We started with celebration — figures, a scene, a story for a woman turning fifty. We ended somewhere none of us expected. This is how play becomes meaning.

You don't need to be in therapy to use this. All you need is a few objects — figures, stones, a small toy, anything that fits in your hand. Try this when you're carrying something you can't name.

When someone picks up a small figure and places it on a surface, something shifts. The story is no longer held inside — it's out there, and suddenly it can be looked at, moved, questioned.

Systemic coaching looks at the whole field: the relationships, dynamics, history and context that shape a situation. Objects let you build that field on a table and actually see it.

The moment a client stops describing their situation and starts building it — that's the moment something real becomes possible. Here's how I came to use miniature figures in my therapeutic practice.