SYMBOLIC DESTRUCTION OF FEAR. TRANSFORMATION OF THE OBJECT OF FEAR “The ABC of Fears.” The goal is identification with objects of fear. The child is invited to draw various scary characters on separate sheets of paper and give them names. Then you need to arrange them in the form of a book in alphabetical order. At the next lesson, you can invite the child to play one of these characters. At this stage, the art therapeutic technique for working with the emotion of fear, proposed by Lebedeva L.D., is effective. “Drawing masks...” I practiced this technique with my whole family. Some techniques are easily mastered by parents, and therefore are applicable in home play activities, including with dolls. The art therapeutic technique of “masks” is effective for correcting a variety of fears, and especially those caused by the imagination: fear of illness, attack, natural disasters disasters, transport, fairy-tale characters, etc. In the process of drawing, the feeling of fear “revitalizes” and at the same time awareness of the conventional nature of this image occurs. The trusting relationship that develops between the participants during the lesson enhances the expected result. Materials: sheets of A4 paper, sheets of Whatman paper, glue, soft eraser, pieces of chalk, colored pencils, felt-tip pens, gouache, watercolor paints. (Matches and a container in which the designs can be safely burned may be needed.)Basic Procedures. Stages.1. Setting up (“warming up”). You can use “Doodles” by D. Winnicott, “Closed Eyes Technique” by F. Kane, M. Richardson, as well as similar exercises in content and methodology “Line Relay Race”, “Autographs”. Various color games are suitable. For example, class participants are asked to remember what feelings they most often experience, paint them in the form of multi-colored spots, and sign the names. As an independent exercise at the mood stage, you can ask participants to depict certain emotions using lines and colors, for example, using the M method . Betensky - fear, love, anger. The main condition: the drawings must be abstract, that is, not contain specific images, pictograms, or stamp symbols (hearts, flowers, arrows, etc.). Everyone works independently. 2-3 minutes are allotted for depicting one emotion. There is no discussion at this stage. However, if the need to share impressions is clearly expressed in the group, it is necessary to direct the verbal self-expression of the participants to discuss their feelings, motives for choosing colors, shapes, but not analyze visual products.2. Actualization of the emotion of fear. Participants are invited to take their places on chairs arranged in a circle.• Everyone, both adults and children, is familiar with the feeling of fear. Close your eyes and imagine the situation, your feelings when you were scared. Give it a name.• Open your eyes. Tell us about your feelings. It is advisable that the child (adult) on whose face the psychologist saw the strongest emotions speak first. Do not force if a person refuses!3. Individual work. "The Materialization of Fear." Participants again take their places for individual work. Draw your fear on a piece of paper. You don’t have to show your work to anyone. Do with the drawing as you want. It can be crushed, torn, burned or destroyed in another way. After the participants have dealt with their fears materialized in the drawings, they are given the following instructions: Draw the fear in the form of a mask on a piece of paper. You can draw on a black or brown background with white chalk or highlight the contours of the image with an eraser. Tear off the excess paper with your fingers - the background. You cannot use scissors. This work contributes to the development of tactile sensitivity and fine motor skills of the hands. It is also possible to interpret some of the signs of the mask. The size, the depicted emotion, the presence of elements such as eyes, mouth, teeth, ears, horns, etc. are informative.4. Ritual dramatization. "Spontaneous theatre". A situation is being created“public” living of fear. Look at the images of masks. Exchange your impressions. Come up with a title and content for a story in which the masks would be the main characters. Place them on a piece of whatman paper and complete the “picture.” Materials for collective work are selected at the request of the “artists”. Next, the participants are asked to “voice” the picture.• Distribute and rehearse the roles in accordance with the invented plot. Everyone must speak from the “face” of their mask. The result is a small performance, and, no matter how scary the initial plot is, at the moment of voicing it makes the actors laugh.5. The final stage. Reflexive analysis. In the process of collective reflection, each participant is invited to verbalize their own impressions, for example, to discuss: What did you feel when you were working, do you feel now? How can you help yourself and others if you suddenly become scared? What color are your feelings when it gets scary? • What color are yours? feelings now? At the same time, individual drawings made at the “Setup” and “Screen Test” stages are discussed. Goal: prevention of fears, assimilation of behavior strategies in a difficult situation. Help your child imagine that he is trying his hand at acting. The screenwriter (that is, you) will now introduce him to the plot of the future film. Then the young artist will try to reproduce the action. If, in addition to him, other people must take part in it, then he can either play for them himself, or use dolls or some toys. But in coming up with stories, you will have to be creative. The plot should be based on a story that actually happened to a child and caused him fear, or an event that is not in the child’s life experience, but, nevertheless, the child is afraid of it. If, for example, a child is afraid of getting lost in a crowded place, then you can act out the following scene: A mother and her son (daughter) went to the store. In a huge department store, the mother looked at the display window, and the child stopped near the toy he liked. So they lost sight of each other. The mother was very worried about her baby, she began rushing around the store looking for him. At first