Podcast season 5: Episode 1 – Therapeutic Life Story Work with adults

Please note that this transcript is auto-generated and therefore will contain some errors and natural pauses in conversation.

Note: Just to let you know that this episode includes references to the removal of children from parental care. Please feel free to pause or step away if you need to.

Trailer: [00:00:00] Hello. This is a reminder that as well as listening to this show on a browser via the Creative Life Story Work website. You can also listen to it on your favorite audio app too. You’ll find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, audible, Amazon Music, YouTube, music, and many others. Search, creative Life Story Work podcast.

DAWN: Welcome to the Creative Life Story Work podcast, where we explore how to make life story work better for all care experienced children and young people. Creative life story work is an approach which can improve children and young people’s lives and their relationships with others, both at home and at school.

It’s based on the Rose model of Therapeutic Life Story Work.

[00:01:00] Every month we’ll explore a different aspect of creative life story work, and we’ll give  insights into how you can use this approach to help care experience children and young people make sense of their past and build a brighter future. In this episode we’ll explore how Richard Rose’s model of Therapeutic Life Story Work can help adults find meaning, rewrite inner narratives and begin to heal with greater compassion for themselves.

So I am absolutely delighted to welcome all the way from Australia in the Blue Mountains: Amy Payne. Amy is a psychologist with over 20 years of experience specializing in trauma. Amy developed Adult Therapeutic Life story Work from 2018, and this was endorsed by Richard Rose in 2023.

They share their expertise through consultation, supervision, and training, and they’ve presented at conferences in Australia and internationally showcasing their innovative tools and approaches.

[00:02:00] Amy has also shared their knowledge and practice running workshops with government and agency practitioners, therapeutic life story work professional diploma students, and hosting therapeutic life story work Australia drop in sessions.

A very warm welcome to you this morning, Amy.

AMY: Thank you so much, Dawn. That was a long intro.

DAWN: Yes. I read it off my script. I do my research and then read it off my script.

AMY: It was lovely.

DAWN: Was it right? Did I get it right?

AMY: Yeah. It was all, it was all true. It was all true.

DAWN: It’s all true. No heckling needed. Marvelous. For those people listening who might be less familiar, I wondered if we could start off, could you explain the core principles of Richard Rose’s therapeutic life story work model.

AMY: Yes. I’m not sure if I’ll do it the same justice that Richard does on your podcast previously. I will do it in my own way.

[00:03:00] I think that from learning from Richard, knowing that therapeutic life story work is around like three people in the room. So the practitioner, the child, and the caring adult. So whoever that is, who is gonna be witness to the child’s story. And having the wallpaper there as the main tool for doing all the activities and doing all of the things – so writing the words, doing the pictures, and actually just making sure there’s a record of it.

There’s three stages. So there’s the Information bank, which is stage one, and there’s the direct work, which is stage two, and then there’s the therapeutic life story work book that is stage three.

And all of those incorporate the child as leading the way and leading the story and really making meaning of the stories from all different perspectives. So that’s a really important component of the therapeutic life story work as a whole.

[00:04:00] DAWN: And the adaption that you’ve made, I’m wondering about working with specifically with adults.

What led you to explore that direction using the application of Richard’s work?

AMY: Yeah, it actually started during the diploma, so when I was doing the diploma in 2017 and 2018, the young person who was 17 who I did the work with, he was in a residential setting and the people around him weren’t as consistent, so it ended up being me and him a lot. And his life story was that he had a lot of loss of family, so I couldn’t talk to all of his family members. So a lot of the stories that came for him actually came from him. And his wallpaper work was very much.. I did use some of the file history. I did use some of the stories from previous carers, and a lot of it came from himself and through that exploration of himself and his own stories and how he understood himself was actually probably how I was like, actually this works.

[00:05:00] This works as sort of a dyad and this works because he was able to share the stories with me. So that’s, that’s kind of how it started. And then fast forward a few years and I ended up being in a place where I was working with majority of adults, young parents actually. And I really love therapeutic life story work and I wanted to use it still. And I remembered back to that time, and these adults or these parents that I was working with – I said, I wanna do this work with you. And they told me that they don’t have either someone that they would have as a third person to witness that story or they don’t want to.

And I think that comes from the deep shame that’s held around the stories and with adults. So I said, okay, let’s figure this out. And I remembered that time with that young person I worked with, and we started talking.

[00:06:00] Basically I started listening to like the ghost stories. If we say it like that. So the stories of the past and the stories of the adults. So that’s what I started listening to and that’s how we started doing the therapeutic life story work on the wallpaper with two people in the room as well as the stories that they shared with me.

DAWN: Mm, thank you. And are there any other differences that you notice when working with adults compared with children or adolescents.

AMY: Yeah, probably the game. So in the Rose model of TLSW, there’s a big component of like games and sort of that engagement. Probably the difference there is that I definitely use Pace, so from DDP, so the playfulness, acceptance, curiosity, and empathy. So the attitude of pace.

