Parts Work and Puppets: A Powerful Combination
Early in my work as a counselor, I noticed that talk therapy had 2 main pitfalls: an over reliance on logical understanding as the driver for change, and a lack of space for creativity.
My clients and I could talk about cognitive errors, triggers to avoid, and new skills to try all week long - but then they would return the following week, with their patterns relatively unchanged. I found myself doing this in my own therapy as well - I knew the “right” behavior or the “better” thought, but I didn’t use it half the time. What gives? My clients and I are reasonably intelligent people who desire to make changes in our lives. Why couldn’t we just make the change? My frustration led me to learn more about the incredible power of irrational patterns, which eventually led me to Parts Work. This model of therapy remains a large part of my approach in treating anxiety, PTSD, complex trauma, and other conditions.
To open up space for client creativity, I took training to weave art into counseling. I learned that art in therapy is a form of play, and that play therapy is an empirically supported approach to counseling (1,2) that has roots as old as Western therapy itself. Play is typically (and incorrectly in my opinion) associated with children. Most of the early studies on play and its effects were done on young clients who could not reliably use their words to express their experiences. And so, their play was viewed as a doorway into the mind. Play offers opportunities for expression that can highlight fears, show how a person understands themselves or how they see important people in their lives, and display their understanding of the world. This is routinely helpful in treating children who are too stressed or too young to process difficult experiences verbally(3). As I learnt the benefits of play, I couldn’t help but think: “where is the age cutoff for this benefit? If it’s effective for children, why wouldn’t it also be effective for adults?” It turns out that as a child’s capacity for abstract reasoning and verbal communication grows (typically between ages 10 and 12), play therapy may feel inefficient or too simplistic (4). This growth pairs with the social conditioning that frames all things child-oriented as embarrassing, facile, and something to be outgrown. Before we know it, we’re locked in the attic of our adult intellect with no way out. If only that was all we needed to heal.
Despite the social conditioning that steers us otherwise, play remains an effective way to learn problem solving skills, practice emotion regulation, take multiple perspectives, decrease stress, and connect deeply with our bodies. Play can be especially helpful to heal wounds that are too painful to talk about. Which brings me back to the puppets…
Many adults in my care think they need to retell the story of their pain, no matter how much it hurts. This is because talk therapy is how most people learn about healing in general, and verbal communication has become our dominant way of expressing ourselves in all other relationships. However, producing a logical, cohesive narrative is often way too much to ask of a traumatized brain, as trauma disrupts the function of crucial neural connections between our memory, emotions, and logic. Other trauma survivors may use a coherent narrative as a protective script to put distance between the self and irrational, overwhelming pain.
Puppets can break up the story of unbearable pain into bite sized chunks. Rather than white knuckling through a logical story of wounds, clients can just start at the middle. We can drop the context and go right to the part of you that needs attention or care the most.
Puppets can also provide containment and healthy separation - while clients use puppets to connect to their emotions, they can also clearly see the boundary of the puppet that represents it. This gives crucial biofeedback that the emotions they feel are not stretching into infinity, declaring dominion over the client’s entire identity. It is just here, on a hand or sitting close by, standing about 10 inches tall. It may even be shaped like a turtle. This approach offers deep connection to vulnerable parts of the self, without overwhelm.
When deep wounds trigger dissociation, puppets can be grounding through reduced cognitive demands and increased sensory input. You do not need to be articulate with the puppets, just honest. When words are hard to come by, clients can describe the images in the mind, use the puppet to make movements that represent how they feel, or they can regulate through tactile input with soft fabric.
Pairing Parts Work with puppets creates a rich opportunity for clients to combine the benefits of play with a treatment designed to hold compassion for their most difficult symptoms. Many clients describe feeling less shame and relating more kindly to parts of themselves when they are represented through puppets. This kindness is crucial to change (5). Other clients describe a feeling of lightness or clarity when they can see their various patterns represented outside of themselves. And finally, puppets are the perfect augmentation for interviewing parts, as having a “third party” answer questions about a specific part can help clients recognize in the moment they are more than the sum of their parts.
If you are an adult that is interested in how puppets (or other elements of play) can be useful to you in your healing journey, feel free to contact me!
Citations:
Koukorikos, K. et. al, (2021). An Overview of Play Therapy. Materia Sociomedica, 33(4), 293-297.
Bratton, S. C., Ray, D., Rhine, T., & Jones, L. (2005). The Efficacy of Play Therapy With Children: A Meta-Analytic Review of Treatment Outcomes. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 36(4), 376–390. https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7028.36.4.376
Piaget, Jean (1962). Play, dreams and imitation in childhood. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. p. 166. ISBN 978-0-393-00171-6.
Kool, R., & Lawver T., (2010). Play therapy: considerations and applications for the practitioner. Psychiatry, 7(10):19-24. PMID: 21103141; PMCID: PMC2989834.
Neff, K.,D. (2023). Self-Compassion: Theory, Method, Research, and Intervention. Annual Review of Psychology, 74:193-218. doi: 10.1146/annurev-psych-032420-031047. PMID: 35961039.
