Dollmaking as a Therapeutic Modality
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Authors
Heath, Wende
Issue Date
1988
Type
Thesis
Language
en
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
This thesis is a study of a unique technique for making dolls with a teenage psychiatric population. I teach dollmaking by helping the students visualize their inner life and that of their doll and then put that knowledge into concrete art such as pictures, sculptures, and the inner doll form. I then guide their work with the outer doll, painting and costuming a character that represents one of their subpersonalities that needs attention. The dollmaking work took place in a psychiatric hospital for adolescents over a period of three months. At the completion of the class, successful dolls were videotaped being manipulated as puppets, revealing to me and the adolescents what therapeutic gains and insights had been made. Healing was observed to have taken place in the students. They were affectively more open; they were more knowledgeable about their inner processes; they were less depressed and more focused; and they had developed a much higher self-esteem. Dollmaking is a therapeutic technique that can be used with almost any population and age in any setting. Because of its uniqueness, the fact that the procedure has a tangible payoff in a completed doll and the added bonus that it is fun makes dollmaking especially appealing to a population that may be resistant to more traditional verbal therapies.