Objects that teach therapeutic care
Objects can be trivial, or they can be portals. In therapeutic care, they often become the latter: anchors that hold a story, a lesson, and a person. Across this conversation with much-loved veteran leader Richard Rollinson, we track how a toy fawn, a battered picture book, a chocolate egg, a skull, a crystal ball, and even a baseball field opened new ways to think about children’s minds, their lived bodies, and the spaces we create around them. The thread is simple but deep: meaning is not handed down by theory alone; it is made in the living day, noticed in small details, and held long enough to think. The value for practitioners is clear—objects invite curiosity, challenge certainty, and offer a shared language that can reach where instruction cannot.
Consider Bambi. In a cinema full of tears, a small group of traumatised children ask why others are crying. Their confusion exposes a gap many adults miss: when experiences have been chaotic, the link between event, body, and feeling may be dulled, scrambled, or defended against. A similar lesson sits in Rosie’s Walk, a wordless classic read night after night. Skip counting the apples and a 14‑month‑old protests—not with words, but with an elbow. Continuity matters, not as fussiness but as scaffolding for sense-making. Here, modern neuroscience helps: Damasio’s critique of Descartes reminds us mind and body are not separate realms. In care, that unity becomes practical: we observe posture, breath, pacing, gaze, tone; we look for shifts over time; we match routines that touch both soma and psyche.
Then there’s “cream egged.” A child hears “cremated” and turns it into Cadbury’s “cream egged,” folding death into the nearest sense-making shape. The point is not to correct, but to respect developmental logic while offering manageable doses of the world. Children personalise experience; they reach for images that fit the mind they have. This nudges us away from lectures and toward guided noticing: ask what they think an object means, let their story lead, and only then add gentle edges. The crystal ball adds a further caution—don’t predict outcomes for children. Resilience can surprise. What we can assess is the reliability of the environment: is there a plan B, predictable care, and room for growth when services wobble?
Boundaries matter, but so does play. A family photo at Yankee Stadium becomes a working metaphor: the field of play sits inside clear lines; there’s foul territory, umpires, shared rules, and a warning track before the wall. Good care is like that—boundaries, not barriers; containment, not incarceration. Gates open; people move in and out safely. Winnicott’s triad of work, love, and play becomes design criteria for homes, classrooms, and programs. We must build shared purpose and allow exhilaration without reckless harm. Early indicators of progress? Presence, ordinary participation, communication beyond meltdown or retreat, and being able to “live to learn” in a classroom without being pressed to master algebra before trust exists.
How to use objects with children? Select with care. Offer an invitation, not a test. Lay out a few items, ask what draws them, and wonder aloud together. Keep the doses small. Ensure the room itself is safe, predictable, and held by adults who can think. When a child says “I don’t know,” try pretend-thinking: “Let’s imagine you did know—what might it be?” Often that opens the ballpark. Over time, children take ownership of insights; they are not handed truths but discover them in a space designed for noticing. The real takeaway is a stance: collect moments, treat everything as potential material, hold meaning lightly, and return to the same row not because we failed, but because some coins are unearthed only on the second pass.
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Transcript:
Hello and welcome to the Secure Start Podcast.
And when I’m talking about the object, I’m talking about the person for me that comes out of it. Now, some of them are a compilation, but many of them are of individuals. And the significance is the gift the individual gave me. It’s not about the individual, it’s about the gift they gave me that helps me to think about, has helped me to think about. Gosh, what could that mean? It’s important in itself, but it also highlights Descartes’ error. You wouldn’t think it, would you? A child’s book that has no words, and it upends René Descartes. Children’s life experiences are personal sized and personalized. We prepare them for death. And you know, again, I’m I’m I’m still I still got my L plates on in this in this town. And I I said, what? He said, well, look, when you think about it, what’s the best preparation for death? I said, I don’t really know. He said, living a good life, having a full life that you can really experience and engage with. I I felt quite encouraged that our work isn’t just to control and contain and maintain children, you know, within, you know, not putting a foot wrong, it really is to help them experience and develop their own capacity to have a good life, whatever that is. What I’m trying to offer is a different way of working that involves thinking and thinking about feelings.
Hello and welcome to the Secure Star Podcast. I’m Colby Pierce, and rejoining me for this episode is the much-loved former director of the Mulberry Bush Charity. Before I introduce my guest, I’d just like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land that I come to you from. The Ghana people of the Adelaide Plains. And acknowledge the continuing connection the living Ghana people feel to land, waters, culture, and community. I’d also like to pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging. My guest this episode is Richard Rawlinson. Richard was, until the 31st of December 2019, the director of the Planned Environment Therapy Trust and remains an independent consultant in the fields of therapeutic childcare, education, and mental health across the voluntary, statutory, and private sectors. Richard has a long association with residential therapeutic communities, having worked at the Mulberry Bush for well over 20 years, and where from 1991 until 2001, he worked as its director. He was also director children and young people at the Pepper Harrow Foundation from 2001 to 2005. Amongst his activities in this field, Richard worked for many years with the Department of Social Welfare in Portugal to support the development of specialist therapeutic residential communities across the country. Richard continues to work in a consultant role with several organizations in Portugal and in Ireland. Unbeknownst to us, the video failed while we were recording this episode, leaving only audio. Thankfully, that was intact. If you take something positive from this interview, or from the podcast more generally, please like and subscribe. And share in your networks. This really makes a difference to the caliber of content I can continue to bring.
Well, welcome back, Richard, uh to the Secure Start podcast. Really looking forward to this one because um you got you’ve actually got something a little bit different and a little bit uh special for us this time.