[00:07:00] And I still have that playfulness and so it may not be  gameplay. I think what comes from that is a permission. My therapy room, if you were to see it, is full of toys, colorful, it has colorful mats on the ground. I am a colorful person myself. I welcome people in and inevitably, the first question that adults ask is, oh, do a lot of children come here? Do you do therapy with a lot of children? And I say, yeah, like I do, and actually, a lot of these toys aren’t used by them, they’re used by adults. And they pick them up and they play, and then that happens. So the play, the gameplay is sort of the picking up of toys and so that’s a big difference that just a different type of engagement style.

What else is the difference? I think that we still have the book, the Therapeutic Life Story workbook. And we still use the wallpaper, we still use the Think-feel-do bears.

[00:08:00] We still have definitely the similar components and I think that there is a difference in the way that I talk around starting to… like hearing the stories of the past and the present and then imagining the future with the adults.

I think that’s a bit different to the work with that I do with children. We see it and we think about and imagine, so there’s a story that may be a really hard story to be said, and it’s full of shame, and then saying it out loud means something, and then being able to be accepted on that. And then say, okay, now what? Let’s think about what that future holds even with that story. Let’s think about that together and we go forward with that. And I think that’s a huge, a huge difference.

DAWN: Mm-hmm. I wondered if you’d be able to share an example of a moment where the life story work you were doing with an adult offered them transformation or an insight into their own story.

[00:09:00] AMY: Yeah, there’s a few, probably ones that come to mind is probably along those lines where a young parent looked at me and we had the wallpaper out. We were about to start their timeline and they wanted to do a car race as their timeline. So cool. Like an innovative timeline. And then they looked at me and said, ‘I don’t wanna share because I know that you’ll look at me differently if I share my story.’

And I looked back at them and I said to them, ‘yeah, I will look at you differently’. And they were a bit taken aback and, and and I asked them if they’d like me to explain what I meant. And they said, ‘yeah’, they’re about to walk outta the room, right? So they said, yes. And I said, ‘so we’ll look at you differently, because I’m hopeful that you’ll be able to share the story that maybe you haven’t told other people.

[00:10:00] The stories that you hold deep shame or worry about that if people hear, that you’ll be seen differently or heard differently. And I’m saying that I’m probably gonna hear you differently or see you differently because I will know something more about you and I’ll know where you’ve come from and I’ll know who your connections are and I’ll know who your disconnections are. And that’s really important, and I will see you differently and not in a bad way. I’ll just know more about you and we will be able to hold those stories together and that’s how I’ll see you with those stories.

So that was quite a moment and they continued sharing their timeline. They continued sharing their story around their moments of where it was really important to be said out loud that weren’t said out loud before.

DAWN: What an example of the support that you’ve given there that’s so emotionally, well potentially vulnerable for them and intense as well in that workshop.

[00:11:00] It’s almost like someone else that I was talking to about like co-regulation as well that’s happening in that session alongside that client you’ve just described.

AMY: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. That’s a big component of the adult work because we’re only the two people in the room. I need to be able to be regulated and I see it as we are two nervous systems in the room.  And how do I see myself? And how do I see my nervous system and how do I reach out to that other nervous system?

Yeah. So it’s really important. So that regulation is really important.

DAWN: So what’s been one of the most surprising or meaningful part for you of working with therapeutic life story work and adults?

AMY: I think that discovery of the intergenerational work. I know that we do that as part of the child work. I think that the way that it’s done with adults is that I see the adult with me and then they talk about their children and also their parents.

[00:12:00] So they’re really seeing the future and especially in behavior trees. So that is for people who don’t know there’s the behavior trees where the roots show where we’ve come from. The leaves show the behaviors and the trunk is what, you know, brings those together. And the grass shows how hidden our history is to the behaviors that are shown.

And what I’ve done with a few people in particular is like the three behavior trees in a row, and we talk about the adult’s parent and then the adult, and then their children.

And probably the one story in particular that is quite memorable is the ability for this adult to just name the behaviors of their parent and to see how those leaves, how the behaviours of that parent had impacted on them and their life so far.

[00:13:00] And to see those roots and then for this adult to then see themselves as a parent, and see how they had changed their leaves for their children and to see then what their children’s roots look like and then what their leaves will look like. And it was such a beautiful moment and it definitely went over a few sessions and it definitely needed breaks because of the emotion and the raw emotion of that and the discovery of, oh my God, I have changed the path for my child. And it was right in front of them. They could see, they could see the difference, and I could see the difference and I could notice that with them.

[00:14:00] And I think that was actually like a really key point for this, for this person in particular to know where they had come from, where they were sort of going and where they had been going, and then that they had made the choice to make something different for themselves and their children, and they saw it right there on the wallpaper. And they will see it forever. That’s in their book. They’ll see it forever.

Let’s take a short break to hear more about our membership offer.

Trailer: We want people to gain more of an understanding about what it’s like to be care experienced and to have a better understanding of what it actually means.

Could creative life story work make a difference to the care experienced children and young people you work with?

Maybe you are a social worker.

