ME-and

Mvself
self=
discovery
by j z p a w
Experiments are usually presented to the public
when the work has been done, the results evaluated,
the conclusions carefully drawn. “Apex” offers an
experiment in the making. It may have been tried
elsewhere, though we have never heard of it. We
shall report what happens, and we should be glad to
hear from anyone else who has tried a similar sort of
thing, who might like to try this one in parallel with
us, or who simply has views.
The object was to use play to help in developing
the awareness of self and of the body image, and it
was thought that a jigsaw might be made from the
photograph of a child.
A well-known mannikin is available that can be
assembled and dressed: it is useful, but it remains
vague and unreal in terms of the self.
A photograph was produced, therefore, of a child
standing up with arms and legs slightly splayed. This
was mounted on cardboard so that it could be divided
as required to become the “myself jigsaw”. The
division can be made very simple, or quite com-
plicated.
At the simplest, just one body part can be detach-
able. Later, hair, eyes, nose, mouth, arm, hand,
chest, tummy, leg, knee and foot, can all become
separate pieces of the jigsaw.
Many games are possible - naming body parts,
articles of clothing, what’s missing, what’s wrong.
In playing with this there will develop - one hopes
- an awareness of the essential body image, the
relationship of parts of the body to each other and a
considerable amount of useful language with an easy
relationship to such self-help skills as dressing and
washing. We thought, too, that playing with the
jigsaw in front of a large wall mirror would help to
create an identification of oneself with the puzzle.
We started with 35mm negatives - three were used
to cover the whole body - which were enlarged to a
little more than body size and then mounted on card.
This size was chosen to give the maximum ease of
comprehension. On the other hand, it may be
unwieldy for a child sitting on the floor. First results
suggest that it is manageable, but we shall see.