Opening the “Magic Box”
By: Hannah Rose Maté
Tags: Drama Therapy, Global Mental Health, Expressive Art Therapy, Youth, Resilience

The image of a “magic box,” inspired by a drama therapy technique, is guiding us to the finish line of the class, and beyond…

It’s almost hard to believe we’re at this point in the semester, with our projects coming to life, final presentations about to take place, and some of us moving forward in collaboration with our partner organizations. Global Child and Adolescent Mental Health was my very first class of the semester (and of the program) back in August, and I didn’t know what to expect. I remember the feeling of excitement and awe while initially reading through the syllabus. I was seriously impressed by the task of the course, the intended real-world impact, and the caliber of speakers. As I shared with my teammates yesterday, I also remember feeling daunted by the project, insecure about if I’d have anything meaningful and tangible to offer an NGO, and nervous about working with a group of people I’d never met before.

Nearly four months later, I feel so proud of our team, appreciative of our heart-full collaboration with our partner organization, 7 Passes Initiative, and delighted at the prospect of continuing the project beyond the scope of this class. In this last stretch, team six is busy compiling the materials for our deliverables and preparing for the draft and final presentations. To help frame our presentation in a creative way, we’re drawing from a drama therapy technique called “Magic Box,” which is a strengths-based resourcing tool included in our lexicon of activities. I facilitated Magic Box with my teammates and then again with the 7 Passes team in our last meeting. The activity is a visualization exercise wherein participants are guided to imagine they have a magic box in front of them, completely by their own design, and only visible to them. Participants then imagine opening the box, and inside there are three compartments:

A place to help carry the load of an ongoing challenge (not to get rid of the challenge, but to support in holding the stress of it — participants can also access, potentially, a somatic feeling of a weight being lifted through this experience). A place from which to take out their hopes and wishes for something they’d like to see actualized in their lives (perhaps represented in some way by an object they can imagine taking out of the box) A secret compartment with an object or tool to help them realize their hope/wish/intention, which represents an innate strength or resource the person already possesses. Participants are guided to imagine putting the object in their pocket to take with them to help address the challenge moving forward.

Lastly, participants are guided to close the box and are reminded that they always have access to it when they need a little extra help to feel support, connect with their purpose, and remember their inner strengths and resources. Following the exercise, there is an opportunity for participants to share their experiences and about the contents of their Magic Box — if they feel called to.

For the purposes of facilitating this with the 7 Passes team, I invited them to imagine their Magic Boxes within the context of their work at 7 Passes, and we had a generative discussion about their experiences of this following the visualization. Inspired by what the 7 Passes team shared, as well as based on their asks in the initial briefs, and as well from all our discussions this semester, we plan to present our project through a mythical story using the Magic Box as a metaphor to share their expressed challenges, our collaborative hopes/vision, as well as their innate strengths combined with the supports we bring to the process.

The reading by Hadfield et al. (2018) emphasizes the importance of adapting research (on resilience in refugee youth) to the appropriate cultural context. One of the examples they offer, for a South African context, is translating a Likert rating scale to bottles full of sand as a visual representation. This creative idea prompts me to wonder if something like the Magic Box Technique could be used not just as a resourcing tool, but could possibly be adapted for use as a qualitative assessment tool measuring resilience. I’m also reminded of the paper by Cohen and Yaldin (2018) who discussed the importance of young refugees being able to share their story (and through creative, play-based means) in healing trauma. It’s my hope that activities like “Magic Box” can serve for the youth of 7 Passes as an opportunity to share their experiences and feelings while connecting to inner resilience, through a contained and held framework.

References

Cohen, A., & Yadlin, Y. (2018). Time and memory in the therapeutic journey with unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Journal of Child Psychotherapy 44(3), 348–367 https://doi.org/10.1080/0075417X.2018.1556315

Hadfield, K., Ungar, M., Emond, A., Foster, K., Gatt, J., Mason-Jones, A., Reid, S., Theron, L., Wouldes, T., & Wu, Q. (2018). Challenges of developing and conducting an international study of resilience in migrant adolescents. International Social Work. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020872818796147