In-Session Guides — How to Use Each PILA Deck in Practice

A practical, deck-by-deck reference for clinicians using the PILA Card System with children aged 5–11. Each guide covers age range, when to use the deck, when not to use it, how to introduce it, sample in-session language, what to watch for, and where it sits in the 7-phase session framework.

Use these guides as session prep, as supervision references, and as the documentation backbone for logging your PPU adoption as CPD.

The six in-session guides:

PILA Cards (Deck 1) — Phase 1: Safe Arrival. For dysregulated arrival, trauma-presenting children, selective mutism, post-meltdown re-entry, and first-session rapport with avoidant clients.

Feelings Intensity Scale (Deck 2) — Phase 2: Emotional Check-in. For session opening, baseline check-in, longitudinal progress tracking, and children with limited emotional vocabulary.

Anchor Cards (Deck 3) — Phase 3: Grounding. For self-esteem work, trauma recovery, growth-mindset scaffolding, and children with high cognitive dissonance around positive identity statements.

Modal Verb Cards (Deck 4) — Phase 4: Language Activation. For language scaffolding, selective mutism, anxiety-driven verbal avoidance, and expressive communication delay.

Power Action Cards (Deck 5) — Phases 6 and 7: Action Consolidation and Take-Home Choice. For session closure, family engagement, homework resistance, and building self-efficacy.

Modal Sequences (Deck 6) — Phase 5: Identity Exploration. For identity formation, CASEL competency building, session review, and parent communication.

Open each guide for the full protocol. For the clinical theory underneath each deck, see the Evidence Base. For documented case studies, see Clinical Stories. For practice-wide adoption, see Practice Licensing.