OVERCOMING FEARS “Think of a happy ending.” The goal is the de-realization of objects of fear. An adult reads a scary fairy tale to a child (9 years old and older) and asks him to come up with a funny ending to it. “Draw the scary one as cheerful (kind).” The goal is the de-realization of objects of fear. To play, you need to prepare black and white drawings of scary characters in advance. The child is given the task of completing the drawings so that the scary characters turn into funny or kind. You can invite your child to draw his fear, and then add details to make it funny. For example, in one of the classes I offered to draw the worst horror story that all children are afraid of. Then she reported that this horror story had been invited to a birthday party. How can she go so scary? How can we help her? (“Make up her lips, put her in a dress, do her hair and give her a handbag,” Masha answered and did this.) In further conversation about the drawing, we came to the understanding that, despite its appearance as a horror story, it could be quite good and a harmless creature. “Barbershop.” Children are advised to close their eyes and imagine some scary creature that all children are usually afraid of, and draw it. Then we inform you that this creature is a girl who is about to get married. And of course, she needs to visit a hairdresser, where she will get a beautiful hairstyle, makeup, etc. Children are invited to act as a hairdresser and decorate their girlfriend as best as possible. “Hospital”. In this version of the exercise, the children were told that the terrible creature had very bad teeth and a swollen cheek. Children need to draw suffering on the face of the creature (tears, bandage). It is very afraid to go to the doctor. Children are invited to turn into kind and attentive doctors, whom no one is afraid of, treat the “creature” and draw an expression of joy on its face (this can be done on another sheet). “The Book of My Exploits.” The goal is to strengthen the child’s “I”. The psychologist, together with the child, plays out a situation in which the child accomplishes a feat: he defeats some evil creature. Then the child draws his feat. After finishing the drawing, he once again remembers his feat with the help of the leader, the psychologist writes down this story. In this case, the story may differ slightly from the previously performed feat. After the lesson, the psychologist promises the child to write out his story beautifully, so that he can then compile a book of exploits from the drawings and stories. At the next lesson, the child examines his drawing, and the psychologist reads to him a printed story about the feat. Then the situation is played out again, the child draws it and composes a story: “I am very good.” The goal is to strengthen the child’s “I”. The psychologist asks the child to repeat the words several times in different ways: in a whisper, loudly, very loudly. Thus, the psychologist and the child whisper, pronounce, shout the words “I”, “very”, “good”. “Say kind words to the bear.” The goal is to strengthen the child’s “I”. The child and the psychologist throw a ball around and remember the good qualities of the person. Then the psychologist “invites” a teddy bear to the lesson. The child comes up with good words for him, ending the sentence “You are...”. Then the psychologist and the child take turns picking up the bear, so each of them turns into a bear and comes up with kind words for the other. I also use fairy tale therapy when working with fears. Working with fairy tales is often given as homework to parents; for working with children at home, I recommend the books “Fairytale therapy for children's problems” by R.M. Tkach, “How to help a child get rid of fears. Fears are serious” Shishova T.L., “We are not afraid of the gray wolf” Miklyaeva A.V., Rumyantseva P.V.; “Once upon a time there was a girl like you” D. Brett. When working with fears, the method of catathymic-imaginative psychotherapy was also used. The symboldrama method (catathymic-imaginative psychotherapy) was developed by the famous German psychotherapist, Professor H. Leiner. Basis of the methodcomposes free fantasy in the form of images, internal pictures on a topic (motive) given by the psychotherapist. The use of symboldrama methods has proven itself best when working with children's phobias. At the same time, gradual step-by-step “deconditioning” (removal of conditioned reflex dependencies), reminiscent of behavioral therapy methods, turned out to be effective. First of all, it is necessary to establish emotional and personal contact between the child and the psychologist. In this case, especially important is attached to a conversation with the child about his joys and concerns. At the same time, the child’s attention should not be distracted by foreign objects, in particular, by toys. Therefore, it is advisable to conduct a symboldrama session in another room, and not in the one where play psychotherapy is carried out. It is advisable that the room be slightly darkened, and the curtains should be half closed (they should not be completely closed, otherwise this may cause anxiety in the child). This should be done in advance, before the child arrives, since in his presence this may cause