More about KEG cards, keys to emotional growth
from
eleanav@research.haifa.ac.il
Recently there has been a big demand for brief term psychotherapy, using helpful and efficient methods. Short term Psychotherapy, often based on the principles of CBT (cognitive behavior therapy) has been a popular method which has proved to be efficient. Keg Cards have been created both for CBT (cognitive behavior therapy) and to integrate other brief term therapies such as TA (transactional analysis), gestalt, mindfulness, narrative therapy and others. It is a practical toolkit for achieving awareness and enhancing emotional well-being.
The pictures were painted as a result of stories and dreams told by clients while camouflaging any and all details that might give a clue as to the identity of the person. They represent, symbolize and demonstrate various situations, events and occurrences which help the psychotherapist and the client to understand the clients' feelings and the motivations for their behavior, while the individual is taught to use his/her own ability to make a change for the better in his life. The clients learned to take responsibility for their life and relationships and often moves from a fixed mind-set to a growth mind-set, learning that he can grow and develop when he tries and exerts himself, and will benefit from the effort and process.
Many times clients choose pictures that are then interwoven into complicated narratives symbolizing their life events, demonstrating the embedded beliefs ingrained in him, such as not "worthy or lovable", self-beliefs regarding lack of "abilities and value". With the help of the pictures that the clients choose, and the narratives they create and reconstruct, they are able to imagine and practice activities in their mind and to visualize successes and activities, facing their anxieties and fears and overcoming them. They also create personalized affirmations and repeat them to themselves, often while looking in the mirror, tapping relevant chakra points and internalizing positive thinking patterns.
The clients learn and practice with the help of imagination and visualization, that having courage means that we can do something even though it makes us feel anxious. They practice going outside their comfort zone and practice the power of their mind to create the life they want and imagine. With practice and experimenting with the process of narrating events and role-playing them, the client is able to accept his anxieties and fears and change them into positive motivations. At the beginning of the process they often feel anxiety, but when questioned, understand and realise that in reality they are actually safe, and then learn to be relieved, practice feeling calm and secure. Often in the beginning, they shrink their world because they avoid things or people, or doing things that they are afraid of, when in reality the danger exists only in their memory or imagination.
Many clients at the beginning of the process create rigid narratives, reporting being in stressful relationships, feeling depressed because the world and their lives do not go the way they think it should. They want a relationship in a certain way, but it is not according to the narrative that they created. By choosing pictures, creating and analyzing their narratives and role-playing the different possibilities, in a safe, non-threatening environment and with a witness in a therapeutic relationship, individuals learn to think differently and to change a rigid idea, a fixed vision of how they think things should be, and to accept the idea and the fact that the world and the people in it, especially those in their lives, are not exactly how they want them to be. They learn and practice how to cultivate acceptance and resilience.
I think that people can help themselves to reach their subconscious, to understand the feelings which make them act, and find a solution by themselves. This is the reason I wrote this book, which explains my integrative method of therapy. Moreover, there is no doubt about it that a professional can help a client get to the root of his problems, and treat even additional problems the client wasn't aware of.
The method of working with KEG Cards.
1. The client chooses one of the pictures or a series of them, which represent the problem or issue which brought him to therapy. If a couple comes to therapy, or more than two people together, everybody chooses the pictures which display his problem according to his point of view. (The time of this choice is also relevant. Perhaps in the next session he will choose other pictures to represent the same problem).
2. The picture is a "point of departure" for the session, and can lead to a "never-ending-story" of love, abandonment, adventure, betrayal and whatever else we usually find in legends and folktales, love stories and war stories. Truth is stranger than fiction.
3. The client answers a few questions relevant to the picture. For instance:” Who are the people in the picture? Where are they now?” What are they doing? How are they feeling? Where would they like to be in the future? What do they have to do in order to get there? What hinders them getting to the place they would like to reach? On the back of the pictures there are questions and the client can choose what to concentrate on.
4. Therapy is planned according to the pictures the client has chosen and the questions he/she wants to answer and the questions he/she definitely does not want to answer. Also vital are the goals that the client wants to achieve in his therapy sessions.