Practicing Cognitive Flexibility with Drawing

In our blog post on Intro to Play Therapy, we explored how play can provide a safe vehicle to explore deeper topics and to communicate our emotions.

Play therapy doesn't just apply to children, and can also inspire some more engaging and fun activities in the therapy space. Today, we'll explore a way to practice cognitive flexibility through drawing.

First, we're going to explore what skills you'd like to practice to regulate distress. Maybe it's square breathing, lying down, incorporating some movement, saying affirmations, or squeezing a stress ball.

Then, we're going to create a list of unexpected changes. You might do this on an online randomized wheel or just write some down on scraps of paper and toss them into a bowl. Some examples include:

• Turn the paper upside down

• Rip a piece of the paper off

• Change colors

• Close one eye

• Add a person

• Fold the paper in half

• Use your non-dominant hand

• Put three triangles somewhere

Now, we're going to choose something to draw! It could be a portrait, a house, an animal, a landscape, or whatever else. Gather your materials (paper, drawing utensils, the randomized changed) and a timer. Consider how long you'll draw for (maybe 10 minutes or so), then choose a time interval (maybe every 2 minutes)! The shorter the time, the more often you'll be making changes.

Set the timer, then begin drawing with no changes. Each time the timer rings, reset the timer and pick a random change to incorporate for the next chunk of time. Notice what changes you experience internally and mentally as the changes come up, and practice using your coping skills to regulate and to keep drawing with the unexpected changes.

When the time is done, reflect on the experience and provide some affirmations or rewards for yourself for practicing potentially uncomfortable changes.

Doing this drawing with randomized bumps in the road helps draw boundaries of exploring cognitive flexibility. The changes are limited to the drawing itself, allowing for us to practice distress tolerance and emotion regulation in the session on a lower level. This helps build experience for real-life applications when things outside of our control happen unexpectedly!

You can try this exercise yourself at home, or consider what your tolerance levels look like for cognitive flexibility!