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Making sense of Lizard Taming, Diva Tongues & Responsibility Backpacks
A fascinating window into children’s inner worlds
Hi! We’re Sonya & Chris from Switzerland.
We’ve been quietly helping kids for 15 years. Now we’re sharing what we’ve seen.
Cases from real sessions. Including the ones that didn’t go as planned. Many include drawings the children made themselves.
We’ll also share interesting insights and observations from 10’000 sessions.
You can read our story on the About page. This post is just to orient you before you dive in.
Sonya’s craft
Children can rarely explain their struggles in words. But ask them to close their eyes, and they can show you exactly what’s going on inside.
That’s where Sonya works. In the child’s own imagination.
The child’s inner world is the raw material. What Sonya does with it is the craft. She reads and engages what’s there. And then introduces the right image, character, or reframe to shift it.
That’s where the metaphors like Diva Tongue, Hero Syringes, or Responsibility Backpacks come from.
One character specifically has become central to our work.
The Lizard. The part of the brain responsible for fight, flight or freeze.
Helping children understand and calm their lizard evolved into one of our most powerful techniques.
And that’s why this publication is called LizardTamer.
A note for skeptics. (We count ourselves among them)
Most approaches work on the reaction. The anger. The fear. The behaviour that’s driving everyone crazy.
Sonya works on what’s generating it.
First we systematically trace underlying feelings back to their origin. Sometimes months ago, sometimes years, sometimes to the very first days of life. We find where it was built, received, or stored. And clean that up by reframing the perception.
Then we work with the lizard. The primitive part of the brain whose job is protection. The lizard is just doing its job. Once it understands the threat is no longer real, it stands down.
That’s why the changes tend to stick.
We’ve seen it work thousands of times. Not always. Nothing does. But consistently enough that after 15 years and 10,000 sessions, we stopped questioning whether it works and started focusing on doing it better.
Need help for your child? Sonya works with a limited number of families directly. [Tell us about your child →]
Know a child who needs this? Share this with their parent.
Interested in learning this? We train capable women in this craft. [Find out more →]
Know a podcast or publication that would benefit from this? [Let's talk →]