Working with Small Figures in Counselling and Psychotherapy

Presenter: John Barton

Small figure work is a powerful and effective method of working with adults, adolescents and children. Clients quickly understand themselves from new perspectives and find themselves thinking in new and creative ways. This workshop will focus on working with adults in the one-to-one setting. The work can be directly applied with couples and families, in supervision and in workplace/ management settings. Participants who work with children will need to modify the work to suit their clients.

Using small figures enables clients to:

• Express and understand their knowledge of the family and social systems they inhabit.
• Experience themselves and their stories from both internal and external perspectives.
• Connect with feelings and understanding that are held in nonverbal memory.
• Concretise and thus more fully experience their hopes and wishes for the future.

John Barton is a psychotherapist, psychodramatist, Balint group leader and retired GP. He also offers supervision to psychotherapists, GPs and other health professionals. He is trained in psychodrama and other therapeutic modalities. He was a GP for over thirty years, in Taihape, Huntly and inner city Melbourne. He uses small figures in his own practice and has run this workshop in New Zealand, Australia, USA, Europe and Asia. He has a warmhearted teaching style which shows his enthusiasm for small figure work and his joy in the practice of psychotherapy.