by Simon Wong
From the previous two "Variations of puppets" articles, we have quoted a lot of collected information to let everyone understand the various possibilities and functions of "puppets" in counseling, education, and rehabilitation. (2018 Athena A. Drewes & Charles E. Schaefer ) Further, before delving into how to apply puppets to psychotherapy and rehabilitation that require more "professional participation", this article first discusses the application of puppets to general social workers and teachers and parents' "capacity", and what contribution they can make in counseling and education. (2005 Matthew Bernier & Judith O'Hare) First introduce the "Applied Puppetry “ activities that ordinary parents, social workers and teachers can handle. These education, counseling and rehabilitation work can be carried out in individuals, groups and classes. There are roughly four different levels, namely: prevention, improvement, correction and rehabilitation.
"Prevention and teaching" is the first layer of applied Puppetry in counseling work
"Prevention and teaching", as the name suggests, is to use the "applied Puppetry" working method to carry out regular pre-education and explanation at the critical and sensitive moments of children's growth. Workers (parents, social workers and teachers) can infiltrate positive life principles through puppet groups or one-on-one role-playing, puppet storytelling and puppet dialogue. Distribute information to children in advance during the sensitive period and critical moments of their growth. For example, when children are in the rebellious period of two years old, parents can act out various life rules and standards through puppets to let children know what to do and what to do. Let them have a clear life guideline and norms at this stage.
Although children may not completely abide by it, at least if adults use puppets, the characteristics of the tone of voice that are more receptive, and the attitude expressed tirelessly in a firm and gentle way, children do not want to obey and know that they are wrong. They will not violate the rules too far, and know how to improve in the right direction, and have a policy of striving for improvement. These activities are also very helpful during important moments in other growth stages. Of course, the key is that workers must master the critical and sensitive periods of children. And you must know the various inner needs and expectations in the growth stage, as well as various situations that will cause young people to fall into negative emotions, and various things that should not happen between young people. Prepare in advance with puppet activities and take precautions in advance.
Children's psychological quality needs to be "improved"
As children grow up, they are particularly vulnerable to the influence of family members and the surrounding environment. When they are subject to some wrong assumptions of adults' "psychological framework", or society's expectations of children are different from their nature, it will directly and indirectly reduce their self-confidence. Especially in the early childhood stage, if the trust and autonomy are not fully satisfied, self-doubt will arise. If the self-esteem has the experience of being humiliated, the child's psychological resilience and quality will decline, and the character will easily develop in the wrong direction. Typically, children begin to lose motivation and self-confidence, seek to escape reality, have poor relationships, and decline in learning. They may not have caused serious psychological shadow and trauma, but they are already on the verge of danger.
At this moment, the most important job of the workers is to rebuild confidence and encourage children to "improve" themselves. Because the puppet participants are just people hiding behind, there is no right or wrong in the story expressed. Coupled with equal and fully free expression, through puppet dialogue, individual or group activities are conducive to establishing a channel for children to communicate with their inner world and others. The creative motivation generated by puppet performance will stimulate their self-feeling emotions, and slowly regain their confidence through continuous satisfaction. It is also a practice of self-behavior improvement model through the improvement of children's puppet performance. Through the satisfaction of the client's puppet role creation process, he gradually reaffirms his self-image and achieves "improvement" of psychological quality. Of course, for some long-term sick children, friends with autism and mild mental retardation, they can also "improve" their confidence and ability through puppets.
When young people tend to be biased, they need to be "corrected"
Because children have been affected by the negative label of "social framework" for a long time, and because of the differences between personal behaviors, preferences and the public, they have not been accepted by the community, environment and family members. Deviations are prone to occur. The most important job of the workers at this moment is to "re-accept" these children into social groups. Having a puppet group that is equal, harmonious, and full of joy is one of the feasible solutions. (2019 Terry Kottman , Kristin Meany-Walen ) "Correction" is to give the child the opportunity to change when the problem has already begun, but before the problem becomes serious. Because, in puppetry, children can get a satisfying opportunity to express themselves. And through some "special scenes" that are closely related to them, let them face up to the problem of their behavioral deviation again, and learn to adopt completely different strategies and coping methods.
No child naturally likes to be disapproved and disrespected by others, so gaining group recognition has a great positive effect on their ability to correct their own behavioral deviations. But it will take a long time for them to discover their own deviations unconsciously and slowly from the activities. Workers must wait patiently until they find out for themselves before they can find a solution and the problem will be cured. At this moment, it becomes very useful for children to participate in the creative activities of making puppets by themselves, because creative activities will make children have a greater psychological balance between emotions and rationality, which will help them rationally overcome impulsive emotional fluctuations . To them discover self-problems. Amendment determinations appear for young people, which can help a lot. If the special creative topics used by workers are closely related to their life information, the effect will be multiplied with half the effort. At this time, group puppet activities may be more effective than individual activities. The reason is that the synergistic effect produced by the mutual acceptance and peering of other partners is more effective than pure "puppet case therapy". It is more meaningful for children to face themselves personally.