Right. Well, I I I think what it is is I I guess to begin, I’ve always been curious about everything and anything, including about objects. And I’m talking about from very early in my life, but even more so when I was at university back in the States, I had a course. I I think I told you before, I studied Latin and Greek for many years, and there were associated programs, and there was a book called The Mute Stones Speak, and it was about Etruscan remains, pre-Roman remains, and I was quite gripped by how much the author, whose name I can’t remember over 45, 50 years, uh, was able to extract from just looking at these objects. And I always remembered it. And at my time at the Mowbray Bush, I, as you could imagine, I spent many years giving talks, lectures, writing articles, and for many times I enjoyed it. But sometime 30 or so years ago, I thought to myself, actually, probably about 85 to 90 percent of the people I’m talking to are on site already. There’s probably another five or so percent of people who might be able to think, oh, I’ll look into this. He said something interesting. And there was, you know, one, two, three percent of people where frankly I could stand on my head and whistle Dixie and they’d pay no heed to me. So I thought, well, what could I do? What would help me and what would help them do it? And I thought, okay, I’ve been collecting these objects, maybe I’ll just, and I’ve been keeping them for myself, these are objects all through my working career that were either given to me by children or reminded me powerfully of a child or a group of children I worked with. I thought, well, I can share it with them. Now I hastened to add, you may have heard about a worldwide excellence program called The History of the World in 100 Objects.
No, I haven’t heard of that actually.
Oh, it’s very interesting. I hastened to add, I was doing presentations five years before he put this together. So I taught him something well. And uh but I I had this growing collection, and it developed, and stop me if I’m going on too much about it. But when I first came to England, I realized there was a train from York to London, and it took about two and a half hours in those days. It’s about an hour and forty minutes now, but the great thing about it was they had a bar in the train with table to sit on. I thought, oh, I’m gonna go to do that. And I went down, and uh while I was wandering around to see the Garbo Film Festival, I I came across this play. It was called Brief Lives, and it was based on the stories by someone called John Aubrey, who wrote in the early 17th century about people, and he gave very brief life communications. I thought, well, that’s interesting. And this guy called Roy Dutrice was performing. And I went to the play, sat high up in the gods, and he came on looking very, very old and elderly, and the whole of the stage was covered with objects. And he’d pick up an object and he’d talk about it in relation to the brief life he’s writing about. I thought, this is amazing. It was so good. I stayed in London overnight, and I went and saw the play again. And what really, really struck me this time was he didn’t just talk about the same objects. He picked up different ones and spoke about it. So that was in 1970, the end of 1970. Good year then. In 2008, I was in Richmond in England, and I saw brief live was on with Roy DeTres. I thought he’d been dead for years. And I went to see him, and he was genuinely elderly, he didn’t have to use makeup anymore. And he did the same thing. And all that time he had been a one of my models about well, this is what you can do. You have this object, and you can you can talk about it. So, you know, I did that, and then Potter came along. Do you know what Potter I’m talking about? Harry. You’d think so, no. Dennis Potter. Dennis Potter. Hang on. This this is Dennis Potter. He is one of the best British playwrights. He died some years ago. He wrote wonderful TV plays, highly regarded, and he had things, and he was interviewed. Uh I now this is very interesting. He was interviewed by Melvin Bragg in 1994, two months before he died of cancer.
Well, Melvin Bragg is a name I do know.
Indeed, yes. And he just Melvin Bragg just finished doing his program that he did for about 30 years on BBC Radio. But he was interviewed by Melvin, and I remember it clearly, except I elided something because I also saw an interview with Dennis Potter in 1987 by Alan Yentub. And somehow in my mind, which I think is I elided them together. And I think the thing is, and this is an anticipation of my stories, there might be something about the stories that perhaps go over the same ground. And that’s exactly what Alan Yentub said to Dennis Potter. He said, You know, Dennis, you’re a highly regarded, but some people say you really just hoe the same row. And so my first object, it’s not a hoe, because my grandchildren took the hoe from their toy things. So I have this. And what he did, and this is how I lied to it, because when he spoke to Melvin Bragg, he had he was sipping um morphine because he was within two months of dying. Goodness. Smoking a cigarette, as he always did. But what what he said was, well, you see, the thing is they’re probably right. I am hoeing the same row. But the thing about it is, and he did the hoeing with his hands, and he said, the thing about it is I always feel I never get it quite right. So I go back to it, and I think there might be a precious coin there that I haven’t unearthed. So in this process, I always thought about Dennis Potter, extraordinary guy. He’s uh I have hugely annotated. This book of mine, of his is massively annotated by my notes. It’s falling apart because it was from 1994. And uh it’s just something about the way people look at the world, the work, their focus, their discipline, and themselves. And it brings out so much. So that that was it. And one last thing. By by way of prelude. Another object. Can you recognize?
R2D2?
R2D2. And when did you first see him?
Oh, I think it was at the drive-ins in probably 1977 or thereabouts.
Yeah, it was yeah, it was around 75, 76, 77. And what is, amongst many things, what is highly significant about that first film?
Oh goodness. You’re taking you’re taking I don’t know how much my analytical brain has developed by the age of seven
years.
It’s the first time a holograph was ever used in a film. Oh, okay. And there was R2, and he had he had been sent over to get some help from Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he was there, and out from him came a holograph of Princess Leah Organa saying, Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re only hope. And it was broken and damaged. Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, your only hope. And I thought, a hologram, and it was of a person. And I think for me, the significant thing about my objects is they’re like R2. And every single object contains a person. And when I’m talking about the object, I’m talking about the person for me that comes out of it. Now, some of them are a compilation, but many of them are of individuals. And the significance is the gift the individual gave me. It’s not about the individual, it’s about the gift they gave me that helps me to think about, has helped me to think about, gosh, what could that mean? And notice things that previously I might not have noticed in the ordinary hassle and unfolding of a day and holding on to things and seeing, you know, the work, the life, the living day. It’s the material that we can use. And some things are actual material, but they are also material. So this is why I constantly collected these objects, not obsessively, they sort of came to me. As I say, some given, some I thought, oh, this reminds me. And and I I think it’s it helped me develop a way of thinking that at least tried to focus on what might this mean. It could be insignificant and ignored in passing, but what might it mean? And in this context of what I’m saying to you and what I’m presenting, I’m not here to persuade anybody. I’m not here to tell people, this is what I learned and this is what you have to know. No, it it has nothing to do with that at all. It’s just saying, let’s notice what’s actually going on in the moment, in the living day, in the context of things, not discard it as irrelevant, because even if it isn’t central to the work, it’s something about the living day shared, the work that we try to do, and there can be some meaning in it we might miss. And we neither overlay it or or dismiss it. So that that’s really what brought me along to this point.