him anxiety. When working with children of primary school age (from 6 to 9 years old), it is preferable to conduct the session while sitting in a comfortable chair with a high enough backrest so that the child I could rest my head comfortably. This pose better corresponds to the characteristics of motor-motor activity of this age, when children, even with their eyes closed, make involuntary movements with their arms or legs. In addition, in this position they are not as much exposed to the fear of being “torn to pieces” by the psychotherapist as in a more defenseless lying position. Unlike working with an adult, when working with a child, it is preferable for a psychologist to sit not opposite, but in parallel, next to the child. In this case, you should sit facing not the window, but towards the dark part of the room. The child sitting in a comfortable chair is put into a state of relaxation. It is enough to ask the child to lie down or sit down, close his eyes and relax. The next important condition for conducting a symboldrama session with a child is its rationale, which is understandable and acceptable to the child. For example, a child can be asked if he knows an interesting “game of flight of fancy with his eyes closed.” In this way, he manages to awaken curiosity and create motivation for conducting a symboldrama session. When working with older children and adolescents, a psychologist may ask if the child would like to take an interesting test in which he needs to imagine certain images in his mind. After achieving a state of relaxation, the child is asked to imagine images on a topic given by the psychologist in an open form - a standard motive. Imagining the images, the child talks about his experiences to the psychologist sitting next to him, who, as it were, “accompanies” him in the images and, if necessary, directs their flow in accordance with the correction strategy. After carrying out the image, the child is asked to draw what was imagined. Contraindications for the use of this technique are: 1) acute or chronic psychosis or conditions close to psychosis; 2) cerebral-organic syndromes in severe form; 3) insufficient intellectual development with an IQ below 85; 4) insufficient motivation. This method can be used with children aged 6-7 years. As the main motives of symbol drama for children and adolescents, H. Leiner suggests the following: 1. meadow as the initial image of each psychotherapeutic session; 2. climbing the mountain to see the panorama of the landscape from its top;3. following a stream up or downstream,4. home inspection;5. meeting with a significant person (mother, father, brothers and sisters, idol, teacher, etc.) in real or symbolic attire (in the form of an animal, tree, etc.);6. observing the edge of the forest and waiting for a creature to emerge from the darkness of the forest;7. a boat that appears on the shore of a pond or lake, on which the child goes for a ride;8. a cave that is first observed from the side in anticipation of a symbolic being emerging from it, and which, if the child wishes, can also be entered in order toto stay or to explore its depths. Along with the listed motives, the following three additional motives have also been widely used in recent years: “Observing and establishing contact with the animal family” - in order to gain an understanding of the problems in the child’s family, as well as to correct them; “Taking possession of a plot of land in order to cultivate or build something on it”; “Imagining yourself to be about 10 years older.” For teenagers, you can also offer motives: “Own car, motorcycle.” In addition, in terms of psychodiagnostics, the following motives turned out to be especially effective: “Tree”, “Three Trees”, “Flower”. In certain cases, specific motifs of symbol drama are used: “Representation of a real situation at school or at home”; "Memories from past experiences"; “Presentation of the last scene from a night dream and the continuation of its development in a waking dream”; “Introspection of the insides of the body (a journey deep into your body)”; “Imagining certain objects that have a special emotional meaning, for example, a toy, a favorite doll, a teddy bear or other soft toy.” When working with a parent-child pair, motives are used - “Animals go to visit each other”, “Travel to a desert island” ", "Children in a toy store", etc. Example: The parents of a girl asked for advice. Reason for contact: a girl (Zhenya, 7 years old) is afraid to stay at home alone, in the dark; suffers from logoneurosis. Simultaneously with art therapeutic techniques, the symboldrama method was used. 15 classes were held, the motifs “Flower”, “Stream”, “Source”, “Three Trees”, “Ball”, “Children’s Toy” were used (she presented her favorite doll, the doll got an allergy, Zhenya cured her by giving her a “magic” potion), “An animal that needs your help” (I imagined a lonely little hedgehog who was getting wet in the rain; I fed him milk, built a warm, dry hut for him), “The edge of the forest” (Baba Yaga came out of the forest and wanted to eat Zhenya. After my phrase: “I know that Baba Yaga loves cake, could you look there somewhere and treat her?”, Zhenya was able to “find” a lot of goodies in the image, feed Baba Yaga, after