For children with minor psychological trauma, group assistance can carry out "rehabilitation" treatment
To "rehabilitate" children who have suffered minor psychological trauma, the most important thing right now is of course for the workers to find out the root cause of the whole thing. It should not be difficult for the workers to find out the answer if they investigate the living environment of the children they serve. The key is how the recipients know the root of the problem, instead of blaming themselves for their mistakes and avoiding the opportunity to solve the problem. It takes a long time for a child's psychological trauma to form, and repair is no exception. For adolescents and young adults, one-on-one "talk therapy" using puppets as a medium may be a good approach, and "play therapy" incorporating "puppets" is also good for children. For young children with insufficient expressive ability, perhaps "Berkeley Puppet Interview BPI" and "Adlerian Play Therapy AdPT" are good individualized rehabilitation methods. However, these methods must be actively participated and cooperated by psychological counseling experts in order to be successful.
As parents, social workers and teachers, it is of course inconvenient to conduct individual case counseling directly, but as a supporter, they can assist psychologists in peripheral work. For example, while organizing children and adolescents to carry out individual case rehabilitation, they can carry out activities with the children in the form of group puppetry. Through the fun characteristics of puppetry, they can use language, movement, and emotional expression to cooperate with each other. Positive experiences among participants are easy to present. At the same time, "externalize" their own "problems", making it easier for them to get enlightenment on the solutions during the case process. More importantly, because of the cooperation of the group, the recovered children have integrated into a new community with a common social sentiment. It is already difficult for young people to find out their own problems and even find solutions to their own psychological unlocking. What's more, it is necessary to ensure that they are no longer affected by the repetition of past environments during the recovery process. The group life will bring them a new "social framework". These experiences help them to help each other, overcome psychological barriers, and become the driving force for "rehabilitation".
Applied Puppetry's three steps to rehabilitation, starting with the establishment of "trust"
How to establish a positive and interactive relationship with the service recipient in the process of "Applied Puppetry" can be borrowed from the three stages of "Play Therapy" as an imitation to establish "standard steps". The first step is to establish a relationship of mutual security, equality and freedom, and "mutual trust" between "clients" and "workers". Of course, the concept of the first stage of "narrative therapy", "externalizing of problems" (externalizing), uses improvisational works and performances of children to externalize their problems so that the second stage can be carried out smoothly. Parents, social workers, and teachers must first establish a puppet character that both parties love, which is controlled by the child and the parent. In each session, share a 20 to 30-minute free puppet performance time with the client.
The number of people can depend on actual development needs. Of course, there are one or two children in the family, social workers are working in groups, and teachers may face a relatively large class size. Kindergarten teachers can do it in the classroom because of the low student ratio. Of course, primary school teachers conduct it in groups, and the effect and teaching influence will be more obvious. At the beginning, the worker invites each service target to choose a puppet character he likes, and he will keep it and mainly operate it during the "free time" period. Through puppetry, the participants can get emotional relief, have the sense of sovereignty to control things independently, and have an equal atmosphere.
The second step is "deconstruction", and the third step is "re-authorizing”
The second step is deconstruction. By describing the story of the puppet played by the parties involved, let them understand the problem by themselves, and begin to have the confidence and determination to solve the problem themselves. Of course, it is very important for the workers to pass the background investigation of the service objects and give guidance on the direction of the performance. The third step is re-authorizing, encouraging the client to start rewriting his own story and establishing his own new "social framework". Willing to place themselves in a community that is safe, comfortable, and where there is continued growth and development. (2008 鄭如安）
Four important concepts for building a good Applied Puppetry
鄭如安four concepts of establishing a good healing environment, the first is the establishment of "environment", which is to form a safe area in the activity place, just like the children's home environment, safe, hearty, free and equal play with puppets, and everyone knows Simple rules in it. The second is "participation". Try to encourage service recipients and staff to use puppets to interact with each other, and use puppets to perform simple acting or dialogue. Of course, if the puppets can be used together to carry out some adventure activities on specific topics, whether it is an individual case or a team, it will contribute to their smooth entry into the second step. The third is "nurturing". Children need some comfort to grow up, just like parents do to children. "Play therapists" also have to rely on "puppets" in this step, because the workers are not family members of the service recipients, and physical contact is inconvenient. But using the puppet to clap or touch, the effect is exactly the same as that of a real person in the child's mind.
Change is not easy without challenges
The final step is "challenging". Encouraging children to dare to challenge life difficulties is the key to children's growth, and the importance of challenges is no exception in Applied Puppetry. The challenges of real life difficulties are not easy to solve, but the troubles of puppets are often much easier to solve. Because the success of the puppet performance challenge can give the client a great sense of self-satisfaction and gradually generate self-confidence to overcome difficulties. During the process, children need to coordinate the left and right brains, use puppets to perform various skills, and solve difficulties together rationally and emotionally. The coordination of both sides of the brain will produce a psychological balance between rationality and sensibility, coupled with the increase in self-confidence, the motivation for children to change their determination will increase. More importantly, in the process of creating the life of puppet characters, it has greatly inspired children to have the ability to change their lives. If they can change and create a character's life, they naturally have the ability to change themselves. "Challenge" is an important element for Applied Puppetry to reach the final step of re-authorizing.
2022年10月23日 Varna
參考書：
2019 Terry Kottman , Kristin Meany-Walen 著 程翼如等譯 遊戲中的夥伴
2018 Athena A. Drewes & Charles E. Schaefer Puppet Play Therapy: A Practical Guidebook
2008 鄭如安 學校遊戲治療實務
2005 Matthew Bernier & Judith O’Hare Puppetry in Education & Therapy