“Children come to therapy with monstrous feelings – monstrous grief, monstrous rage, monstrous longing – to name a few. These feelings are unacceptable, unfaceable, and unmanageable to themselves, as well as to the world around them. The invitation to draw themselves as a monster is an immediate acknowledgement of these feelings as fact, and an acceptance of their existence and legitimacy.” Dennis McCarthy – “If You Turned into a Monster” Transformation through Play: A Body-Centred Approach to Play Therapy.
My Monster keeps me awake all hours, and unsettles my tummy. Crawling out of bed to get a glass of water, I try to outwit it but, it follows me into the bathroom. I hear the floorboards creaking, look down expecting to see it crawling up towards me. I feel floored, scared. My Monster is called Grief, and it is familiar to many of us, residing inside our disrupted sleep patterns, our waking nightmares. I wonder when Grief will disappear, leave me alone but, I have come to realise that Grief is the result of feeling all my losses, it’s part of the human being experience, and the more I feel it, call it out, name it, claim it, and accommodate it, the less scary it feels, and the more expansive my capacity for resilience has become. Sometimes I call it by its other names – anxiety, vulnerability, sadness. I’m old enough to be able to name my Monster.
Childrens’ Monster cages have been rattled during Coronavirus, and we need to be ready to help children recognise them, call them out, by all their names, claim them, just as we do our own, to prevent them from settling in, taking up a longer residence where they might turn into projections, and acting out behaviours.
In the classic French fairy tale, “Beauty and the Beast” a prince has been enchanted and changed into a hideous beast. The character Beauty eventually breaks the spell by loving him despite his beastliness, by recognising the deeper beauty within him. The beast is transformed only by a total acceptance of it (Perrault 1961). The main characters in this story are transformed by their encounters with the beasts. They become more mature and more human. This story, and others like it, move us, we relate to them, especially the child or, the child in us, because we know that transformation only happens by accepting the monster (McCarthy, 2010).
Monster Masterclass
I have invited Dennis McCarthy, dance and play therapist to teach us about how to awaken the Monster within us safely, so that we don’t become overwhelmed, and can then teach our children how to do the same.
I hope you will join us for this Masterclass – an exploration of the Monster on April 20 on Zoom from 6-7pm.
Aimed at
Therapists, counsellors, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, mental health professionals, pastoral leads in schools, and parents.
This training explores how the monster helps dysregulated children become regulated, traumatized children heal from trauma, rigid children de-rigidify, and anxious children or phobic children become able to better handle their fears. Informed by the work of DW Winnicott, Alexander Lowen, and Carl Jung.
Materials
Please bring a grapefruit sized ball of actual clay as opposed to plasticine, as well as a piece of cardboard or wood to work on. We may do a monster dance at the end so dress in comfortable clothes!
Dennis McCarthy
Dennis McCarthy has worked as a play therapist with children for 45 years. He trained initially as a dance therapist and then went on to train in Bioenergetic Analysis and to study Jungian Analysis, and combines all of these in his work. He has authored several books including “If You Turned into a Monster…” and “A Manual of Dynamic Play Therapy” published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers, and has contributed chapters in numerous books and articles in many professional journals. The monster is central to his work with children and informs his work with adults as well. He offers trainings internationally and supervises many therapists.
Warmly
Amanda
References
McCarthy, D (2010) “If You Turned into a Monster” Transformation through Play: A Body-Centred Approach to Play Therapy. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Perrault, C. (1961) Perrault’s Fairy Tales. New York: Dodd, Mead.