the child was also confused, he even wanted to cry, but then he thought that this was unlikely to help him find his mother. Then he approached the seller and said that he was lost. The seller asked his name and made an announcement over the speakerphone. “Attention, attention!” said the announcer. “The boy Roma (the girl Sveta) has lost his mother and is waiting for her in the jewelry department.” An excited woman ran to this department literally a minute later. She was in a panic. And what did she see? The baby was calmly waiting for her, looking at the decorations. She hugged her son (daughter) and burst into tears. The child began to console his mother that nothing bad had happened, and the seller told her how calmly and bravely her son behaved. Mom was very proud of her child, because he behaved just like an adult. Let the child play the role of essentially himself, and you can act as his absent-minded mother. Then try not to skimp on the delight and feeling of pride at the end of the story, let the child feel such a reward in the game, so that later he can strive for it in real life. This same fear of getting lost can be “acted out” in a skit where the child will help a lost child, that is, initially play the hero. You can take a small doll to play the role of a crying baby. This way, the child will more easily feel responsibility for the younger one and their advantage in self-control and search for solutions. You can come up with similar everyday stories yourself so that you and your child can use them to combat his real (not fictitious) fears. “The Shell and the Little Clam.” Goal: harmonization of parent-child relationships, getting rid of fears. The child and the adult are asked to jointly make a shell and a clam out of foil and paper, then mold three fears from the dough (What is the shell afraid of? What is the clam afraid of?), the fears can be colored. Then you need to compose a fairy tale about the adventures of a shell and a mollusk. Example. BehindSasha’s mother (9 years old) came for a consultation; after her parents’ divorce, she was afraid to be alone at home, often woke up after bad dreams, and became irritable. Mom chose a shell, son a clam. Fears of loneliness were sculpted for the shell (zero on a dough piece); fear that it will be broken (hammer); fear of getting caught in a network (picture of a network on the test). Fears of a mollusk: falling into a trap (Sasha fashioned a trap); “fear of being cut” (knife), fear of being left without a shell (endless sea). The fears were painted with gouache, a joint story was compiled about how scary fishermen wanted to catch a shell and a mollusk in a net, but they were able to free themselves and swam to travel. Fears were molded into one big ball and solemnly thrown out. “Quick answers to stupid questions.” Goal: correction of fear of not being on time, being late for school; The game develops the ability to act quickly in a stressful situation, promotes the development of speech, ingenuity and creative thinking. Take the ball. The driver throws the ball to the player and asks various “stupid” questions. When the child has the ball, the driver immediately begins to count out loud: one, two, three. If the player does not answer anything before three, he does not receive a point. The one who scores the most points wins. “Thread of the story.” Goal: safe response to fears. Take a ball of thick thread or braid. Come up with the beginning of a story about a child who was afraid of something. For example, this: “Once upon a time there lived a boy, Petya. He was kind and smart. He had loving parents. Probably, everything would have been fine with Petya if it weren’t for his fears. And he was afraid...” With these words, pass the ball child, leaving the end of the thread in his hand. The child must continue the story and give Petya some fears. Most likely, these will be the child’s own fears or those that he has long experienced. Sometimes children come up with completely harmless fears, which makes the story humorous. This is also a good option, since there is one step from laughing at small fears to an ironic attitude towards your real fears and it will be done over time. The further course of the game assumes that the participant holding the ball in his hands logically continues the overall story, influencing the course of the plot. The thread remaining in the hands of the players shows how many circles the ball has made. If there are already too many such thread layers, then try to bring the story to an end (preferably a happy one) yourself. If you don’t get a happy ending, then promise your child to continue inventing stories about Pete next time, maybe he’ll have better luck with them. “Island of Childhood.” The use of the psychotherapeutic game “Island of Childhood” by Zinkevich-Evstigneeva T. and Kudzilova D. gives very good results; the work is carried out together with parents. These games can be used to work with fears in children of a certain age and level of development. So before using them, try to compare the requirements of a particular game with the individual characteristics of the child. “Collage”. Goal: response and transformation of fear. The child is asked to make a collage on the topic “My fear in the past, present and future.” The work uses sheets of whatman paper, old magazines of various subjects, glue, and paints. This technique can be used from 5 years of age. The task is performed according to the following scheme: viewing magazines, selecting pictures on the topic (15 min); cutting out the required shapes and pictures (15 min); placement of the cut out on the sheet, final approval of the layout, gluing (10-15 min); finalizing the collage - finishing drawings, adding notes, etc. (10 min); give the collage a name: “Aquatypia.” Goal: correction of anxiety, fears, self-acceptance, development of creative imagination. For work you need sheets of A3 paper, paints, glass plates measuring 10/10 cm, with safely turned edges. The child is invited to take the colors he likes, apply them to the glass and make prints, filling the entire space of the paper. At the second stage of working with black paint, you need to highlight the figures that the child’s imagination highlights in.