Group warm-up: Monkey in the Middle/the Split Therapist
The following is a practice routine suitable in groups of 3-8 participants. if you have more than 8 people practicing, it is best to divide up the group into smaller groups. Note that it doesn’t involve feedback, so it’s not Deliberate Practice, just a warm-up (and a lot of fun!)
What’s the practice for: this is a warm-up. It gets people doing (as opposed to talking about doing). it also breaks the ice and connects group members. It does not fulfil all the criteria for DP (no opportunities for feedback and repetition).
Level of difficulty: can be adjusted, depending on the skill criteria chosen and the speed of performance.
Deliberate Practice involves playfulness and discovery. Using games as a base for practice promotes this spirit and gets participants into the mood of challenge and discovery.
Instructions:
One member plays the patient, sitting in the middle.
All other members together are the therapist sitting in a circle around the patient.(*)
One at a time, the therapists respond to the client using the skill criteria.
Every time a therapist speaks, the client responds intuitively and the turn is given to the next therapist.
If a therapist fails to meet the skill criteria or repeats a response already used by a previous participant, that therapist becomes the patient in the middle, and the patient from the middle joins the therapist circle.
Example skill criteria: open-ended questions
Ask an open-ended question
Every question only asks one question
Something that the client can easily answer (not vague or complicated)
Example skill criteria: empathic reflection
Do not question, advise or reassure the client.
Accurately capture and reflect the core meaning or feeling behind the client’s statements.
Use a tentative, exploratory tone.
(*) If done online: when practising online it is impossible to go round in a circle. Instead, when a therapist finishes his response, he calls another therapist by name. The therapist named then waits for the patient to respond, answers him (within the skill criteria) and then calls upon another therapist in turn.
