People section of figures, Box 27, taken from the Lowenfeld's 'World Technique' therapy collection. Consists of 4 babies, one with yellow residue, one with white top, one sitting (plastic), 5 Scottish military men, 3 with bagpipes, 1 with shield, 1 with rifle (metal); 4 knights in suits of armour, one with viser closed (metal), 3 military matching band, 1 flute player, 2 cymbal players (metal), 8 female nurses, 2 kneeling, 2 heads missing (metal), 4 Native Americans (plastic), 28 seated figures, various sizes and materials, all missing seats, 4 farm workers, 3 male, 1 female (metal), 4 male shepherds, all holding sheep (plastic), 2 male cowboys, plastic and metal, one with wipe, one with gun, 12 male figures with implements, sticks, spades, wipes, etc. Various materials, sizes and professions, 1 male beefeater (metal), 3 male figures, oriental military, with red dots on chest (metal), 3 Inuit, one with only half a body (metal), 4 male figures in white smocks (metal), 3 male figures in black clothing (metal), 5 male figures in green clothing, 13 male figures in brown clothing, various, 4 male figures in grey clothing (metal), male figures in red/orange, various, 2 male military figures in red jackets, feathers in hats, 4 military male figures with hats, 18 male figures in blue clothing, 2 male figures in period clothing - civil war (?), metal, 4 male figures in white clothing (metal), 6 small figures, various metal and plastic, 5 object parts, plastic and metal, 2 heads, 2 feet and 1 helmet, 3 male figure, headless (metal), 1 male figure, seated playing accordion (metal), 1 male figure robed in blue and white (metal), 1 male figure, doctor (metal), 1 figure in brown clothing, graduate (metal), 1 figure, black, scuba diver (plastic), 15 fairytale characters, snow-white, 10 dwarves, Little Red Riding Hood, queen, wolf in ladies cloths, pig in blue dungarees (metal), 1 ceramic wolf in ladies clothing, 1 lolly pop lady (plastic), 3 female figures dressed in cream and brown - 1920s style (?), 6 female figure, all with items on heads - scarves, hats, (metal), 1 female figure crying (metal), 1 female figure in suit, mainly white with small amount of blue colour visible (plastic), 4 female figures, crouching (metal), 4 female figures, various, smaller sizes (metal) and 25 small stylised figures (wood).

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.