There’s so many thoughts going off for me, Richard. Sorry, I might have I might have spoken over you briefly for a moment there, but uh I I think about um how the objects anchor you to perhaps anchor you to a story or an experience. I I’m thinking about the objects as metaphors. Yeah. I’m also thinking about what was the response of the crowd that you were you were delivering uh workshops to or or or speaking to uh when rather than give them the traditional um workshop seminar, you uh you you started talking about objects.
Well, uh very well received, and I’ve also done it with children and young people. And to be perfectly honest, they will often get it sooner than adults. Not always, but often. The only other thing is, like my grandchildren, they want the objects. So I sometimes have to negotiate after a presentation with young people, children especially, to say, you know, all right, this is it. If you give it back to me, I’ll make sure you get an object just like it for yourself. Because they want the object. And uh I was looking today for a couple of things, and there’s a few things missing from my collection because of my grandchildren. So the helicopter, I think I know where it is. But to be perfectly fair, I’ve nicked a few things from them. So don’t tell anybody, but my granddaughter’s uh queen’s it’s not a crown, it’s a bit smaller than that. I still have it, and I broke it. It’s in two pieces now, so please don’t tell her. And so the you know, this thing, I have a care bear there that belongs to uh I think it’s my daughter from many years ago. And uh but I’m putting it to good use. I’m taking good care of it as well, and we’ll get to the care bearer, I’m sure, sometime. But it it really is a a positive response. And I spoke to in Portugal to the Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists, and I spoke about a few other things, but talked about the objects, and at the end of it, several of them came up to me and said, This is the first ever lecture we have received from anybody that doesn’t make reference to theory and you know, uh articles and things, but it was really interesting. So, you know, so far it’s been well received. And uh because I think it’s just it captures people where they think, oh, I’ve been there. Yeah, oh yeah, I can think of something, and uh just encourages them to notice even more what they’re already noticing, or might not be noticing so much. I’ve never had anybody say that’s a lot of rubbish. They may have been thinking it, but hey, you know.
As I’m understanding it, it’s a it’s kind of an aid or a way of getting people to think more deeply.
Yes. And that’s our that’s our challenge. Yeah, to think and notice things. So shall I go into the first object they’re gonna talk about? I’d I’d love you to. So yeah, go ahead. All right. I’m just gonna turn around and pick up. This is the object. I
I also have a picture because uh I’ve only just reclaimed this from one of the younger grandchildren. And uh tell me what you see.
Uh well, I see a fawn. It could be Bambi.
You got it in one. So a long time ago, although perhaps not in a galaxy too far away, we didn’t have online films, we didn’t have DVDs, we didn’t even have VHF VHS tapes, and on an annual cycle, the Disney films came out. And every half term in Britain, a Disney film would come out, and as you can imagine, the cinemas were jam-packed, two daytime programs a day over the whole time. Absolutely crowded, and this is nineteen it was probably early nineteen seventy one. No, hang on. Went to the mulberry bush. So it was early nineteen seventy five. And we always at at holiday times we always had some of the newer children stay back with us at the Mulberry Bush to really get f more fully engaged in the work without the pressure of the the old hands, so to speak, of the children. And we went to see the Disney film. And on this occasion, it was Bambi. So here you can imagine a flea pit cinema in the small town of Whitney, absolutely jam-packed with children and young people, and then myself and Leslie and Marion, the grown-ups, with six Mulriebus children back for the half term. The film starts, it goes on and on and on, and it gets to, as you can imagine, the part in the program where Bambi’s mother is shot. And the whole cinema, bar a certain few, is in tears. Absolutely devastating. Absolutely devastating. And then one of the children, I’ll call her Jay, turns to me and says, Richard, Richard, why are the children crying? And I’m like, you see, Jay, Bambi’s mother’s just been shot. She says, Oh, oh. I said, but don’t worry. Bambi will be looked after. He’ll be safe. He’ll be looked after by his dad. He says, okay, and she turns over to the other children. She says, Hey, Charlie, Major, okay. The children are crying because Bambi’s mother’s been killed, but Richard says not to worry because he’ll be looked after. The whole rest of the cinema is complete wreck. And these six Mowbray Bush children are wondering what’s going on. This disconnection between psyche and soma, between life experiences and things, and more puzzled, not about what’s going on in the film, but the children that were crying. What’s that about? And it taught me a very, very powerful, powerful lesson about I I was gonna call it the disconnection. It’s not a it’s about a confused connection between life and what’s going on and what they can experience and how they can do it. And I always kept that in mind and was always mindful about how things you and I can take for granted as, oh, that’s a feeling thing, and this is how they connect it. It isn’t always that way with children who have suffered themselves from very, very severe experiences of hurt and pain and abuse and distress, and how they deal with it by a disconnect or the lack of a greater connection at the time between that, having feelings, showing emotions, noticing that, being able to talk and think about them. There’s work to be done in the work that we do to a different degree, but it was very powerfully brought to me by that uh going to the Disney program, Bambi, and you’d go in a very different cycle. You could not get a Disney film in those days, in the 70s, early 80s, except by going to the cinema and watching it. So it was a huge event. And uh so that that was about the fawn and Bambi. And and and then we go. So uh again, perhaps nothing hugely profound comes out of this, but I’ve never forgotten it. I’ve never forgotten it.
