Swiss therapy experiences

This experience is an individual or small group of children who are sent by paediatricians, by the socio-educational service of the primary school or by psychologists. The workshop is called: "The Puppet Cave".

“Every year for the last ten years, the Department of Public Instruction in the canton of Neufchâtel has entrusted me with boys and girls in a class of 1st or 2nd grade of primary school to give a pedagogical reinforcement with the puppets for two hours a week.

It's been three years since Management assigned me a 2nd grade class: 10 boys and girls between the ages of 8 and 13 who have severe learning disabilities. 

Careful preparation of the course and material is essential for students to feel a solid structure around them from the beginning. Solid but flexible and always open to proposed ideas. Gradually it is necessary to learn to listen to the other, dialogue, negotiation and discipline. All this is to be able to offer each student a place and a privileged time where he can understand his difficulties, accept them and also those of others. 

Sessions begin in a circle. At first I ask everyone to say their name and say, I'm here!

The silence of those who do not want to speak is respected. At the beginning of the course, one gesture is enough, then more is required.

Then I tell a story. At first the big ones don't pay much attention because they think the stories are for the little ones. But as the course progresses the word is respected.

After a month the puppets are built. Students feel "little gods"

Difficult hours are also spent. You have to have a lot of patience, love and firmness to negotiate, to rebalance the hesitant situations.

Every effort is made to motivate students who go from "passing" moments during the year to strong emotions that they experience during the hours of creation.

In difficult times, students are taken alone or in small groups to discuss.

When construction is completed of the puppets, the time has comeimprovisations. ”

There is a video of the experience "The Puppet Scream" recorded by Vicent Mercier, a film director who received the Palme d'Or for a short film in Cannes in 1985.

(5) PUPPET AND THERAPY. Number 24 - 1995 

Game and Art Therapy (6) 

Ursula Tappolet. Corsier-Port Workshop. Geneva 1983

Creating a puppet can be a construction or a reconstruction of yourself. 

L., 5, built a puppet. He beat her, shouted at her and crushed her, reliving an aggression suffered during the first years of her life and "forgotten", but her subconscious knew this and caused her nightmares every night. Later this puppet could remain intact, the therapist protected him and little by little he stopped hitting him. We spent weeks dressing and loving him, and the nightmares began to fade 

The therapy we do is playful. We do not give the toys made, but the children build them.  

Making a puppet is a long job in which many things move inside the child. 

Every detail can have its importance, hair color, your dress…  

To be creative is to go down to our own depths in some way, to go up later when it is necessary to shape the images of our soul, of our dreams, of our imagination. 

This procedure strengthens the child's personality, which can better deal with what hurts him. 

The role of the therapist is ambiguous, on the one hand, he must have all the enthusiasm, but he must be patient, know how to wait. Abstaining is sometimes more important than doing it. 

Fairy tale is essential in our work. The folk tale, the traditional one, imbued with the life and experience of many generations. Everything that the human being can experience, find, the difficulties due to the human condition, are treated with symbols that the child understands perfectly without knowing it consciously, since he is in the plane of the imagination, in his world. 

The story does not question life, there is no suicide, no escape. Everyone must find the path of life and follow, despite obstacles, crossroads or monster forests, otherwise they will end up petrified. (locked). 

I will tell some experiences with stories and puppets with children who have come to our workshop:

By

Sto, 9 years old, comes to our workshop because he is very anxious, he does not sleep at night, he has nightmares. If a child with bad sounds is given sleeping pills, he cannot wake up, and when he plays he wakes up well. It is important for the child to be able to escape from nightmares by waking up. Therefore sleeping pills are not always indicated. 

Before his mother gave birth to him, she gave birth to a malformed child who died shortly afterwards. Sto, she has not seen him but she has felt the sadness of her mother, and later in another pregnancy, the mother is afraid of a sick baby.

He knew nothing about it, but he was afraid of a thousand possible accidents, he was socially isolated (school), because of his anxious attitude, he was unentrepreneurial and did not sleep well. Many children who have trouble sleeping have a deep fear of death.

We worked with him from Lapland:"Northern Lights" (in this story he returns once dead transformed into aurora borealis rays to help people in need) and "Moon Forest" The prince finds his beloved in the woods. The beloved is called "Life without death and youth without old age." 

They get married. But he can't always be like that, spending thousands of years running through the woods, remembering his past and looking for the death that has been waiting for him for a thousand years in his father's castle. 

In the wake of this story, the subject of death was widely discussed with him and his family. Suffering can make sense if we accept it instead of blocking it. He then built a dwarf puppet and a golden eagle. 

The basis of many cases we have in our workshop is that of a fear.

Communication 

The puppet is a very rich medium. The stammering child often speaks without blocking when he lends his voice to a puppet.

The wooden paste we use to build the puppets' heads serves as a means of communication in case of mutism. Modeling can create a dialogue between the child's hands and the therapist's hands. 

Depression, refusal to live

Suicidal, depressed and anorexic children. By building a puppet, he rebuilds himself a little, he gains strength. Our own joy of living helps the child find his or her own. Creativity allows us to touch the roots, strengthen the bond with our center, which is what helps us find the strength to live.

The story, moreover, exploits the narrow and discouraging limits of appearances, gives in symbols, visions of the paths of life, meaning and purpose. 

Enuresis

The problem of enuresis is serious, as it can cause you to lose all dignity, as you are constantly being humiliated. We have noticed that children who pee at night do not do it properly during the day. They pee in batches. They do not evacuate the entire bladder. Then at night, when they are relaxed, they let it go. It may be out of fear, out of bad conscience, inhibited misfortune, an unbearable family situation… With these children you have to make puppets that are symbols of protection: some have made golden angels, protective elephants… and with these puppets they have left to pee on.

In the workshop I worked on family relationships. I’ve used shadow theater, I’ve created a family of clowns who are always happy. And from there, family relationships have been established that will gradually unblock their own family situation. This therapy has two fronts, working with parents and therapy with the child. Puppets and stories are two very valid tools, which are very well complemented by a therapy for children. They allow the child to fortify his personality and express his problems in the plane of the symbol, because the impact is powerful, as it touches the depths of the human soul.

Ursula Tappolet has written the book: Puppets in Education: The Doll with a Small Nose. Barcelona: Edit. Científica-Médica, DL 1982

(6) PUPPET AND THERAPY. Number 15 - 1983