I think we forget at our peril that actually telling a child the story of their early life is one of the most profound uses of social work power that we could ever operate.

Perhaps you are a foster carer.

[00:15:00] You know, when they say it’s all about the child, it’s not because our experience is it’s about the carer and the child, and it just gives a new angle to our relationship because we’re learning about each other together.

A Creative Life Story Work membership will give you or your whole team access to resources. Including activities you can use in direct work with children and young people, training with life story work experts and lots more.

And I think a lot of our children are looking for meaning, looking for, you know, well why is it I feel this way when my friends don’t. Why is it I get angry internally? And my friends don’t. The greatest thing we see is when we are able to say to young people, this is your story. This is about who you are. And then children towards the end say, it’s not my fault that these things happened, but it is something that I can do something about. And once we have that, then we know we can move forward.

[00:16:00] Find out about our membership for individuals and for organizations on our website, creativelifestorywork.com.

DAWN: I wonder that after that description of the looking back and looking forward and seeing the transformation in the child’s life, I’m wondering how do you look after yourself as a practitioner when you are engaging so deeply? And you said it went on over a number of sessions. What do you put in place for yourself?

AMY: Well, I have a bunch of peer supervision and supervision, and that’s really important. And I have been known to put on some tunes in my therapy room and have a little dance and, and I work by myself, so that’s okay. In my therapy space, I also do a lot of expressive stuff. So I do a lot of artwork and I do lots of bilateral stuff and I guess the most important thing is to notice within our own bodies and our own nervous systems if we are not doing okay.

[00:17:00] And I think this work allows us to, because we are regulated and we are co-regulated and because we are noticing in the moment, I think that changes some of the sort of the end results somehow.

I think I’ve noticed what it is. I’ve said that to people, like I’ve noticed in my body that I feel actually quite sad right now. When we were talking about the intergenerational behavior trees, I know that I had a little tear because it was incredible.

I don’t hold back that emotion, you know I don’t cry more than the client, but I don’t hold that back in that sense. And I also know when to seek help when I need it and have those chats and to go for a walk. And I live in the Blue Mountains so we can go hiking, so that’s good.

DAWN: Are there, and I’m just wondering if there’s any particular transitions or milestones.

[00:18:00] I’m thinking about, you talked about being a parent, but I’m thinking about other milestones or transitions where life story work becomes especially relevant.

AMY: Yeah, so one parent I worked with, she had her children removed from her care and that actually happened during our work together and she still wanted to continue the work. And what we were up to at that time was we were doing a timeline. So the timeline then included this moment of removal and her timeline was actually a river. So her stories were part of a river and the obstacles were boulders. And at that time when the children were removed, what we did and what she chose to do was make a fork in the river and one side of the fork of the river was a huge obstacle saying give up.

[00:19:00] And then the other part of the river were like ways that she could move forward in having her children back with her and what steps she could do around that. So the work was very imagined and she was able to make choices, I guess, on what she wanted to do. She kind of made her own case plan of how, how that restoration was gonna happen.

And she did that on wallpaper and then I made a book and she edited that book and that was part of her book. And that was really important for her to have all of that emotion in there. And such an important thing. I also worked with births of children and worked with breakups, worked with, I guess it’s all the transitions, right? Because I have the privilege of stepping into someone’s else’s life story.

[00:20:00] So I get to see those moments and we get to experience them in real time sometimes. And sometimes we get to think about them as they happened in the past or how we imagine them in the future.

DAWN: Yes, indeed, a privilege. My final question to you today is what would you say to a practitioner who might be curious about using therapeutic life story work with adults, but they’re unsure where to begin?

AMY: Yeah, I think that actually listening to the stories, listening to the stories of the past. So walking into the space and being in the space with that adult and really listening to the stories, listening to the parts of themselves that want to be heard, want to be seen and need that, and trusting that that adult is coming forward because they’re ready to experience and make meaning of their story so far, and that they want to see what the future holds for themselves and whoever is part of their their future.

[00:21:00] One client in a session said, I can’t see tomorrow, and by the end of her work, not my work – at the end of her work, she saw herself with a future and she could name all the things that she wanted to do for herself and her children and in life. And the biggest thing is that she wanted to like cook a roast every Sunday. And prior to that, she hadn’t seen a future or hadn’t seen tomorrow at all. So it is around listening, just really listening to all the parts that wanna be heard. The good, not so good, the comfortable, the not so comfortable.

DAWN: Thank you, Amy, for such a thoughtful and grounding conversation about using therapeutic life story work with adults. Thank you.

[00:22:00] AMY: Thank you.

DAWN: Whether you are a foster carer, someone who has experience with the care system, or you work with children and young people, we hope this episode has given you an insight into how we can make life story work better for young people and how you can use it in your own practice.

You can find out more about Creative Life Story Work on our website, creativelifestorywork.com, and you can find us on LinkedIn and Blue Sky at CreativeLSW. Please do get in touch there with any comments or questions as we’d really love to hear from you. And if your podcast app allows you to, please do leave us a review as it really helps others to find our show.

So until next month, bye for now.