The Totem Pole - A therapy intervention for the youngsters of Mistral

The Totem Pole - A therapy intervention for the youngsters of Mistral

Dinh, N.T.L.

Sonneveld, M. (mentor)
Visch, V.T. (mentor)

Industrial Design Engineering

Industrial Design

Master of Science Design for Interaction

2011-03-09

In this Master thesis the design process of the Totem Pole is presented. The assignment of this graduation project is to design a product as a therapy intervention that could be used in one of the addiction care programs at Mistral treatment clinic of Brijder. The product has to be based on a tangible interaction driven by a game element. Furthermore, it should fit the context of the clients as the target group. These are youngsters between the 12 and 21 years old, who are in therapy for their drug depency. The main goal of the product is to motivate these youngsters to create a high therapy adherence. The final design concept is the ‘Totem Pole’. The Totem Pole was designed to be used as a therapy intervention for the youngsters of Mistral. The Totem Pole includes five parts of interaction between the user and the design product that are used in several sessions. These sessions are integrated in the current therapy program of Mistral. The first part of interaction is (1) to create a ‘Personal Avatar´ that has supernatural powers. This is a representation of the user on a wooden box, which can be placed in the Totem Pole. This Personal Avatar represents who they are, who or what they wish to be or what kind of supernatural powers they want to own. The second part of interaction is (2) to find and add a ´Power Object´ to the Personal Avatar. At every start of a new phase the user get the opportunity to bring in a personal Power Object, and to add this to their Avatar. The Power Object is an object that feeds, gives support, motivates, gives power, or gives value to the Avatar. In this way the Personal Avatar can evolve. It represents their personal motivations to follow the therapy. The Totem Pole is also designed to be used for in the Living Group session. (3) When the user wants to bring up a certain subject at this session, a piece of clay needs to be delivered in their Personal Avatar box. Before doing this, the user has to express his or her irritation, concern, negative feedback, positive feedback, motivation, or any other emotion or subject in the piece of clay. (4) The youngsters will bring their Personal Avatar to this session, where the person with a piece of clay in his or her box can start to communicate the desired subject. At this moment, the piece of clay functions as a communication tool or communication support. (5) After finishing the subject, the person can close this subject by taking a small piece of the delivered piece of clay. This should be added to the ‘Group Totem’, which is will be created on the wooden plate, located at the front surface of the Totem Pole. By adding a piece of clay, the subject has closed. During time, this ‘Group Totem’ will be built up by all the members of the group that brought up a subject at the session.

totem pole
therapy intervention
drug dependent youngsters
addiction care
therapy adherence
social bonding

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:348284e6-e32a-4466-8307-23d3d690b748

Campus only

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2011 Dinh, N.T.L.