Historical setting

Historical setting

Historical setting

The first therapeutic framework in which the puppet was used was that of child psychoanalysis. 

Puppets were used as a method
therapeutic for the first time in Switzerland by his psychoanalyst
country, Madeleine Rambert, circa 1930, to treat neurosis
following Anna Freud 's guidelines on play, and
meeting children who had difficulty speaking, it occurred to her
idea to use “the game of winks”, “The puppet is a symbol that
returning the child active allows us to grasp his logic live
autistic ”. Madeleine Rambert

The psychotherapeutic use of the puppet is
locates between the two wars in the US and Switzerland. The puppeteer i
German-born psychologist AG Woltman collaborated with the psychiatrist
American Lauretta Bender at Bellevue Hospital in New York to help
children with severe behavioral and personality disorders.
They published their experience in 1936, and it is certainly the first
article on therapeutic puppets.

In 1938, Madeleine Rambert also wrote an article in the “French Journal of Psychoanalysis” about his experience, about the games of the wink. The article is called: "A new technique in child psychoanalysis: the game of winks". About the article tells us: 

"The Puppet is a means of transfer
beautiful that facilitates the expression of the child's unconscious feelings.
It is somehow the material body in which the child projects his
soul ”. In articles written by Madeleine Rambert, she outlines the therapeutic values attributed to puppets:

The term catharsis comes from tragedy
Greek, when Aristotle refers to her. This word is used
to designate the effect the tragedy has on the spectators. The
tragedy with the recourse to piety and terror, achieves purification
of these passions. Catharsis in Aristotle, is purification
psychological for terror and pity.

Therapy
cathartic or cathartic method is that the therapeutic effect sought
it is a "purge", a discharge suitable for pathogenic effects. The cure
allows the subject to evoke or even relive traumatic events in the
that these affections are tied, and get a discharge of these
by normal means, such as crying.

Madeleine Rambert, in her article, also does
reference to a 19th century author, passionate about puppets and
theoretical of its effects: George Sand.This author with her son
Maurice, founded the Nohant Puppet Theater, where they came to see him
celebrities of the moment. He published memoirs of this activity. It also goes
he became a puppeteer, the protagonist of one of his novels.
"The Snowman" (1958), which describes the projection mechanism of the
puppeteer about his puppet and the joy of identification with the
spectators. It is precisely these two aspects on which the
practice of Madeleine Rambert (in the first aspect) and AG Woltman
(in the second).

In 1950, always in the field of psychotherapy
Serge Lebovici reflects on the role of the therapist and the
relationship with the child. He believes that the therapist should be actively involved in
therapy.“The essential nature of the treatments carried out
with the help of puppets, they teach us that the child is susceptible
to externalize their conflicts and internal ghosts, aided by
symbolic fiction and taking refuge in this fiction. ” Serge Levobici (1950)

His important contribution was
reflect on the intervention or non-intervention of the therapist in the
puppet therapy. "The transfer is difficult to analyze, don
the intervention of the therapist in the production of the child would come to
modify “symbolically” the content of the issues that concern the child and
which he stages with his puppet. On the other hand, the no
intervention, does not allow or hardly, a positive transference.

”As for psychodrama, it is one
projective activity, supported by the relationship of an object
mediator with a strong playful connotation. In England, since 1943,
articles on puppet therapy have been published in the “Puppet
Post ”and in the newspapers of“ The association sur la marionnette
educational ”

In the late 1960s, Drs. WM Pfeiffer
(Université clinique. Erlanjeu) and Militiae Petzold (Fritz Perls
Institute Düsseldorf) published in Germany, articles and books on
the subject. Later, these techniques were developed for the most part
from European countries and across the Atlantic.

The puppets have been used in the
Child psychoanalysis about 77 years ago and with adult psychiatry about
forty-two years .In time the puppet as a therapeutic means is
found in various areas of intervention: psychotherapy, occupational therapy,
psychomotor skills… In psychomotor skills it is a factor of re-education of the
psychomotor aspects of personality, stimulating organization
time-space, perceptual-motor coordinations, the internalization of
the body scheme, and takes on socializing value in theatrical play.

In 1978 it was created in France, “Marionnette et
Therapy ”founded by Jacqueline Tochette, the first association with the
idea of the need for a meeting place between puppeteers and
therapists in order to pool each of these specific domains.
It is an alliance of two professionals who each have their own job
specific and that they should not be confronted with each other, if not that
they have to work in the same direction to help certain people in
difficulties. Its current president is Madeleine Lions
(puppeteer).

The objectives of this association are to to form through courses, seminars…, inform, through conferences, national and international meetings and to spread, with the quarterly newsletter "Marionnette et Thérapie" from the collection of the same name.

They organize international conferences every three
years at the World Puppet Theater Festival in
Charleville-Mézières in France. It is an opportunity to meet puppeteers and
therapists around the world who use puppets in a way
different. These exchanges are very enriching as they allow you to have
knowledge of people and experiences of other associations. Arrel
of this first association in France, have been created around the world,
many associations with the same purpose: Japan, Spain, Italy,
Bulgaria, Brazil, Portugal, Canada, Hungary, Switzerland, Lebanon… These
associations are fully autonomous.