Approach & Foundations

Small Figures Work is a powerful, experiential approach to therapy. Using Playmobil figurines to concretise a client's inner world, it draws on right-brain processing to make implicit experience visible — and workable. It is an integrative approach, weaving together experiential, relational and neuroscience-informed principles to support meaningful psychological change.

For the moments in therapy when words are not enough, it offers another pathway. Many clients can describe their histories with real clarity, yet remain shaped by emotional and relational patterns that insight alone cannot shift. 

Working with figurines in physical space, clients can externalise the emotions, beliefs, parts of self and relational dynamics that may previously have felt hidden, confusing or fixed. What is represented externally can be understood differently, experienced differently, and gradually reorganised — so that symbolic representation becomes a bridge between implicit experience and conscious awareness, and between longstanding patterns and new possibilities for change.

Grounded in the traditions of psychodrama, attachment theory, right-brain psychotherapy and interpersonal neurobiology, Small Figures Work understands human difficulty within its relational and systemic context — and works with it accordingly.

Processes of Therapeutic Change

Small Figures Work draws on several interrelated processes to support change:

• Bringing implicit emotional and relational patterns into view
• Engaging embodied, sensory and right-brain modes of processing
• Creating reflective distance while preserving emotional connection
• Deepening insight beyond verbal analysis alone
• Exploring alternative perspectives, roles and choices
• Integrating new meanings into daily life and relationships

Core Theoretical Influences

• Psychodrama — Action methods, role perspective, spontaneity and the creative reorganisation of experience.

• Attachment theory — The understanding that early relational experiences continue to shape present expectations of safety, connection and self-worth.

• Right-brain psychotherapy — Many significant emotional experiences are encoded nonverbally. Figurine work helps access these dimensions through imagery, symbolism, movement and spatial awareness.

• Interpersonal neurobiology — Psychological healing often involves greater integration across emotional, cognitive, somatic and relational systems.

• Systemic and relational perspectives — Difficulties are understood not only within the individual, but within the family, cultural and relational contexts in which they developed and are sustained.

Clinical Relevance

Small Figures Work may be particularly helpful for clients who:

• Understand their difficulties intellectually, yet remain stuck
• Struggle to find words for inner experience
• Repeat longstanding relational patterns
• Carry trauma held beyond narrative memory
• Experience shame, conflict or internal fragmentation
• Respond well to visual, symbolic or experiential learning
• Experiencing  depression, anxiety, grief and loss,  trauma and attachment difficulties, addiction and compulsive patterns, relationship conflict, family difficulties
• Life and Career transitions

 In Supervision and Coaching

The same principles extend naturally beyond the therapy room.

In supervision, figurines offer a way to bring the unseen dimensions of clinical work into view — the dynamics of the therapeutic relationship, moments of feeling stuck, and the parallel processes that can play out between client, therapist and supervisor. Representing a case in physical space can surface what has been difficult to put into words, helping supervisees reflect on their own responses and find new ways forward.

In coaching, the approach supports people navigating decisions, roles and transitions. Laying out a situation with figurines makes competing priorities, relationships and possibilities tangible — opening space to weigh options, clarify values and imagine change with greater perspective.

It also lends itself to group settings — team supervision, reflective practice and training groups — where working with the figurines together can bring shared relational and systemic dynamics into view for everyone in the room.

For Clinicians  

For therapists, Small Figures Work offers a practical and thoughtful way of integrating these principles into clinical practice. It can deepen therapeutic engagement, broaden clinical reach, and open new possibilities for clients who have found it difficult to move through conversation alone — extending the work you already do.