The Islands of Personality

intervention themes assessment, engagement, feelings expression, self esteem, rapport building estimated time needed for activity approximately 30 minutes recommended age range 8 and up materials needed a variety of mediums can be used such as paper/pencil/markers/crayons, lego bricks and baseplate, play doh, sandtray and miniatures, video games such as minecraft, google jamboard, the whiteboard feature in zoom preparation optional the clinician may choose to play a clip from the movie "inside out" which shows the scene in which the islands of personality is being explained by a character this movie scene clip can be readily found on youtube by searching "inside out islands of personality " handout therapeutic goals facilitate rapport building identify personal strengths identify client's social support systems engage client in a therapeutic activity to allow for the safe expression of thoughts and feelings description in the movie, inside out, the islands of personality make up someone's personality and are created when a core memory is formed in the movie, we get to see riley’s islands which are the different aspects of her personality that define her as a person (goofball island, hockey island, friendship island, etc ) we can ask the client to explore aspects of their personality and how those qualities and strengths help them through challenges they should have at least 3 personality islands and they should have at least one representing important people in their lives, one representing important hobbies, one representing strengths the client can create as many islands and use any medium such as lego/baseplate, drawing, creating a digital piece of art, etc discussion special considerations this intervention can be done on google jamboard (free tool) which can serve as a digital collage if the client does not have access to other supplies if the client has a difficult time identifying their strengths, the clinician may utilize the cross cultural common language of strengths know as the character strengths information along with the free strengths assessment tool and digital handouts of these strengths can be found at https //viacharacter org/ processing questions ask the client to share each of their islands when the client is discussing their hobby island and family/friends island, this is a great opportunity for the clinician to learn more about the client's interests and family and social relationships ask the client to share a core memory and/or a feeling associated with each island when the client shares their island representing a strength, ask them how they have used that strength that day/week/month for strengths based work, challenge your client to use their strength in a new way everyday that week this can be an opportunity to come up with creative ways to use a strength such as kindness, for example, in new ways that week about the creator, sophia ansari, lpcc, rpt sophia ansari, lpcc, rpt, is a licensed professional clinical counselor, registered play therapist, author, educator, and owner of let’s play therapy institute she provides workshops on play therapy to mental health professionals and educates caregivers and teachers on the importance of play as it relates to development and learning in the school setting she is a passionate research trainer who has bridged her knowledge of neuroscience and creative therapies to provide in depth and highly experiential trainings all over the world sophia co hosts hero nation, a podcast on the geek therapy network, which celebrates diversity in the media and explores how to use geek culture in therapy sophia earned her bachelor of science degree in biology from wright state university and her master of arts in mental health counseling from the university of cincinnati for more information on let’s play therapy institute visit, https //letsplaytherapy org contact sophia\@letsplaytherapy org