While you’re while you’re locating the next one, a recent guest on the podcast was Peter Blake, and he was talking about the mind of children and uh how um and I reflected in that conversation that that he was saying about how difficult it can be to for to get people to consider that children have a mind. And I reflected that yes, they they probably see children, adults typically see children as um needs, behaviors and emotions, but maybe not consider considering their mind as well. And I think that that’s a beautiful illustration for the fact that children have minds and and their minds are different based on uh life experience and we need to take in consideration not just their needs, emotions and behaviors, but also their minds.
Right. And and maybe I’ll jump to it now, because I have a book. I’ll tell you. It’s it’s a book. It’s it’s called Ro Rosie’s Walk. Rosie’s Walk. It’s not even the original. Our original Rosie’s Walk that I read to my daughter two thousand times is so fragile now. We got we got another one for the others and the grandchildren, and now this is fragile as well. But it’s important in itself, but it also highlights Descartes’ error. You wouldn’t think it, would you? A child’s book that has no words, and it upends Rede Descartes. Um, Antonio Damasio, who you may have read and heard of, he he he wrote a book called Descartes’ Error, and the thing about it is books
never lend people books, they never return them. And I lent this one. I mean, my shelf is full of books people lent me, and I’ve never returned, but I don’t have Descartes’ error, but I do have the Malazius book, The Feeling of What Happens, and it’s fascinating. But let me tell you this. So, my daughter, who is now 46, she started off as a baby, and for many years we would read a book to her, and as is often the case, it’s the same book, night after night after night. And there and this this is about Rosie’s walk, and it’s about a walk a hen takes out of her house, uh in a little you know, hen house, and around, and there is a fox that tries to get her, and they’re constantly up-ended, and there are a few words in it, but of course, as most parents do, we elaborate the story and we point out the things and say things like, Oh, look, there’s a bird on the top of that tree. Watch out, Rosie! Oh, look, isn’t that oh, what’s gonna happen there? Oh, look at the frog, he’s jumping. You do all that, and you do it one day and two days, and a century and three quarters later, it feels like, you’re there, and it’s been a very long day for Richard. And I go up and I’m reading Jesser’s story, and I try to be quick. I try to be quick, and I don’t count the apples on the apple tree, and I carry on to the next page, and suddenly I have this little creature giving me the elbow, still still drinking her milk bottle, so I guess she was about 14 months old, because she was breastfed, but and I knew the message was I had to go back, I had to go back and count the apples, because there’s something about the continuity of making sense about it. And I thought about that and I thought about it, and of course, we’ve read lots of books to children we’ve looked after, not from our own family, and it’s the same important thing about keeping going, getting it, getting it right in the way that they can experience it. So there is some kind of continuity that adds meaning to it. So, you know, I did all that with Rosie’s Walk and you know, survived to tell the tale, and in my own way, really enjoyed it and didn’t mind being told you didn’t count the apples. But I thought about that and I read Descartes’ error afterwards, and it touches on, I say this because you you mentioned the mind, because what Damasio points out is Descartes’ error is he separated psyche and soma, mind and body, made them quite separate things. And the point my daughter at the age of 14 months was telling me, and that Antonio Damasio is telling us, is that is an error. There is a connection between mind and body, between what’s going on here, what’s going on there. There’s something that makes sense, and it has to be both mind and body and continuity. I I know the analogy isn’t exactly right, but I I think you get what I mean. How important it is to keep a connection between these things, and how important it is in our work to keep a connection between mind and body and the care, the actual care of a child and young person, and what else is going on. And uh I could talk more, but I think just at this stage, it it’s something about being reminded powerfully about the connection of the wholeness and wholesomeness that you were talking about earlier, the mind of a child. It might not be available to do, you know, uh quadratic equations, but there’s a mind there. There’s a mind there. And we have to connect that to it. So that’s it.
That connection is often represented in how the children present. And and I pay a lot of attention and and in my psychotherapeutic work, the first quarter of my notes is really what I observe about the child’s presentation.
Yes.
And that’s that’s that connection that you’re talking about with between what’s going on inside and what is manifestly representative of that in the their their actual physical presentation. And what I hope for is a change in that presentation over time.
Well, in indeed, as and when they need it. And you know, I get I guess what I learned was that I can be helped by a 14-month-old child to remember that connection. So it it’s an interaction, but certainly once we learn these things and the young people can remind us about it, it’s it’s extremely helpful, and the you know the material is there. L let me get you another one. Okay. Oh, here it is. This is a very, very ancient. I don’t know if you have them in Australia. This is a Cadbury cream egg.
I think we do, or at least we do. Okay.
Right. I they they are omnipresent nowadays, as it wi with with everything, but in the past they would be available from about uh Valentine’s Day till Easter. It was a cream egg. And uh so 1980. We’re coming back from the Christmas holiday in maybe it was 81. The Christmas holiday in 1980, yeah, yeah. And I’m sitting with Lulu and Joanna in between me on on the Mulberry Bush bus. And we’re traveling along and they’re chattering away, and then Joanna says, These aren’t the real names, I hasten to add. She says, Oh, oh, yeah. That beetle dydy was killed, wasn’t he? And I said, Yeah, John Lennon, yeah, it was sad. John Lennon got shot. It was early December 1980. I think I said, Yeah, it was really, really sad. So Joanna’s about two years older than uh, what did I call her? Lulu?
Lulu.
