Art therapy – the basics of puppet therapy

This is a quote from Yulia_Khromenkova’s post Original postArt therapy – the basics of puppet therapy

H H H H H В В In modern psychology, the role of dolls is considered in various aspects. Dolls are an attribute of childhood, children’s culture. So, dolls are of particular importance for the emotional and moral development of children. The child experiences with his doll the events of his own and someone else’s life in emotional and moral manifestations that are accessible to his understanding. A doll or soft toy is a substitute for a real friend who understands everything and does not remember evil. Therefore, the need for such a toy arises in most children, sometimes it persists in adolescents, and not only in girls, but also in boys.
B B B B A doll for a person in childhood is not necessarily a “daughter” or a “son”, she is a partner in communication in all its manifestations. The role of the puppet consists in a dialogue in which there is a “replacement” of real contact with a person for indirect contact through the puppet. With a doll, a child quickly and easily masters communication skills (it is easier to talk with a toy); today stuttering is treated with puppets, hand motor skills are developed, “the head is taught by hand”.

В В В В В В Puppet therapy– This is a method of treatment with the help of dolls. The possibilities of puppet therapy allow solving various important correctional problems. tasks, for example: expanding the child’s self-expression repertoire, achieving emotional stability and self-regulation, correcting relationships in the child system – it has long been believed that the doll has a mysterious mystical power and supernatural abilities. They used puppets in rites of exorcism. For example, in Japan there is a well-known rite, during which the illnesses of its sick owner are “dropped” onto the doll B. After that, the doll is put into a paper boat and set sail. Over time, the boat gets wet, and the doll, along with all human diseases, sinks. The peoples of Russia have similar rites. There is a legend that one winter in a peasant family living in a forest hut, a child fell ill. The boy faded away and kept asking when summer would come. The father, in order to alleviate the suffering of his son, carved birds from pine trees and hung them around the hut. The son saw them, asked for food and began to recover.
В В В Dolls can do a lot – both teach and heal, but only if they fall into good hands. A whole independent direction appeared – puppet therapy. The origins of this direction can be found in Moreno’s psychodrama. In 1940, Jacob Levi Moreno founded the Institute of Sociometry and Psychodrama in the USA. He decided to reproduce in the clinic the very situations that most traumatized his patients, and for this he created a special medical theater, which he called psychodrama. The doctors, together with the patients and their relatives, wrote fairly simple scripts and staged the play together. The auditorium also consisted of patients, relatives and medical personnel.
V V V This method gave very good results in a number of cases. Moreno had followers in different countries, especially in Western Europe. Gradually, a special independent branch emerged – puppet therapy. Now it is practiced in many countries: in Germany, England, the Netherlands, France. In our country, neither psychodrama nor, moreover, puppet therapy, until recently, no one was engaged, since it was considered a bourgeois trend in science. Finally, in 1990, two wonderful women, Irina Yakovlevna Medvedeva and Tatyana Lvovna Shishova, developed a method for treating neurotic children, which they called dramatic psychoelevation.
The technique of dramatic psycho-elevation is a complex effect on neurotic children with the help of a variety of theatrical techniques: sketches, games, specially given situations.

Q Q One of the main principles is not the treatment of a single symptom or a set of symptoms, but an attempt to penetrate deeper, to look into the soul of a child, to understand what caused these symptoms, where is the “breakdown”, what prevents this particular child from living? The authors called this “breakage” the pathological dominant.
В В The technique allows you to work with children of all ages: from four to Art therapy – the basics of puppet therapy At fourteen.
Work with dolls begins already at the stage of diagnosis. Dolls are laid out in front of the child: A bear, a bunny, a wolf, a boy, a man, a woman, a girl, a baby, a Baba Yaga, a clown, an incomprehensible figure with eyes.
The child is invited to choose the doll they like, take it and go behind the screen with it. The very choice of toy can tell a lot. If a child chooses a bunny, you can suspect that he has fears, especially if he does not talk about them. If he chooses a wolf, one can assume a manifestation of aggressiveness, an incomprehensible figure with eyes is often chosen by disinhibited psychopaths. When the choice is made, a dialogue unfolds with the doll on the screen. We can recommend a rough list of questions:

Who are you?

• Where do you live?
• Who do you live with?
• Where are your parents?
• Are you big or small?
• What do you like to do?

If an animal is selected:

• Do you have someone scary in the forest?
• What are you eating?
• Are you being chased?
• Is anyone protecting you?
• Do you have a school in the forest?
• And if you could not go, would you go to school?
• Do you have friends?
• What are you playing?
• Who usually wins?
• And if you lose, do you get upset?
• What would you ask a wizard?

Treatment according to this technique consists of two stages. The first stage is conditionally called B “ Therapeutic studies B” and lasts almost three weeks, during which eight classes are held. Much attention is paid to work at home, where children, together with their parents, rehearse those scenes that therapists ask them. Although the work is carried out in a group, children already from the second lesson receive individual tasks, that is, they follow an individual program.

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