So I think we need to talk about this more and maybe different in systems work and family therapy, but in the individual counseling space about parent engagement. I think about, you know, the work that you all are doing and the conversations that we're having around supporting counselors who are working in challenging sociopolitical climates. If there are different legislative components that might change our practices, particularly by folks who are not practitioners, and the way that we have to understand and adapt the legalese of some of those pieces of legislation and how we're making sure that we are maintaining our professional values and upholding our legal obligation as well. And the presenting issues that clients are coming in with and how that's impacting them and the way that we need to bracket our own experiences, even if it's things we're living through in real time as well, to be that empathic, neutral, unconditionally supportive person. AI, of course, and how clients might be engaging with AI in a therapeutic way and what that means for us. AI is out of the box and here to stay. And a colleague of my dad is a lawyer, and a colleague of his was talking about lawyers using AI. And he said that AI will never replace lawyers. But if it is here, how do we ethically navigate this? And are there ways to lean in? Are there ways for it to help us and what safeguards and all those things? The AI conversation. And bringing in the body that we are very we are embodied beings. Yeah. We all have a vest. And how inside the scope of our practice, right? How we are bringing in the body. Our our traumas are experienced in our bodies, our bodies live it.
SPEAKER_00And how how we need to attend to better and attune to that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I feel like we could just go on and on on all of those things. But yes, yes, yes, yes. And as like a media girly, I am like, yeah, the AI conversation is like to me, if you look at some historical context, like media has always evolved, technology has always evolved, and we have been required to adapt with it. Even talking about telehealth, like and how like it's evolved and adapted, it's like, yeah, sometimes we need to, it seems like evil. And I'm not suggesting that there aren't some really evil layers with AI. Like I was so, but I think it is about how if if it's not going away, then like how do we as a profession also adapt to it? And my biggest soapbox, sorry, I have to say it in response to that, is that we also are like tasked with like helping our clients be media literate.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because that does connect to wellness and understanding like the maybe the benefits of how AI might be used in a therapeutic way and then the costs or the drawbacks or like the risks. Like, hey, chat GPT is is not always going to be the best solution for you to like navigate some difficult thoughts. And yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it's so rapid. I think the the hard part that it's not unique to our field. The hard part is how to to keep up with the rapid changes that are happening with the AI and those kinds of things. It's it's hard to put out thoughtful responses.
SPEAKER_00And I think that that's like we're lifelong learners. So like part of our then ethical obligations is to also become more media literate so that we can support, yeah, you know, like as much as we're supposed to be well-beings and take care of ourselves, some of that is also making sure that we understand those things and evolve with it and understand, like, yeah, that's moving fast. And maybe I don't know what I don't know, but I know this and I can like support people in understanding that part of it. And like, yes, it is moving quickly. Let's acknowledge that, but also incorporate those into the conversation. So sorry, podcast girly, media girly had to like be like, yes, yes, yes, yes, and right, improving and all of that. So, Amina, this was like such a gift, so many awesome and practical takeaways. Thank you so much for bringing this to us and sharing your creativity, your advocacy, and your love for the work in this space today. We appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much. Counseling is the best job, and counselors are the absolute best. Have courage and keep going and know that the work is important and these conversations are important and the work of this podcast is just inspiring and lovely. So thank you for all that you do and for taking the time. This was so wonderful.
SPEAKER_00For listeners who want to learn more about psychodrama, telehealth practice with youth, or Amanda's work in counselor education, we'll have her information linked in the show notes. And if today's episode sparked something for you, a new intervention to try, a supervision idea, or just a reminder that playfulness is clinical, we'd love to hear about it. Connect with us on social media and let us know what resonated.