Human Modelling

Human modelling is a kind of psychotherapy in which the client is asked to "make a person," a fictional character with human, lifelike qualities, then write or tell a life story ending in the present about that person, and may make a model of the person from art materials or another medium of the client's choosing. This "modelled person" is treated as if a real person with a real life, in a transitional sense drawn from Donald Winnicott's work, creating a therapeutic realm in which the client's subjective experience is brought forward as a metaphor that therapist and client can explore together, including the modelled person's life, character and conflicts; the indirect, third-person, metaphoric conduct of the therapy appears to enhance its therapeutic effect and the level of integration achieved, and references to the similarities between client and modelled person are not encouraged. Human modelling was created in 1969 by A. L. Coetzee and his spouse Letitia Wilma Coetzee while he was lecturer and head psychologist at Weskoppies Hospital in Pretoria, South Africa, and is also used successfully as a group therapy in both hospital and other populations; it is currently registered as a continued professional development activity at the Health Professions Council of South Africa.