And uh Lulu sits there and she and she looks up to me and she says, Have they eaten him yet? And they do this, and then the children start talking about it, because I said, What? What what? What do you mean, have they eaten it yet? Well, a human being is meat, and people eat meat. Have they eaten him yet? And I remembered they had been talking some of them have been talking about becoming vegetarian in the previous turn. And I thought, you know, here’s my opportunity to be Joe Therapy. I sort of put my arm over Lulu and I said, Well, look, Lulu,
actually, there’s a difference. You know, it it’s not quite the same way because when a person dies, and I start describing, I didn’t I didn’t even get into um okay, I’m in the senior moment here. I’m talking about digging a hole and burying the person. And as I’m telling her this, I think, well, this is pretty weird too, when you think about it. And and Muella, who’s sitting in the seat over me, comes up, and in those days the children had a sign going, uh and she said, Oh, Richard, you got the choke. I said, What, Moo? She said, John Lennon wasn’t buried, he was cream egged. Not cremated. And I and you know, I’ve never looked at a Cadbury’s cream egg without thinking of that. But it shows you the a child’s eye view of the world and the well, they’re not even parapraxies, they’re things about hearing things and thinking, well, okay, I don’t know what cremated is, but I know what a cream egg is. And so for them, John Lennon became a cream egg.
Wow.
And uh I I I didn’t take it upon myself to dissuade her. All I have always remembered is it’s children’s life experiences are personal-sized and personalized. They they they they come at a time when they make the best sense they can about something that doesn’t make sense. And you know, here am I, I’ve made it to 77 sunset strip at my age, and still, you know, I can’t give you an explanation about death. You know, uh, I’ve got people on my list, I hope but I’m hanging around for a few more years. But there is this thing about how do you make sense of something like that? And I thought Moo had as good an idea as anybody else when she was seven years old. So I didn’t try to dissuade her. I said, Well, there you go. I hasten to add, I’ve never eaten a cream egg since then, just in case. But I always this this egg is God, I don’t know what’s inside it. It’s many, many years old now.
I was wondering about that, and uh it reminds me a little bit of Edward DeBono’s book, Children, is it called Children Tell Stories? No, Children Solve Problems, and and my recollection it’s a very long time since I I had any interaction with that book, but he had children draw solutions, I think, and then describe the solution to the problem and um and they’re remarkable. Again, representing children beyond needs, needs and wants, eh, uh behaviors and emotions, but that that there’s a mind in there and and the the ways in which that mind works are remarkable.
Yes. And and and they are, as you said, they’re working to make sense, they’re using their mind. And the last thing Moo needed for me was to say, I don’t talk nonsense. It’s not creamag, it wasn’t cream egg. That’s ridiculous. We’re saying, gosh, I hadn’t thought about that. And you know, there might be different ways, but okay. Um because there was no need. She was seven. And when she was eleven, she’d probably put that aside and think about something else. And uh but it it it’s just noticing how the children say it, so we’re um we’re mindful of what they might embody in objects themselves when they’re trying to make sense of a world that, you know, even for the well-developed, that can sometimes not make sense. And for these children who have experienced a hell of a lot of strange things, frankly, most of what they could think has it’s perfectly justifiable that they might think something like that. It’s wonderful, they can think about anything. So that was that was that was quite quite something. Um the other thing, a lesson. This is my new iteration of a crystal ball. Sadly, the original crystal ball didn’t last from uh actually it was it wasn’t my grandchildren, it was from another child who picked it up and it was delicate and dropped. But a crystal ball. And in the first year and a half, I was at the Mulberry Bush. There was there there was a pair there were siblings there, and they both left at the same time. I’m still in touch with one of them, again, 52 or three years later. And uh and so we’ve talked about this story, and and and it was when they left, the child I was still in touch with, I was very, very concerned about her. Because from my l limited experience, I thought she would struggle massively to manage. I was very, very new still.
Couldn’t have been earlier than 19, you know, uh no later than 1976, probably, when she left. I was very concerned. I thought, you know, how can we let these this child go and how how can we do it? But I was up to see, well, there’s a certain time when we have to help them move on. Okay, but I’m worried. And I was worried for her because I thought she would struggle while her sister might make it. Years later, I realized that actually, for whatever reasons, she’s doing fine and still is, and her sister struggles still. And it was a very powerful reminder to me. Don’t make predictions about the future of children. Yes, if there’s absolute risks in the provision they’re going to, you can say this is concerned. But the this this kind of tendency I had in my novice state to think, oh my god, she ain’t gonna make it. No, that’s all about me. It it there was an experience that was had, and it was a good enough experience to make use of alongside, you know, what not for the first time and not for the last, I’ll talk about Winnicott’s notion of the urge of the human organism to health. And it made a difference. So I have never I it was a really early lesson and I’ve always followed it. I never make predictions about the outcome for children and young people in and of themselves. There are times when I say, that’s your plan for this child. You want to do it? I hope you have a plan B. Because I’m not worried about the child. I’m worried about how this so-called service is going to be sustained. So um I have to take very good care of this because I don’t want to have to get another one. It cost me two pounds. No, oh. I s I I suddenly thought. A skull. A skull. Yeah. Did I talk about the skull in the time I spoke with you last?
I don’t recall so.