which she became “just a kind grandmother” and even played with the girl), “Animals go to visit each other” (this motive was carried out together with Zhenya and dad. Dad was a deer, Zhenya was a dolphin. The dolphin tried to feed the deer fish, and the deer the dolphin - grass, but as a result they came to an agreement: they feasted on sweets on the seashore). According to the results of correctional work, Zhenya’s number of fears decreased from 18 to 5, and her speech became normal. Psychotherapy using the symboldrama method also opens up new possibilities for the psychotherapeutic use of fairy tales. Ya.L. Obukhov developed the “Catathymic trip to a fairy tale” technique, combining elements of fairy tale therapy and symbol drama. The structure of a psychotherapeutic session, according to the methodology, is determined by the following four important phases: Preliminary conversation phase (15-20 minutes). The child is invited to tell about his favorite fairy tale. Sometimes, if a fairy tale is little known, he is asked to retell the tale. At this phase, it is revealed when the child was first told or read a fairy tale, who read or told it, how and where it happened, what moments of the fairy tale especially worried him, how he related to individual characters. Relaxation phase (1-5 minutes). The child is asked to close his eyes and relax, a relaxation exercise is performed. Image presentation phase (the duration of image presentation varies depending on the child’s age from 5 to 20 minutes). The child is asked to imagine himself in a fairy tale, which he talked about during the preliminary conversation: “Imagine that you find yourself in a fairy tale... Everything you imagine is good. We can work with any image.” Discussion phase (5-10 minutes). At the end of the presentation of the images, a discussion is held with the child and homework is given to draw what is presented in the image. The drawing is then discussed at a preliminary conversationnext session. To treat childhood fear neurosis, you need to act not only in a psychological direction, but also to influence the consequences of this neurosis, expressed at the physiological level. Children need relaxation and relaxation exercises. Based on the results of psychocorrection (7-10 days after the end of classes), the children were again offered the “Fears in the Houses” test. In some cases, for the purity of the analysis of the results, I duplicated this technique and, looking at the drawings, additionally asked the following questions: “You drew this fear, now tell me, are you afraid of it or not?” Subsequently, the phrase gradually shortened: “Now are you afraid or not?”, “Are you afraid or not?” After the discussion, she praised the child for being able to cope with his fears or some of his fears, and gave him a talisman (a small toy). At the same time, the instruction was given: this figurine is not easy, it will be a friend and protector, you just need to take the figurine in your hands, stroke it and say: “Everything will be fine with me, I can do everything!” It should be said that in my practice there were cases when correctional the work was not effective enough. In such cases, the parents themselves had an increased level of anxiety and fear and cultivated it in their children. Treatment of a child without parental therapy most often does not bring positive results. 90% of all children's fears are generated by the family and are firmly supported by it. For example, the class teacher Andrey (11 years old) came to see me with complaints about the child’s aggressiveness, irritability, inattention, and a sharp decline in academic performance. In a conversation with the boy, it turned out that three months ago his grandfather died in front of his eyes when they were at home alone. After this event, the child had a high fever for a long time and had nightmares. The boy’s parents refused to cooperate, citing the fact that “everything will go away on its own, we need to use “vitamins P and U” more often - a corner and a belt.” There was no objection to correctional sessions with a psychologist. As a result of long-term work using the symboldrama method, sand therapy, and art therapy, Andrei’s nightmares disappeared and defensive aggression decreased, but after the summer holidays the picture turned out to be almost the same as at the beginning of the work. In my work with parents, I proceeded from this provisions: “If you understand and are aware of this, then you can cope with the situation, you can change it, and you can change yourself.” The changes that occur with the child require a restructuring of the relationship between the adult and the child, a change in the parents themselves. In the joint work of parents with children, I used not only symboldrama, but also art therapeutic techniques: “Stone”. Goal: harmonization of parent-child relationships, development of creative thinking. Materials: sea pebbles, larger for children of primary school age, for teenagers - the size of a five-kopeck coin; paints, brushes, sheets of A4 paper. Parents and children are invited to color sea pebbles with symbols, followed by a discussion: What is the most important thing about my symbol?, How does he look like me?, Where did I learn this (or from