Dead water and living water in psychotherapy

(Dead water and living water in psychotherapy)
Fairy tale metaphors and deep symbols are very similar to those symbols and metaphors used by modern psychotherapy.
Let’s take the well-known image of “dead water” and “living water” and compare it with the terminology and techniques, at least NLP.
What is “dead water” in fairy tales? That which neutralizes everything that hinders the development and happiness of a person.
He sprinkled dead water on the wounds – and the wounds healed.
What is “living water” in fairy tales? That which gives new strength for healing, fusion, creation…
“Dead water” and “living water” can be compared to the technique of dissociation and association in NLP.
Dissociation in NLP is “dead water”, it is a technique that makes the picture of a situation dim, distant, black and white, tiny and allows us, as a participant in events (meaning negative ones), to get out of the frame of this picture and become an outside indifferent observer. Doesn’t it look like dead water?
The association in NLP is “living water”, on the contrary, the inclusion of bright colors in the picture, turning on the sound and smell at full “loudness”, bringing the picture closer to our very eyes, allowing us to jump into it entirely – is meant to be a good picture. What is not living water, reviving a dull frame?
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The following training game on art therapy and fairy tale therapy is based on the observation that almost all fabulous images of antiquity can be applied as psychotherapy techniques.
As its name suggests, it combines art therapy and fairy tale therapy.
Training can be done with both children and adults. So let’s get started?
The first stage of training in art therapy and fairy tale therapy. Creating Drawings on the Theme… Have your group members create drawings of their negative experiences. To make negative experiences easier to isolate and understand from the stream of confused claims to the world, suggest the following topics:
1. What prevents me from being calm and balanced.
2. What prevents me from being happy.
3. What I need to remove from my life.
4. My chains and weights.
5. My vicious circle.
Warn your participants in the art therapy and fairy tale therapy training that these drawings will be burned and then poured over with “dead water”. Therefore, the problem that they draw should be drawn in such a way that later it would not be painfully scary for the procedure done.
So, if a person is made unhappy by his weight and volume, then you should not draw a caricature image of YOURSELF on the scales in front of a mirror with a centimeter tape in your hand. After all, you will burn it and water it with dead water!
And if your “vicious circle” is naughty children and a gluttonous husband, again, you should not draw a caricature of your husband and unpleasant children – I remind you that we will also burn it.
Do you want to burn your husband and children even as part of an art therapy training?
I think no. And if – no, then think collectively – HOW to metaphorically depict exactly the PROBLEM, separated from specific people, so that it was possible to burn – only the PROBLEM … It’s not a pity … It’s something that needs to be burned.
Group discussion and creativity usually takes from 15 minutes (for advanced seminarians) to 40 minutes of a standard academic hour.
The second stage of the training on art therapy and fairy tale therapy. Fire and Water Now you, as the Host, are starting a fairy tale therapy show. Stock up on the necessary tools, music appropriate to the moment, and possibly a video sequence on the projector screen …
Of the essentials: A large refractory vase in which you will betray the drawings of the auto-da-fé – burning.
Two bottles – one with “dead water”, the second – with living water. To make these two flasks DIFFERENT and artistically convincing, you need to use your imagination.
Make a fire in your fireproof vase and offer (in a sepulchral voice) to crumple up your drawings (what prevents you from living happily) and put THIS on fire.
All this can be done on the street, making a fire. However, for the third stage you will need ash, so how to make a fire is up to you.
After all the drawings burn to ashes, the fire is filled with dead water, which, according to the fairy tale of your training, completely neutralizes evil, makes the ashes safe.
The third stage of the training on art therapy and fairy tale therapy. Land and water The leader continues to tell the “fairy tale” of his seminar.
“What once until recently was the essence of our misfortunes and sufferings has been reduced to neutral ashes. It can become a metaphor for our life experience…
And experience, especially a well-thought-out experience (and as long as the seminarians drew the CORRECT drawing, they comprehended the experience) can serve as soil, fertilizer for the growth of the new, fresh, young, beautiful and unexpected – the desired.
So go ahead! We fertilize our ideas and undertakings.
At this stage, from the essential props you will need: pots of earth and seeds of any plant that you deem appropriate.
If the time of the training is spring or early autumn, then the final part can be carried out outside the home – in a flower bed, in the garden.
Just remember that children, unlike adults, will not tolerate throwing a planted seed to the mercy of fate. They take everything literally and very seriously.
Therefore, if many adults can be allowed to plant at least a “cherry from compote” and they will not be upset, then when working with people who are sensitive to the truth of a fairy tale, it is better to take care of real seeds and real tiny pots of earth. Plant an unpretentious plant that is guaranteed to be accepted and can even be transplanted somewhere else.
Bury some ashes from previous work into the ground, plant seeds and pour a few drops of “living water” on them.
Training in art therapy and fairy tale therapy is over!
This dramatized ancient MYTH will allow your seminarians to really live the situation of liberation from evil and the situation of the creation of Good at a deep psychodramatic level.
Elena Nazarenko