Okay. Stop me if I have, or he lied, the skull. Again, in the first year and a half I was at the Mowbray Bush, there was this uh Christian brother who was the head of a school for adolescents who are troubled and at times troublesome. And he used to visit the Mowbray Bush regularly. He was, I can’t remember his name, but he was very he was he was a really interesting guy. And you know, again, in my naivete, I said to him, I said, So so what do you and your team do with the young people you work with? And this was around the breakfast table, you know, we’re sitting there, and he said, He didn’t have this. He said, We prepare them for death. And you know, again, I’m I’m I’m still I still got my L plates on in this in this town. And I I said, what he said, well look, when you think about it, what’s the best preparation for death? So I don’t really know. He said, living a good life, having a full life that you can really experience and engage with. And I thought, oh, it’s a very interesting way. And he said, and I said, What do you talk to them about it? They said, Well, we don’t we don’t push it, but we do say, hey look guys, we got a life and we can get on with it. And there’s so much that could happen to us that’s good. There’s other things that could happen that aren’t so good. So let’s live a good life as long as we’re here. And of course, philosophically, we know there are many people who talk about living the good life while we’ve got it. And again, um where is it? My book, Dennis Potter, talks about it too. He he’s very profound about a number of things, saying, you know, a good life. We’ve got one life, you know, don’t know what’s going to happen afterwards, but we got it. So let’s let’s see what we can do with what with what we’ve got now and notice what we’re doing. And and again, it’s it’s I I felt quite encouraged that our work isn’t just to control and contain and maintain children, you know, within, you know, not putting a foot wrong. It really is to help them experience and develop their own capacity to have a good life, whatever that is. And a good life can sometimes be challenging, but it also means enjoyable and interesting and and delightful at times. And so a good life always has to contain not just boundaries, but space. Space we can ha inhabit in that way. And so that’s you know, a good way to prepare with death for death. Um, hopefully for many, it will be a lot longer in the coming. But whatever we’ve got, it’s I certainly have found it valuable to remember that, you know, we got we got one shot at this. Let’s let’s see what we do. So that’s the skull. This is not my original, it’s a really tiny one that I had, but this was my son’s, and when he left home he didn’t take it, so I’ve commandeered it. So that’s one of the things I’ve taken by way of objects. Um I I look, I don’t I can go on, as you can imagine, but if if you have any thoughts, observations, questions, challenges, jump in anytime.
You’ve talked about, yeah, you so you you’ve talked about uh getting to a point, and I’d I’d rather think I’ve got to a similar point of uh in the speaking part of your career, the public speaking part, where you just where you just thought, well, you know, uh I I’m almost getting bored or with doing it this way. Uh it what what are some of the other ways that I can do it? And and you went down this path with telling stories and perhaps in reflecting on your own uh observation of of um I can’t rem recall his name from earlier in this conversation, but the the the live performances you’d see in that yeah. And um I I wondered what the reaction of the adult audience uh was to that. You s you mentioned a little bit about the college of psychiatrists, but I I wonder what adults how they react and what they seem to take from these stories around with the with the object as being kind of like the anchor point.
It varies, as you can imagine. And I think in some groups and
groupings I’ve presented to there is if there’s a resistance, it’s because perhaps for the first time in their life they’ve had somebody present something that’s not telling. And actually, particularly in Portugal and Ireland, sessions with adults in this kind of work we’re doing, the the training they get is a telling. And it actually borders on telling off. And they are not used to somebody coming in and saying, you know, look, here’s some stories, and when they and I say any questions, and they’ve got none, I say, Well, look, what do you think? Am I talking rubbish? They’re not used to it, they have never been asked for their views, they’ve been told. So it varies. Other people say, Oh, gosh, that’s really interesting. I never really thought about it. But in a way, as much as I love to be liked, I I you know, I’m not doing it to get that. What I what I’m trying to offer is a different way of working that involves thinking and thinking about feelings and making those connections. And sometimes it takes time. That’s why I say some of the children’s in the groups I’ve done it to, they get it straight away. You know, they’re there, oh yeah, yeah, no, that that that’s right. Yeah, that that’s right. Yeah. I had uh can’t I’m trying to think of a I told them about a story when I was very little. When I was about I I don’t think I was even three. And, you know, Saturday night television. I lived in a big apartment in New York City, and you know, my parents would be in the other room listening to the you know the variety shows on a thing. And I heard them start talking about Arthur Godfrey, who was the guy who hosted it, had fired Julius La Rosa, who was the main singer. Yeah, here am I, at best three years old, and I’m still awake listening. What they burned him to death? I I I thought television wasn’t real. I they burned him? Oh, God, you know. And when I was telling that story, the children guy said, Oh a child said, Oh, I know. Yeah, I had the same thing. Because um my parents were talking, they lived near Birmingham, and he said, My parents were talking, and they said so-and-so got the sack. And the only thing he knew about the sack was some people who had litter of puppies or cats, some people would put it in a sack and throw it in the canal and drown them. And he thought that this person had been put in a sack and thrown in the canal to be drowned. And and it’s you’re at that age. I didn’t go into my parents and he didn’t go into his and say, What wait, wait a minute, hold on here. What’s this? They burned them to death? I thought this was television, and he didn’t go to his parents and say, Well, why did they throw him in the canal? Why did they put him in the sack? So you’re you’re left carrying that thing. Anyway, it’s one moment. It wasn’t a daily diet of that kind of stuff, but I’ve always remembered it, you know. 74 years later, I still remember that story. Didn’t traumatize me in the end, but I thought, this is a very weird world that I live in, and it’ll take time to make sense of it, and I’m still working on that one.
So it’s interesting the way you talk about almost like a novel approach. And I’ve talked about this quite a lot in this podcast with various guests about thinking about the work, you know, actu actually thinking about what you’re doing, not just um going through the motions as such, you know, just being very much pr procedure bound. And um and I and I think that’s our that that’s our challenge. I I think the first challenge is for people to have the time and space to think about the work that they do, and the second is the capacity. Um I always say, and I’ve always found, well, I have always found, and in recent years I’ve said, is that some of the most difficult questions that I can ask an a group of adults uh to answer are ones where they have to think or at least think a bit differently to the standard mantra as such. So for for example, when I ask adults, how would we know that our this service is making a difference in the life of the child? How do we know how would we know what would we see if um if this intervention was working? And I I’ve observed that to be one of the most difficult questions for for adult practitioners in this field to be able to answer. But children get it, you said.
