I am very excited to release my conversation with Peter Blake on The Secure Start Podcast.
We explore how children communicate through behaviour and play, why containment matters, and how to balance understanding with practical management. We share tools to notice meaning, time conversations well, and use a child’s passions to build safety, trust, and growth.
• why being relaxed and steady allows containment
• inner and outer worlds shaping behaviour
• OTT method: observe, think, talk in good time
• early anxieties, attachment, and security needs
• unrepressed unconscious and right-brain attunement
• play as the medium for change
• joining passions to say “your mind matters”
• naming thinking without therapy-speak
• projective identification and holding strong feelings
• signs therapy can wind down responsibly
Across a warm, grounded conversation, Peter explains how to Observe, Think, and Talk in a way that children can digest, and why the right moment and tone matter more than the perfect words. We dive into early anxieties, attachment security, and the “unrepressed unconscious”—experiences from infancy that live in the body and spill into relationships. You’ll hear practical examples of responding rather than reacting, repairing ruptures, and using ordinary moments to create extraordinary change.
Play takes centre stage as the engine of therapy. From computer games to surfboards and movie obsessions, passions carry emotional truth; joining them says “your mind matters.”
We also explore endings: how to recognise steadier behaviour, more integrative play, and a more ordinary, balanced bond as signals that therapy can wind down, with other relationships now carrying the holding.
If you’re a parent, teacher, therapist, or carer, you’ll leave with a clearer map: keep boundaries firm, language simple, curiosity open, and focus on creating a felt experience of being known. That’s where change settles in.
Peter's Bio:
Peter is a Clinical Psychologist and Tavistock trained child and adolescent psychotherapist. For 25 years Peter worked in child and family teams in Community Health Centres in England and Australia. For the last 25 years he has worked in private practice in Sydney. He was the Foundation President of the Child Psychoanalytic Foundation, a charity based in Sydney.
He is currently Director of the Institute of Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy ( ICAPP). This is a training body offering child and adolescent psychotherapy, based in Sydney but offered online.
He has lectured in a number of Australian Universities and has given workshops to professionals across Australia. The third edition of his book, “Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy: Maaking the Conscious Unconscious” (2021, Routledge), is now useed as a textbook in a number of different countries. It has been translated into Georgian and Mandarin. He has contributed to numerous publications and Journals.
Links:
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/TheSecureStartPodcast
Podcast Blog Site: https://thesecurestartpodcast.com/
Secure Start Site: https://securestart.com.au/
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. Further, any advice discussed is general in nature and does not replace clinical advice from a treating clinician.
