Puzzles, Perspectives, and Psychotherapy
This Summer I was lucky enough to vacation at my parent’s beautiful cottage on Georgian Bay. During this time, I spent some quality time with my mom and kids putting puzzles together. My ADHD brain sometimes works in strange ways. Doing these puzzles provided me with “AHA” moments and new perspectives to use in my Psychotherapy practice in Toronto. I learned something inspiring to help me work with my ADHD and neurotypical clients.
When I did a bit of research into my experience with puzzles, it seems that there may be scientific reasons why I had this experience. Puzzles stimulate both the right and left hemispheres of the brain, thereby marrying our logical and analytical side with our creative “big picture” intuitive side. Engaging in activities that use both sides of our brain help us to connect our right and left side of the brain as well as make connections between our individual brain cells. Further, exercising both sides of the brain helps our brain move from “beta state”, wakeful mind to “alpha state”, dreaming mind. Jigsaws help to induce a meditative-like state where connections can be made on deeper levels. Hence my “AHA” moment!!!!
So, by now, you are probably thinking, “get to the point Jennifer, what did you learn?”. Well, I guess I made some connections at a deeper level. What exactly is the connection? Well, when I tried to do my puzzle from one perspective looking at the picture face on, I often got stuck. I would try to find the pieces for the puzzle repeatedly, but I couldn’t find any pieces. It felt like there were pieces missing and I couldn’t complete the puzzle. I came to an end where I could not find any more pieces to fill in. But then something magical happened!!! I moved around the puzzle and started to look at it “upside down” and “sideways”, suddenly, I was able to fill in many pieces of the puzzle at once. Why? Because instead of repeatedly looking at the puzzle from the same perspective, I stepped out of my standard way of looking at things. I looked at the problem upside down and sideways and found a new way of solving the puzzle from a different perspective that worked with my brain. I felt my brain light up – when I realized this.
From this experience, I started to think about how I could apply this learning to help me in my practice to be the best psychotherapist I could be for my clients. Psychotherapists help clients develop new perspectives and help client’s make new neural connections. When you get stuck in your life, you are often stuck because you are looking at things in the same way and trying to solve them using approaches that don’t fit the situation. Sometimes getting the help of an experienced psychotherapist in Toronto can help you make new and deeper connections. Psychotherapy can help you to make a change in your life and get past being “stuck” in your old “wiring”.
For more information about ADHD help, counseling or any related area, contact me today.
Source: https://www.learningsuccessblog.com/adhd-iceberg-infograph “The Healing Power of Jigsaw Puzzles”: www:jigsawjungle.com