No, they do, yeah, they’ll they’ll they’ll tell you. But but also, I mean, you know, look, Jerry, very briefly, and I’ve written papers about this, there’s no doubt you have, but one of the things is when you have a child, a population who have suffers things strongly, who have had little to no continuity in their life, the only thing predictable was the unpredictability of adults, and communication and engagement wasn’t there. Some of the earliest measures of how we’re doing is the extent to which the child and young people are able to share in a in a common experience of being together and living an ordinary day, communicate in ways other than in impulsive behaviors or complete withdrawal, and for many of them, which is not attend school. Being there. Now I don’t mean again, they’re not there in quadratic occasions necessarily, though some can. Some can. I can’t, but they they can. It’s a sense of being in a place and they’ve been helped to learn to live with themselves enough so that they don’t just live with other people, but they can live to learn. Yeah. And you know, those those are you know early indicators and measures, they’re not the only ones, but you know, continuity and a degree of predictability and an opportunity to play. And actually that’s a good segue into my next object, if I may.
Yep.
But unless you want to say something, because I can wait. I mean, I’ve been talking all the time.
No, no, no, no, you go ahead.
Right here. Right. This this is a precious family photograph taken in Yankee Stadium on a particular lovely summer day when my children were young, so we’re looking at probably the early 1990s. And it’s the New York Yankees against the Boston Red Sox. It would be like Liverpool, Everton, Man United, Man City. And in the third inning, the Yankees are already winning 2-0. And uh my wife took the photo, and we’ve had we all yeah each member of the family has a photo of this, and we have t-shirts about it. Now, it’s not just a sports game, because I also have oh, it’s not gone. Honestly, these grandchildren. It’s gone. All right, I’m gonna have to talk about it with this because I had an enlarged copy made and it was gonna so I’m gonna talk about it while while this is up. All right, there it is. Oh, okay. And and I think what you see is a stadium surrounding what is called the field of play.
The field of play. And inside the lines that you can see going out from here outside, that’s that’s the field of play, the fair territory. And the other side is the out-of-bounds area. Or in the game, foul territory, but you know, there you go. You can still you can still move in it, and you’ll notice you see the blue wall at the back, all the way up, I don’t know, over here.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. That that’s i if if anybody plays the ball or hits the ball into that area, it’s a home run or a ground rule double. But the thing is, the players in the field can go after that ball, but if they go after it with reckless abandon, they might run into the wall. So there’s a line of dirt there called the warning track to warn them that you are running out of space in the field of play. And if you keep going, you’re gonna bang into it, and it won’t be a good experience for you. So, and I’m sorry I don’t have the big picture, but look, the the thing is, it’s it’s it’s a it’s a baseball stadium and a sport, but actually it’s it also communicates our world of work, boundaries, and space. And of course, Winnicott was always very clear. The capacity to play is an essential element in the healthy human being. You know, when they asked Freud in the early 1920s, you know, what do you think you’re doing with this psychoanalyst, psychoanalysis and things, he said, look, if oh no, they said to him, what makes the healthy man? I mean, this was 1921. And he said, the healthy man is one who can work and love. And quite some years later, Winnicott said, Yes, work and love and play. And so I think that the environment we have to provide has to allow for a large field of play, and it’s real, and it’s active, and there are boundaries, not barriers. Because at those boundaries that I was talking about, at the end of the game, there are gates that open up, and it lets people walk onto the field of play and walk out. So they’re not barriers, they’re there as boundaries to remind people this is the field of play, and there’s a lot of space. Don’t go running into that wall or through it because you’re out. You’re out of it. And there’s something about a common purpose as well. The team in the field absolutely requires the team at bat to be playing as well. There’s no game if you don’t. And there are referees or umpires, as they call it, without which it can’t happen either. And there are adults who, in their own way, referee the world of engagement and disengagement, and without them there’d be nothing. So there’s something about that picture for me that’s so important for our family, that also reminds me of our world of work, where we have to create an environment where there’s task and purpose, and it can be play and playful, and people can enjoy it. And you’re in there for the moment, and there’s a way out, a proper way out. You don’t have to crash into the wall, you don’t have to scale the fence, you can get it. And it’s for a time, and you’re not there always. So it’s just one of these things that we can think. So, how do we create a field of play? And I don’t mean reckless abandon, though there might be a little bit of it. When you see the Mulberry Bush children cycle around the site, you think there’s a bit of reckless abandon there. But it it is something about creating conditions where we can be playful in so many ways, including being together. And also work together well. Work together well. And well, I don’t want to make too big a deal about it, but I think there’s there are things in the worlds that we in in our world that we inhabit that can remind us about not just the joy and the enjoyment of recreation, it’s about living, changing, growing, and the space that can do it. And in the absence of boundaries, what would you know about what to do? So if as long as the boundaries can define space and you can leave when you’re ready to, it’s it’s fine. When there’s barriers, it’s it’s a difference between containment and incarceration. Yeah. In incarceration, you crush the sense of containment. The containment can be the holding experience. The incarceration is something that prevents you. It’s the restriction without and the constriction without any sense of. Finding oneself and finding a way with and through to somewhere else.
You’ve spoken, Richard, about y uh telling these stories to children, and I guess I just I wonder, like our listeners or watchers might do as well, what are the circumstances in which you think it would be um beneficial to tell these stories about objects to children?
