LEGO and the psychological benefits of building with pieces

This children's game can have interesting positive effects, even in adults.

LEGO pieces and their construction are a great tool to externalize one's own system of beliefs and emotions, as the individual gets in touch with the most implicit knowledge of himself and his present.The LEGO pieces and their construction are a great tool to externalize one's own belief system and emotions, as the individual gets in touch with the most implicit knowledge of himself and his present.

The construction of LEGO pieces and emotional intelligence

This process of free construction has a positive effect on the development of emotional intelligence and is also a tool used in psychotherapy and business coaching.

In the following interview, Mª Teresa Mata, psychologist collaborating with the Instituto de Asistencia Psicológica y Psiquiátrica Mensalus, presents this tool as one of the new allies of emotional intelligence training.

How has Lego burst into the world of Psychology and Coaching?

Currently, the dynamics based on the representation of ideas through the free construction by means of Lego pieces or similar, has become a fantastic working tool in the world of business coaching. Recent studies have demonstrated their efficiency by verifying the high level of information they generate, information rich in content and structure that is highly useful for the resolution of all types of conflicts. Specifically, the LEGO® Serious® Play® Method is the method that, in this sense, has gone around the world..

On the other hand, from the training/coaching of emotional intelligence, we have discovered in this method a new working tool that, like the rest of externalizing techniques, promotes imagination and gives free rein to creativity, thus becoming the perfect ally to promote self-knowledge, self-expression, the projection of challenges and objective capacity, as well as certain social skills such as empathy.

What happens when we start building?

With constructions a connection is established on another level.. The release of imagination and creativity is intimately related to the use of the hands. When the hands come into play, we set in motion a whole set of mental processes that allow us to access deeper knowledge. In this way we manage to promote communication at another level (both communication with oneself and with others).

When we transfer this technique to a system (a work team, a family, a workshop group), a lot of information becomes visible: each individual offers a small sample of his or her perception of the world. This brings different points of view to the table in a quick and visual way, and promotes dialogue and empathy as we mentioned before.

It must be amazing the feedback that is generated in a session when so much information comes to the surface, right?

Yes, it is. This is one of the great advantages of using techniques that activate messages through creativity and association: the messages that appear are fresh, full of wit and wisdom, details that, from other processing models, would hardly come to light.

Often, information that goes unnoticed on a daily basis can become the propellant of unknown options and unattempted solutions. This is a work that, from the emotional intelligence training, we especially promote:

"What knowledge do I possess and what knowledge do I not take advantage of"/ "What knowledge is awakened in me when I see and hear the knowledge of others".

What else can you explain to us about this methodology and the work that is done from Coaching and Psychotherapy?

Through the creation with building blocks, without realizing it, the unconscious barriers that surface in social interaction diminish, allowing intelligent conversations to emerge that help people connect with their knowledge and the knowledge of others.

In the workshops, we put this into practice, for example, by asking a "mobilizing" question. Once the question is posed, participants let their problem-solving skills flow. The next step is to convert this information into palpable information from the construction with parts. The results are incredible. The methodology rescues information that is usually "out of use". The fact of exposing, ordering, and validating such information within a skills training framework generates a high level of introspection and insight.

In short, what is the relationship between emotional intelligence training and LEGO construction?

From emotional intelligence we seek to synthesize the complex, express the abstract, touch the invisible, concretize the volatile. We look for a way to simplify processes and obtain "powerful" information in order to facilitate its use and increase efficiency in our actions.

The training of emotional intelligence through the free construction inspired as an answer to a mobilizing question, as we explained, accelerates the obtaining of useful information. This is achieved by encouraging processes that connect with the implicit knowledge of the person, a knowledge that has been established throughout his or her life.

With the LEGO pieces and the figures that complement the creative scenarios, each user builds, projects and observes, and becomes the spectator of the creative scenarios.In the workshops, each user builds, projects and observes, becomes the spectator of his own creation, a privileged position that allows him to distance himself from the possible conflict and make use of the information in a more intelligent way. Likewise, in the workshops, everyone is a spectator of the creations of others, a fact that brings a multitude of ideas and options.

And are the ideas of one or the other, even if they are experiencing different conflicts, useful for everyone?

This is the most interesting point of the outsourcing work in emotional intelligence.. It is very revealing when, at the end of a free construction session, the participants adopt solution paths resulting from the knowledge extracted from other people's experiences, not only their own. For this to be possible, the key lies in the formulation of the mobilizing question(s).

Our great challenge is always based on posing a common question for everyone, even if the experiences and life contexts are different; with this we achieve a high level of group connection and an emotionally intelligent feedback.