A useful tool/ metaphor
One of my clients prompted the development of this tool when she told me that when she returned home to her abusive husband, she would don a metaphorical cloak as she walked through the door.
I have a Babushka doll that I use to represent the client, and I have made a black cloak for the doll.
I lift off the outer doll to reveal an inner doll and explain that we sometimes use survival strategies that are true to our inner selves and that we feel proud of.
I then talk about how the black cloak represents the survival strategies we may have used that we are not proud of. I discuss that we may have had no other option at the time, as this was the only way we could see to stay safe. I further extend the metaphor to say that the survival strategies represented by the cloak do not become part of our inner selves and that the "cloak" can be donned as needed, worn for as long as required, and removed at any time when we are feeling safer.
We then discuss how the use of all strategies needs to be honoured.
Another tool to extend this discussion
It is useful to explore the strategies used in relation to the different types of abuse, and I developed this tool to use in one of the sessions of a Women's Support Group I was facilitating.
Here is the table I developed to summarise the women's ideas, but it could be also used effectively with individual clients.
Applying this to the workplace
Can you see ways of modifying these tools to use in relation to work pressures and stress as well as bullying in the workplace?
P.S. It is not a good idea to pull apart and wash a Babushka doll, as the wood swells and then the dolls can't be put back together again!
This will be a useful tool.
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