ECCAY RESOURCES

The ECCAY resources can help professionals to use in practice the solution focused knowledge they have just acquired.

Exercise nr. 9

Tree of life

Minimum number of participants	Average time length	Individual setting	Group setting	Special Equipment	Unit	Online	Challenge/ competition
3-6 persons	1 - 2 hours	yes	yes	Paper (recommended A3 or bigger), coloured pencils or oil pastels. Walls to display the pictures, pins or tape, handout.	1,3,4,5,6	Yes (not recommended)	no

This exercise is about showing one’s own resources – based on drawing a personal tree as a representation of his/her own life. While reflecting one’s own life, resources and unknown treasures are elicited.

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Aim / Benefits

Highlighting and eliciting known and unknown resources in one’s life and reflecting on them.

UNIT(s) related

Unit 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6.

Why?

This exercise can be related to Unit 1 as it focuses on resources instead of the deficit.

This exercise can be related to Unit 3 as it puts the client and his/her expertise in the centre.

This exercise can be related to Unit 4 as it enables better understanding of each other as well as the establishment of a trustful relationship. Each participants has the possibility to discover his/her own resources by reflecting on the resources described by the others.

This exercise can be related to Unit 5 as it offers reflection on one’s own life.

This exercise can be related to Unit 6 as it makes the resources visible and therefore provides insight into the ecosystem.

How to do the exercise

Step 1 / Preparation:
Prepare the equipment (Paper, pencils, walls, pins, tape) for each participant. Tell them that the exercise is about drawing a tree representing their own life. You can prepare a powerpoint presentation or a flip chart describing the procedure step by step.

Step 2
Start with the roots: The participants are invited to draw the roots – the roots represents the answers to the questions:

Where do I come from?
What is my heritage?
What is my deep-rooted survival ability?

Offer 5-10 minutes for this and each of the following steps.
Next step: soil: This part answers the questions:

What is my life situation like, at the moment?
What are the representative elements of my life, at the moment, in different terms (e.g., place where I live, my job, significant relationships, significant experiences)?
Where do I live?
What is the landscape of my life/nutrient soil of life

Next step: trunk:

What do I like/appreciate?
Where is it coming from?
How am I seen by others?
Where does this come from?

Next step: branches: this part answers the questions:

What are my hopes, dreams and wishes?
What are the visions for the future?
What are the paths the skills indicated in the trunk have taken?
Do I have big or little dreams/hopes?
How can these hopes be connected to my family/others?
Where do the hopes/wishes come from?

Next step: leaves: this part answers the question:
Who are/were the persons/supporters that play a special role in my life?
Who, within your entourage, represents social resources for you?
(NOTE: they can also be no longer alive people, whose memory still plays a special role in the person's life).
Last step: fruits (representing the heritages of others):

What did those special people give to my life?
What are the gifts I received in my life?

(NOTE: the gifts can be of different types, e.g., objects, money, a special teaching, a special person, etc.).

What do I want to share with others?

Step 3:
Each picture is presented and discussed – offer enough time for each one – in case there are only a few or no resources, try to elicit more by asking questions.
After discussing the pictures, you can give another few minutes to supplement their pictures if they want to.

Step 4: (If you work with a group)
After all trees were presented and discussed, you can create a Forest of Life by putting all trees together.
Ask them to imagine all the trees created as part of a bigger forest.
Then you can explore with the participants how each tree can contribute to the forest.
Example of questions:

If an earthquake shakes the forest, how could the trees work together to resist?
If a lightning bolt strikes one of the trees, how could the others help him/her?
How do these answers the group provides affect each one of you? How does the idea you have of this group change when you think of it as a forest?
Out of the metaphor, if one of you talks about a problem/issue he/she has, how can the group, acting as a forest, help him/her?
Etc…

Final step / Conclusion:
Ask the participants to decide what to do with the pictures: whether keeping them displayed during the training or returning them to the owner.

Debrief

You can summarise the findings of the trees’ presentations and ask the participants to reflect about the different known and unknown resources and treasures.
Invite the participants to keep this tree of life as an inner picture.
Useful questions, in this phase, could also be:

Do you wish your tree would look different?
What would have to happen for the tree to look different?

In fact, as the drawing represents the resources of one’s life, it can be modified or redrawn at any time. Since it is an image of the person's life, it is not something fixed in time. People can draw it, then think about it, modify it, etc.

Since this activity significantly relies on the use of questions (see Unit 2), if you are working with one or more professionals and are using this methodology to train them to the ECCAY framework, you can take the occasion to highlight the central role of questioning in SFA. Consequently, you can ask the trainee(s):

What questions did you like most?
Which questions were most useful?

Specific materials

Paper (recommended A3 or bigger), coloured pencils or oil pastels.

Walls to display the pictures, pins or tape.

Tips and Tricks

If (some of the) participants don’t have ideas for resources, you can give examples for each part of the tree – be aware that your examples may influence the outcomes.

We recommend not to show the drawing of a tree, because it might influence the participants and may reduce creativity.

In an individual setting over a longer period of time, it can be useful to come back to this picture or repeat this exercise.

Be aware to accompany this exercise very closely – it might have potential to get very emotional and it can open old wounds or hurts.

If the exercise is done in a group try to get all participants to do the exercise. If this is not possible, ask the participants who refuse to draw their tree to take the role of a tutor, that helps the other members of the group to do the exercise. Maybe, they will change their mind and decide to draw their own tree. During the debrief you can ask the tutor(s) how the exercise was for them and how it was for them helping others.

Since the exercise can take quite a long time, it can be divided into two or more sessions. Actually, this could be helpful, as the participants can think about their trees between the sessions and can modify them according to their wishes.

On-line version

We do not recommend doing this exercise online – especially if you don’t know the participants and the effect of this exercise on each of them. This exercise has the potential to get very emotional as it could open old wounds. So, in case you do this exercise online, it is highly recommended that every participant’s camera is switched on.

Bibliography - Sitography

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