Totika is a commercially available game developed for use in therapy. It’s a stacking tower game like Jenga, however the blocks are coloured and it’s played with a pack of cards with questions corresponding to the colour of the block moved. It’s the commercial therapy game that I play most often in sessions with children, though I’m frequently not playing it in the standard way. I’m happy to share with you some of the different ways I play Totika.
Totika was developed to play with a set of cards with questions designed to generate therapeutic conversations. Different card sets can be purchased with the game covering, for example, icebreakers, self-esteem, life-skills, principles and values, and more. When questions are posed via a game card and in the context of a fun game, it is generally experienced by children as less intrusive or threatening than an interview style question and answer session with a therapist. This allows them to more easily engage in the conversations so it’s a great way to explore a broad range of topics with children. When playing using the Totika card sets, it’s important to choose a card set that fits well for the child you are working with as well as their therapy goals. Developmentally, the questions tend to suit older children and adolescents, not younger clients.
I often use the Totika blocks with my other card sets, which allows me to tailor the content and style of the cards to the child and family that I’m working with. Depending on the child and the areas that I think would be helpful to explore, I might use simple feelings cards, sentence completion cards, or other conversation starter cards with pictures or words. I’m lucky to have many commercial packs to choose from now, though in the past I also printed some off the internet. Sometimes I’ll play Totika by linking the four different coloured blocks to different packs of cards, giving the child some choice of the card pack they are picking up from through their choice of colour. Or I may link some colours to cards and not others, allowing the child to regulate how often they are responding to cards and how quickly the game moves. One of my favourite card sets to use is Treisman’s (2017) “A Therapeutic Treasure Deck of Sentence Completion and Feelings Cards”. The deck can be split into the two different types of cards that are clearly labelled on the back as either “feelings” or “sentence completion”. I would often link a colour to each of those card types and take a break from cards for the other two colours.
I also find Totika to be a great game to play without any cards. The different coloured blocks provide an opportunity to get creative and tailor the game to the child and family you are seeing and their needs. For example, I might suggest that we allocate an emotion for each of the four colours, often happy, sad, angry and worried. When we then remove that colour block, we could share a time we felt that emotion, or we could share something we notice in our body when we feel that emotion. Alternatively, for some children it might be helpful to practice noticing or grounding skills. The four colours could be allocated to noticing for example, two things we can see, two sounds we can hear, two breaths, and two parts of our body (eg., by moving those parts and noticing how they feel). There are many different options for changing the game to best fit with the child and family you are working with, and children often enjoy being involved in creating the game.
Regardless of the way you choose to play Totika, it’s a fun game that is easy to play while talking and can elicit many different emotions. For example, anxiety while removing a block from a wobbly tower, or frustration, shock or excitement as the tower crashes. This provides an opportunity to respond to the child or therapist’s feelings, thoughts or behavioural responses as they occur. Like with all board games, it’s always helpful to tune in to the process while you play and observe the child’s responses. Game play provides a great context for this therapeutic work, and is a comfortable and appealing activity for children.
For more ideas about using board and card games therapeutically with children, check out our short online course on this. You’ll find all the details here.
Dr Suzanne Barrett
Clinical Psychologist
References:
- Jenga designed by Leslie Scott (1983)
- Totika published by Talicor/Aristoplay (2006)
- A Therapeutic Treasure Deck of Sentence Completion and Feelings Cards by Karen Treisman, published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers (2017)
To make sure you don’t miss out on our blog posts and free resources subscribe below.
Our shared resources and posts are aimed at providing ideas for qualified professionals and are not a substitute for appropriate training and ongoing supervision.