Stacking Dolls
Stacking Dolls
As an integrative counsellor, I pull from different theories and approaches to help clients look at their situation from all sorts of angles. One tool I use is a set of stacking dolls — a newer take on traditional Russian dolls.
I use them to explore how early childhood experiences, usually represented by the smallest doll, still shape us as adults. The client leads the process, deciding what age each doll represents. This gives them a creative, tangible way to unpack emotions or behaviours that feel disconnected or hard to put into words — and a real sense of ownership over what we uncover.
I've used this approach with clients working through things they can't quite trace the root of: low self-esteem, repeating the same reactions, or falling into familiar patterns — being drawn to people who aren't emotionally available, feeling unheard, needing to stay in control.
We start with the smallest doll and I ask the client to tell me about life when they were very young. Some remember those years vividly; others only have feelings, no clear memories. From there we move to the next doll — often around primary school age, though the client decides. Memories tend to be sharper here, and small details that wouldn't seem significant to an adult often surface. At that age, though, small things can leave a big mark — and clients are often surprised to realise there's a reason something so "minor" has stayed with them.
Without exception, clients find that making these connections brings them closer to understanding why they behave the way they do. Talking about the past is one thing; seeing it laid out, doll by doll, in a way that's meaningful to them, is what makes it click.
Often clients spot the pattern themselves. But I find that reflecting back what I've heard — naming the connection between then and now — is where the real impact lands. Hearing it said aloud seems to make it undeniable. It's striking how something as small and ordinary as a childhood moment can carry so much weight, especially when a child doesn't yet have the tools to process it. Helping clients trace that thread from an early experience to a present-day pattern often surfaces something they'd never quite put together before — and voicing it out loud is usually the real turning point.
By the third doll, things tend to crystallise. The client has moved through the stages of their life and now has a clearer sense of how their past is shaping their present. It's a moment of clarity — sometimes even relief — in finally understanding the "why" behind a pattern.
The last doll represents them now.
Nesting each smaller doll inside the larger one, while reflecting on what each stage meant, helps clients see how those past experiences are still part of them — carried forward, consciously or not, into who they are today. It's a visual reminder that every layer, every experience, has contributed to their growth — and that while the past shaped them, it doesn't have to define what comes next.
This is often where the real shift happens: clients realise they're not to blame for how their past has affected them. Understanding that certain patterns came from circumstances outside their control — rather than some flaw in themselves — can be enormously healing. It helps them move from self-criticism to self-compassion, separating who they are now from the experiences that shaped their reactions.
I've used these dolls in my own therapy, and they helped me the same way. That's part of why I believe in this tool so strongly — and I think that conviction comes through in the room.
This is what I love about my job: believing in the tools I use, and seeing the difference they make for the people I work with. As an integrative counsellor, I pull from different theories and approaches to help my clients look at their situation from all sorts of angles and perspectives.
