What Is Therapeutic Work With Dolls? Its Features And Advantages
I never get tired of seeing the surprised faces when patients and colleagues enter my office and see it full of Playmobil. “You work with children, don’t you?” is usually the question asked by both people, but the face that is worth money is the one they get when I tell them yes, that I work with children, but the space of those dolls is reserved for adults.
I have always had the luck, ability or experience (call it what you want) to be able to look at my field of work from a very loose vision, and this has allowed me to include super diverse methodologies and approaches in my sessions. The first time I saw the work with dolls I did not judge the methodology, but I was surprised that the professionals I had at my side had the response of rejecting this option because they believed that people’s problems were too important to be treated with dolls. It is also true that this idea lasted them the first half hour of the training.
I would like to start by explaining some basic things before getting into the topic of using dolls; This will help you understand why working with them works. Working with dolls is a process of projection, of pouring into the dolls not only the current conflict situation but also expectations, values, beliefs, family loyalties, etc. Therefore, the unconscious works a lot in those sessions in which this methodology is used.
The fundamental idea is that our unconscious does not understand time. If we work on something that happened in our childhood, our unconscious will experience it as if it were happening now because for it there is no past or future, only the now exists.
Why is it useful in psychological therapy?
What the tool allows is to obtain a specific image, and you know what they say: “a picture is worth a thousand words.” And this is what the potential of the dolls is based on; With them, the group or the patient can see their situation. Not only narrate or tell it, but They are literally seeing the problem projected onto the dolls.
As you can imagine, this image can provide information that could remain incomplete verbally or not be integrated in such detail into the story to be worked on in the sessions. Small details such as the distance between the dolls or the similarities between them can provide keys to understanding the personal or group story being worked on.
If we understand that the objective of our work as therapists is to accompany the patient in this process of bringing out what may be happening to them, The image it designs would allow us to reformulate certain aspects of history in a more orderly and pacifying way. since it allows you to move the subject within the scene you have created.
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The advantages of this resource applied to therapy
Let’s now see the advantages that this tool offers for the therapist.
I hope this little article has contributed to you either as a patient or as a therapist. Dolls are one more tool among the millions of possibilities that we professionals who dedicate ourselves to well-being and support have.
