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Jeni Goodfellow-Pemsel, dramatherapist, writes:

I have been using your Communicube for two years now. I came to an initial training session in Manchester which inspired me greatly. I work predominantly with adolescents in a further education college and with primary school children. I have found the structure that the Communicube offers, allows clients to work at their own chosen level of distance. It has been invaluable, particularly in working with students who have come to me with depression. A lot of the students are from wealthy backgrounds and are confused as to why they are experiencing such levels of despair, when their lives have been, at least on a surface level, quite privileged. The Communicube is an excellent structure for holding safe the parts of students ' histories they feel good about, while we explore other layers of possible dysfunction and distress, that they may have internalised. I notice that the structure takes on a life of its own and that I become a witness, with the client, to an evolving process that is a revelation. The three dimensional
quality of the structure means that aspects of issues can become apparent from a multitude of angles. This is invaluable with young people as they are often stuck in seeing situations from one angle only, limiting themselves to polarities of responses and possibilities. We can also look at time in a way that is not just linear, so that for the young person who has been told that there is only one possibility for their future, i.e. a successful academic career, we can explore their past dreams and other future possibilities in a playful and creative way.

The Communicube in Psychotherapy, Training and Supervision -
                                        Judi Ledwood, Integrative Psychotherapist and Trainer, writes:

I have used the communicube with a training group to illustrate the concept of "depth psychotherapy." The group used the structure and various pieces to both demonstrate how they see themselves within the training group, and to define what they mean by depth work in psychotherapy. We looked at levels of work with clients, beginning with the assessment phase and working through to deeper and deeper levels, including the transpersonal. The communicube was extremely helpful and a "living" illustration of the processes involved in working with clients over time. It remained in the room for the duration of the training module, and students could see the development of ideas and approaches, adding pieces over the two days as their understanding grew of the concepts we were exploring.

I also use the pieces regularly within a 50-minute session to invite clients to experiment experientially, maybe asking them to simply choose 5 or 6 pieces without thinking and arrange them in whatever way they feel the impulse to do, then talk about what they have created. I often begin by inviting the client to choose some pieces (buttons and other items) and make a pattern on a piece of paper and then, in the course of the work, move them onto the communicube.

This works well with supervisees, too, when they feel stuck with clients, as a means of understanding what is happening in the therapeutic relationship or within themselves, in a direct way. I think that clients and supervisees have access to unconscious processes more easily through this indirect way of exploring. We may then proceed to using the communicube to look at different levels of self, relationships or processes.

I recently used it with a client who was about to go away with a group of friends for the first time and was anxious about how he would relate to so many people. We were able to identify one person in the group whom he feared, and to connect this fear to an earlier, teenage relationship that had gone badly and had influenced his sense of himself with peers. The client saw in the piece he had chosen to represent this friend the overlay of the earlier relationship and was able to choose another piece that he felt more represented the current friend and with which he felt more comfortable. Interestingly, he saw the new piece as fitting better into the whole group as represented on the cube. In fact, he felt better about the whole group and going away with them, as the new piece was put into place.

23 July 2006

WORKING WITH PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN IN FRANCE -
                                        Debra Kaatz, a dramatherapist who works with the children of a primary
school in the South of France.

"I have so far used it individually with each child. The school has 20 children ages 4-12 with one teacher and an assistant. Using the Communiwell, each child has created a completely different world. When I have used it in pairs with several children who have some difficulties with each other or with concentration, the enjoyment has over come those difficulties. It is like a modern sand tray. My collection of bits include different shaped buttons, many precious stones, figures, bits of cloth, feathers, buddhas, cars, insects, monsters, dragons, strings and other bits and pieces. Sometimes the children add their favourite bits they bring themselves. I often get the children to continue the stories on paper. Some draw small islands and connect them, other draw circles within circles and some have made pyramids. Rather than a flat world it inspires drawing in three dimensions."

30th May 2005

WORKING WITH THE COMMUNICUBE -
                                        Di Adderley, psychodramatist, sociodramatist, playback theatre director

Di Adderley, a psychodrama psychotherapist, reports on her work using the structure without any buttons: she provides a vivid case example from her practice and shares her own experience of the power of the Communicube, even without buttons, as a container for projected images.

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VARIED USE OF THE COMMUNICUBE -
                                        Margaret Rosemary, gestalt psychotherapist

Margaret Rosemary, a gestalt psychotherapist, reports on her varied use of the Communicube: she has been using the structure in individual and group therapy with adults and children.

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COMMUNICUBE WITH COUPLES IN THERAPY-
                                        Maurice Tomkinson, psychosynthesis psychotherapist

I had an interesting example of a couple using it where they gave the top and bottom levels diametrically opposite meanings - suggesting that some of their problems came from viewing the world in opposite ways. One partner put themselves on the bottom shelf, and all their problem issues on the top.

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For further information on Maurice's use of the structure visit: http://www.counsellingincheshire.co.uk/pages/HSCGroups.htm

THE USE OF COMMUNICUBE IN TEAM BUILDING -
                                        Dr John Casson

"I found myself one day with a team whose members were utterly demoralised, angry, miserable, hopeless and alienated from senior managers whose policies and style of management they found destructive. They started the day with a depressing recitation of awfulness. "

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