Instrumental support for increasing personal resilience against destructive manipulations

Abstract

The article confirms the possibility of metaphorical description by clients of options for manipulating their behavior that are significant to them. It has been shown that Sandplay Therapy can be used to successfully design and rehearse the desired forms of behavior and form associated sensory standards for subsequent ideomotor training. Evidence is presented of the validity of an assumption that the very elements of such materialized displays of the existing orientation schemes and their photographs support to quickly assess the intensity of the emotional experiences accompanying such modeling and the physiological processes associated with them. It has been established that cardiac measurements followed by calculation of the stress index of the various components of the autonomic nervous system make it possible to assess the level of stress caused by the client’s imagination of a problematic situation for him/her, where he/ she is facing a traumatic manipulation. It is noted that measurements of changes in galvanic skin reactions also allows judging the intensity of experiences that accompany the rebuilding of the associative connection of the depicted items with those manifestations of manipulation of which it is a metaphorical representation. Another assumption has also been confirmed that Sandplay Therapy can be used to effectively prevent some undesired manipulative influences on the client’s personality. At the same time, in addition to establishing the effectiveness of therapeutic procedures, cardiometric measurements and recording of electrodermal activity for the client himself/herself serve as a kind of bio-feedback. Using the latter, the client gets an opportunity to assess how much the response to metaphorical representations of manipulative influences corresponds to how exactly he/she would like to act if they are detected.