PIÑATA PROTOCOL

RECOMENDED FOR LARGE GROUPS
TO BE PRECEDED BY THE BASIC PROTOCOL

The therapist (or mental health professional) shows a large paper bag and asks the children: Do you know what a piñata is? After the positive answer, he/she adds:

You are going to fill up this piñata with all the things you want, so that they disappear and go away

(Gestalt/NLP). If the children are not familiar with piñatas, we explain.

The members of the Emotional Protection Team (EPT) hand out little pieces of colored paper to the children. The therapist asks them what colors they are, and the children respond: red, green, blue. The therapist tells them to think up something that scares them, or makes them sad, angry or uneasy (EMDR: Target). He/she asks them to take it from their heads to their hands and to the paper (Gestalt/NLP).

The therapist goes to each of the children and asks them what they are putting in the bag. Some of the answers may be: a monster, a crocodile, a tiger, a lion, a snake (dreams or fantasies of threatening animals are common in children who have been through a highly traumatic experience).

When all the children have put their pieces of paper in the piñata (bag), the therapist tells them it has become very heavy and he/she walks around pretending to be carrying a heavy load (Gestalt/NLP).

The therapist begins to sing, followed by the children: "Dale, dale, dale, no pierdas el tino" (a very well known song in Latin America, which accompanies the breaking of a piñata and means approximately: "Hit it, hit it, hit it, don’t lose your good aim". It is an encouraging song).

Meanwhile, the therapist and the EPT teaches them to tap their knees and they follow his/her example while they sing (EMDR: bilateral stimulation).

At the end the piñata is destroyed, burned or buried (Gestalt/NLP: the aim is to symbolize the disappearance of what has been placed in the piñata)