Ascent Healing

I have recently procured 2 reborn dolls for my office to help clients with anxiety and want to talk a little about them. They are very realistic-looking baby dolls that not only are hand painted and sculpted to look very real, but they are also weighted like a real baby and feel very real to hold. I have had a few clients, brave enough to request to hold one, and they have found them to be very calming. It can feel awkward to hold a doll and maybe even a little embarrassing but let me tell you, I am not afraid to hold one and I do not judge anyone who wants to.

Research has shown that baby dolls and stuffed realistic animal toys are very calming for clients with dementia. I think more research needs to be done on the effects with mid-aged-adults. I personally believe that it can be healing for trauma survivors to hold and rock one of these babies, because as they do, it is vicariously caring for their “inner child” according to internal family systems theory.

We know that dolls are very healing and calming to little children but this coping style is put aside as we grow up and thought of as a “childish” thing. There are many forms of returning to “playing like a child” through art techniques and other forms and can be very healing and I think it is similar to holding a special doll. We are not being “childish” by doing so, but returning to a special time of innocence of our childhood and allowing ourselves to remember that memory.

If you are interested in procuring your own doll for anxiety, a good website to go to is http://www.reborns.com. I admit that these dolls are very expensive depending on the artist and skill involved in making them. There are a lot of reborn sites out there and you can buy dolls on amazon claiming to be reborns. Be careful where you buy yours if you do, because on amazon, they are frequently not weighted correctly and the molds they use are stolen and recreated from actual reborn dolls. They also do not have the hand painted quality from an actual reborn doll as they are mass produced. Other reborn sites are also sometimes stolen or unethically made.

How do you use a reborn doll? There are some people who actually use them in public to help them with their social anxiety. They put them in a wrap carrier and walk around and no one knows the difference. You can also hold and rock them as you would a real baby when having anxiety symptoms. Clients (both adults/teens/children) can hold these dolls in my therapy office while talking about difficult issues and it can lessen the difficulty of talking about trauma. Some clients have opted to hold one while doing trauma therapy (EMDR or ART) and it has helped them get through the difficult part of remembering and feeling the emotions and sensations.

The dolls are life size and you actually buy real baby clothes to fit them. I personally own a premie-sized doll and a 0-3 month old sized baby doll. If you search online, you can find an artist to commission a special doll from the Macpherson craft site that has many doll kits that even have down-syndrome and other shaped dolls that can fit your special healing needs. In case you are wondering, most dolls are not anatomically correct and their bodies besides arms and legs are soft cloth. Dolls can be weighted (stuffed) to the weight that you request. You are welcome to ask any questions if you have any.