with John Barton via Zoom

Four afternoons, Saturday and Sunday 7th/8th and 14th/15th May, 2022

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.

The Workshop will cover: General principles of small figure work and of combining this work with talk-based methods.

• A specific way of using small figures to work with a client who has a difficult relationship.

• A specific method for bringing to life the memories, feelings and actions of functional roles. This is particularly useful with depressed clients.

• A way of exploring the history of a relationship. This is useful in grief work. It can also be used to celebrate a relationship and to allow expression of things previously unsaid. The teaching will include the use of simple psychodrama techniques.

Plus: Several items selected from the following:

• A way of looking at the client’s social system and the nature of their relationships at earlier times in their life.

• A way of looking at the client’s current social system and their relationships.

• Action Genogram. Making a genogram with the figures and then using this to find further meaning.

• • Working with unwanted repeated behaviour. This has some relevance to addictions.
• The Diamond of Opposites: A way of using the figures to assist in making a decision.

• A way for a client to look at their values and how these are enacted in their life.

• Working with unwanted repeated behaviour. This has some relevance to addictions.

• How to obtain small figures.

  The workshop will be experiential and limited to eight participants.

  Participants will have the opportunity to be both the client and the therapist. There will also be demonstration and discussion of practical and theoretical aspects of this work. The workshop is likely to be enjoyable and to heighten participants’ appreciation of themselves.

  John Barton is a psychotherapist, psychodramatist and Balint group leader. He was a GP for over thirty years, in country NZ 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.

  This will be the sixth Zoom workshop. Zoom has proved to be an effective medium for teaching this work.

  The workshop is designed so that practitioners from different backgrounds can make sense of using small figures in terms of their own training and thinking.

  Small figure work is not a full training, it is more another tool in the therapists toolkit. By the end of the workshop most people will be able to use the figures in their work.

Dates and Times: The workshop will be four sessions, each from 2:00 pm to 5:30 pm NZ time, (12 noon to 3:30 pm Melbourne time) on two Saturdays and Sundays; 7th, 8th and 14th/15th May, 2022.

Note: I am also running a Monday Tuesday workshop. If this interests you please let me know.

Cost: $360 (Concession for students and low income earners: $200).

Once you are registered for the workshop a set of thirty figures will be posted to you to use during the workshop. At the end of the workshop the figures used in the workshop (Playmobil toy figures) can be returned or if you wish to keep them the cost is $130.

People are asked to attend the complete workshop.

To register, or for more information contact John Barton:
Email: jbarton672@gmail.com or
Phone +64 (0)27 566 6016

Further information on this work can be seen at www.smallfigures.net

Much of this work was developed by Dr Carlos Raimundo and is called Play of Life. See www.playoflife.com

NB It is expected that all participants will take responsibility for self care if they uncover personal material that is difficult, for instance through access to their own therapist or supervisor.