The winner of this year’s Kids Design Award developed a set of toys that’s meant for more than just fun. Alma – Therapy Dolls, designed by Yaara Nusboim, are a set of abstract dolls made from maplewood and flexible polyurethane for use during play therapy, a psychoanalytic method often used with children.
Overall, the maplewood base is meant to convey “a feeling of warmth, tranquility, safety, as well as providing a pleasant and smooth surface to the touch,” says Nusboim. “Through their shape and texture, the flexible materials represent the child’s inner urges. Additionally, the combination of the two main materials is designed to represent a balance between positive and negative experiences.”
Play therapy has been around for some time now. According to theAmerican Counseling Association, the first recorded use of play in therapy occurred in 1905 when Sigmund Freud worked with a boy he called “Little Hans,” who had developed a phobia of horses. Freud’s student, Melanie Klein, introduced her own play therapy methods for children in the 1930s, and hypothesized that it was the vehicle through which to bring the unconscious to the conscious. “This method suggests that children are capable of healing themselves—they just need the right conditions for it,” says Nusboim.Nusboim hopes that the product will soon be on the market and “that it can really help and be effective [for] children around the world.” As of now, the toys have secured accolades for connecting kids with a much smaller world—their own.
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