People section of figures, Box 25, taken from the Lowenfeld's 'World Technique' therapy collection. Consists of 7 policemen (metal), 3 men on stilts (metal), 2 royal guards with trumpet (metal), 4 clowns (metal), 2 men with stick over shoulder carrying bags (metal), 2 men with white apron and drumsticks, one headless (metal), 2 men with stick over head, green other brown (metal), 2 seated male figure (metal), 2 naked babies (plastic), 2 female figures in large, long dresses (metal), 3 seated female figures (metal), 3 cylindrical figures – 2 female, 1 male (wooden), 3 seated girls in pink (plastic), 9 ballet dancers, 1 male, 8 female, various materials & conditions, 7 figures made of string, two are in a pair, 8 female figures, various (metal), 15 male figures, various (metal), 2 Roman male figures with spears, 1 ‘Barbie’ style female figure with articulated arms, 1 male figure, grey suit, arms extended (metal), 1 female figure with basket and umbrella, right arm articulates (metal), 1 male figure with top hat and green trousers, right arm articulates (metal), 1 male and female figure straddled over a horse, but horse is missing, 1 Santa figure (metal), 1 Native American, arms extended (plastic), 1 postman (metal), 1 stylised figure with arms and legs that are articulated (metal), 2 flat wooden blocks with painted surfaces, one princess and one unknown, 1 unpainted figure with arms extended upwards (wooden), 1 angel figure with a blue dress (wooden), 1 beefeater figure (wooden), 2 scarecrows (plastic/metal), 1 seated Inuit (plaster), leg (plastic) and 7 military men, various roles (metal).

What do toys have to do with trauma? In the years before the Second World War, Margaret Lowenfeld, a child psychiatrist in London, was looking for ways to help children express fears, anger, and family problems that they couldn’t say in words. At her clinic, she began experimenting with the use of small toys in a sand-box and gradually developed an approach she called ‘the World Technique’. This involved a large rectangular tray, sand and water for building a landscape, pieces of plasticine, and an extensive ‘library’ of miniature figures kept in dozens of drawers. Lowenfeld simply asked children to create a world, and observed what happened.

Her idea had parallels to Sigmund Freud’s theories of hysteria – where repressing traumatic memories could lead to psychological and physical symptoms. But Lowenfeld never regarded herself as a psychoanalyst. She always said her chief influences were the children she worked with and the novelist H.G. Wells. She attributed the idea behind the World Technique to a small book, published in 1911, in which Wells described how he had encouraged his two sons to construct elaborate ‘floor games’ out of miniature figures, such as toy soldiers and building blocks.

Other therapists carried on Lowenfeld’s methods in various ways. In the 1950s and 1960s, one psychoanalyst adapted the World Technique in order to encourage children and adults to develop their ‘inner selves’ in a safe, non-judgmental space. This approach became very popular among American psychotherapists under the name ‘Sandplay’. Later, in the 1960s, psychologists in Sweden standardised the World Technique into the ‘Erica Method’, which uses a set of 360 toys in various categories. The Erica Method has recently been used to study post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in Iranian refugee children in Sweden.