Well, first of all, I’d select the objects, and some I I wouldn’t use, as you can imagine. And I I think the ones I’d select were the ones that can, you know, evoke a bit of interest in class. Um I would also be guided by the adults, the grown-ups working with them. Uh uh, you know, there’s a time for everything. And I think in the right circumstances, one can tell stories and a whole range of stories that they would be able to digest. Again, it’s that principle that Winnicott talked about presenting the world in manageable doses.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I wouldn’t go in there guns ablazing, so to speak, and piling all these things out and say, Look, man, I’ve been around for all these years and I go all these things, and everything tells me a story, and sit down and listen to it. I I put them out sometimes, and the children I invite, well, children and grown-ups, I give one or two introductory things, and I say, Well, here they are. Is there anything that interests you? And I, you know, I’ve got plenty of others, and you know, they’ll they’ll pick something out and I’ll say, Oh, can’t quite remember what do you think that might be about, about people? And you know, and I and actually I can’t quite remember in the moment what the object meant to me. And uh, and this was a few years ago, not just now. I got more. But and they’ll start saying, oh, well, maybe it’s about this. They said, gosh, that’s and which is what I’m wanting them to do. Think about it. I said, well, that’s really interesting. I’d never thought about that before. That’s a great idea. So it’s about engagement rather than just telling them. Because real storytelling, as you all know, isn’t just about telling people. It’s about engaging with them and inviting them into and you mentioned the story.
Uh you sorry, we’re just getting a little a couple of little transmission transmission glitches um that time. So I apologise if it felt like I was talking over you, but I I it’s interesting what you’re talking about in terms of thinking, and you mentioned containment a little bit earlier, and I I and I Beyond, of course, saw the two things as going together, or that that thinking was the outcome of containment. So and I was thinking in relation to children, that um the capacity to think um and including thinking about these objects and tell a story about these objects themselves is enhanced by them being in a safe, contained environment.
Yeah. Absolutely. I I think they need to feel some degree of safety and security, some degree of belonging, being a part of something and some others rather than a part from. And then I think communication. You know, you bring a group of children, young people, or adults who’ve had little to no experience of participating in real communication. Yeah, it’s like giving somebody, you know, uh a motorcycle who hasn’t learned to use a tricycle yet. So, you know, you you you have to present that world in manageable doses. And uh and in conversations, I don’t know again if I said this the other time we spoke, but you know, sometimes with children, I’d be talking about them and I’d be saying, Well, look, come on, what do you think is really going on? What’s what’s really troubling you? You know, it it’s not the door that you’re kicking that’s the problem. You know, the the door isn’t your problem, what’s going on? And a number of them would say, Well, I don’t know. I don’t know. And I and I say, Well, okay, but you know, but let’s think about it. And some will. And others say, Oh, I just don’t know. And I would sometimes say to them, okay, let’s play a game. What? What I said, let’s pretend that you do know. And if you were pretending you did know, what would you say? And yeah, they you know, they give you like, what the hell’s the matter with you? I said, No, it’s it’s just a game, it’s pretend. You don’t have to do it. You say, well, try. And you know, more often than not, the child says something that actually, even if it doesn’t touch fully directly on what’s bothering them, they bring you into the field of play, the ballpark. They say, you know, there’s this. So, okay, so you’re really you’re you’re you’re upset with Steve because he’s not repairing your bicycle. Yeah, right. I say, okay, well, okay, you know. You do know Steve is downstairs with seven other children. And did he tell you to go away, he’s never going to repair your bicycle? No. So, okay. It’s just inviting them into some way of trying to think about it. And sometimes, let’s pretend, you know, other times they’ve been told to F off. But, you know, it’s a work in progress, really. So it it it’s just finding ways with the belief that given the effort, and it takes time, we know it takes time, with the belief that if you respectfully recognize the capacity of someone of whatever age to at least say something that can be real and genuine about them and what’s troubling them, it will come. We might have to model it, we might have to do it many times, but eventually I’m saying eventually, for most children, young people, eventually something comes and it’s theirs, it’s not ours. We didn’t give it to them, we provided an opportunity, a space for them to actually connect with something they felt before, and it may have been too unspeakable in the previous circumstances they had, but here, as I was saying, everything’s material.
It is speakable and thinkable if it’s in service to trying to understand.
It’s a wonderful spot, I guess. There’s no good spot to bring this conversation to a close, Richard. I think I and and anyone who’s listening to this um conversation would be keen to sit here for another couple of hours and hear about other objects. But um I’m mindful that um we’re getting very close to the day and your bedtime. So I think thank you for coming back on again, Richard. It was thank you. Thank you. It was wonderful. Yeah.
Oh, great. Okay, well, another time perhaps, but now thanks very much for that. And go well through your day, and I’ll get a couple of hours sleep for you, okay?
Awesome, that would be I need a couple of hours more, thank you.
Okay. All the very best to you and your viewers. Thank you.
Richard’s Bio:
Richard has a long association with Residential Therapeutic Communities, having worked at the Mulberry Bush School for well over 20 years and where, from 1991 to 2001, he was its Director. He was also Director, Children and Young People, at the Peper Harow Foundation, from 2001 to 2005.
Richard qualified as a Social Worker with an MSc from Oxford University in 1983, following the then Part 1 training in Child Psychotherapy at the Tavistock Centre. In 2005 he completed the Ashridge MA and training in Organisational Consulting. He has been Chairman of the Charterhouse Group of Therapeutic Communities and for many years the Chairman of the Care Leavers’ Foundation. In 2014 he became Chair of Trustees at the Mulberry Bush School, only recently stepping down from that position, while remaining a Trustee with a special brief for the links and development of the contacts with and participation of former pupils. He has published numerous articles and continues to lecture widely across the UK and Europe.
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Disclaimer: Information reported by guests of this podcast is assumed to be accurate as stated. Podcast owner Colby Pearce is not responsible for any error of facts presented by podcast guests. In addition, unless otherwise specified, opinions expressed by guests of this podcast may not reflect those of the podcast owner, Colby Pearce. Finally, all references to case examples are anonymised to the extent that the actual case could not be identified, or are fictional but based on real-life examples for illustrative purposes, or have client consent to talk about in an educative context.
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