The Squiggle Game Online: Turn a Squiggle Into a Picture and a Story

About the technique

The squiggle game was developed by pediatrician and psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott for first consultations with children. The therapist draws a quick, meaningless line, the child turns it into a picture and talks about it, then the child makes a squiggle for the therapist to complete, and the turns alternate (Winnicott, 1971). Winnicott used it to reach a child’s preoccupations through shared play rather than questions.

The game works through mutuality: both players take small risks, both are playful, and the drawings become a bridge to conversation about whatever the child brings. Later clinicians described it as a technique for engaging children in psychotherapy (Claman, 1980), and art therapists continue to draw on it as an entry point into creative work (Martínez Loné, 2017). The evidence is case description and clinical tradition rather than trials, so it is practice-based, though play therapy more broadly has meta-analytic support (Bratton et al., 2005).

It suits children and young teens, and families, early in treatment and whenever words are hard, and adapts easily to video. Let meaning come from the child and avoid reading drawings as diagnostic signs. If a drawing or story touches on harm or trauma, slow down, follow up as you would any disclosure, and know your mandated-reporting duty before you start.