whom)?, What does he dream about and what does he want? “The mood of my home " Goal: harmonization of parent-child relationships, development of creative thinking. Materials: A3 paper, paint brushes. Parents and the child silently draw the mood of their home on wet paper, then they need to name the drawing, come up with a motto and say it together: “Building a house.” Goal: harmonization of parent-child relationships, development of creative thinking. Materials: tea boxes, colored paper, foil, glue, scissors, natural materials. From cardboard boxes, colored paper, twigs, stones, etc. a child and his parents are building a house; they came up with his idea that they wanted to convey his content. “Island of Forgiveness.” Goal: harmonization of parent-child relationships. Materials: semolina, whatman paper. Participants create islands from semolina; for small children, the semolina should be immediately divided into piles. The following instructions are given: create your own island, build bridgesforgiveness to another person. In addition to fairytale therapy programs, parents can be advised to include elements of doll therapy in their activities with children. Sample thematic tasks: Draw the face of a doll that is afraid of something. Make a finger puppet. Let her tell scary stories. Imagine that the doll is afraid of something and is hiding. Draw where and from whom she is hiding. Imagine that your doll is in a dark room. Draw what happened there. Stages of a home doll therapy session Stage 1. Creating a series of drawings of step-by-step overcoming fear. The child, together with one of the parents, depicts how the main character gradually overcomes his fear. Stage 2. Making a paper finger puppet To do this, you need to cut out the image of the hero who conquers fear, glue it onto a paper cylinder according to the size of one or more of the child’s fingers, if the drawing is large. Stage 3. Puppet show A “finger” puppet made by a child “shows” drawings to herself and “tells” everyone present how she stopped being afraid. At this stage, the main character is a paper doll. Stage 4 of dramatization The lesson ends with the child with a “finger” puppet on his hand playing the role of the drawn character, and as an actor, he acts out all the drawn actions of the hero, while gaining the experience of an adequate mental response. Next, the hero and the audience exchange impressions. Thus, a kind of therapeutic “series” is obtained. Example. Denis’s mother (8 years old) came for a consultation; on the way to school, he was attacked by a dog, after which he became terrified not only of dogs, but also of other large animals, and goes to school only when accompanied by adults. The parents independently used puppet theater techniques at home; the whole family, including the younger sister, took part in the performances. Additionally, psychotherapeutic fairy tales and the creation of a talisman were used. After 5 classes, Denis was already going to school on his own. List of used literature Arefyeva T.A., Galkina N.I. Overcoming fears in children: Training. – M.: Publishing House of the Institute of Psychotherapy, 2005. – 288 p. Brett D. Once upon a time there was a girl like you... Psychotherapeutic stories for children. M.: Independent company “Class”, 1996. – 130 pp. Zakharov A.I. Daytime and nighttime fears in children. – St. Petersburg: Rech, 2007. – 320 pp. Zakharov A.I. Play as a way to overcome neuroses in children. – M.: KARO, 2006. – 144 pp. Zinkevich-Evstigneeva T., Kudzilov D. Island of childhood. Psychological board game. – St. Petersburg: Rech, 2008. Kiseleva M.V. Art therapy in working with children: A guide for child psychologists, teachers, doctors and specialists working with children. – St. Petersburg: Rech, 2007. – 160 pp. Kulintsova I.E. Correcting children's fears with the help of a fairy tale. – St. Petersburg: Rech, 2009. – 167 pp. Kutovaya M. S. Tales from tears. – St. Petersburg: Rech, 2007. – 112 pp. Lebedeva L.D. The practice of art therapy: approaches, diagnostics, system of classes. – St. Petersburg: Rech, 2007. – 256 pp. Lebedeva L.D. Encyclopedia of signs and interpretations in projective drawing and art therapy. – St. Petersburg: Rech, 2007. – 336 pp. Miklyaeva A.V., Rumyantseva P.V. We are not afraid of the gray wolf... A book for parents who want to help their children get rid of fears. – St. Petersburg: Rech, 2008. – 202 pp. Milutina K.L. The child is boundless. – K.: Glavnik, 2008. – 128 pp. Obukhov Ya.L. Psychoanalysis of fairy tales and symbol drama. // Journal of practical psychologist. – 1999. – No. 10-11. Obukhov Ya.L. Symboldrama: Catathymic-imaginative psychotherapy for children and adolescents. – M.: Eidos, 1997. – 48 p. Overcoming anxiety and fears in children 5-7 years old: diagnosis, classes, recommendations / author.-comp. N.F. Ivanova. – Volgograd: Teacher, 2009. – 191 pp. Tatarintseva A.Yu., Grigorchuk M.Yu. Children's fears: doll therapy to help children. – St. Petersburg: Rech, 2007. – 218 pp. Tkach R.M. Fairytale therapy for children's problems. – St. Petersburg: Rech, 2008. – 118 pp. Shishova T.L. Fears are serious. How to help your child get rid of fears. – St. Petersburg: Rech, 2007. – 104 p. Khukhlaeva O. Psychological support for children with fears and.