PuzzleArt Therapy: Learning Through Levels
The basic PuzzleArt Therapy System has three levels, each with several modules that help participants learn, develop, and refine a variety of skills. The levels are set up to move the participant from simple to more complex challenges, though each level and each exercise within the levels can be repeated over and over, without the risk of it becoming boring or repetitive.
This is a result of the open-ended format of PuzzleArt Therapy. While there are specific directions that teach the eyes and brain to look for connections, paths, and ways to solve problems, there are no specific right or wrong answers, but instead, a plethora of potential solutions waiting to be discovered!
Level One Modules
The goal of the level one modules is to familiarize one's self with the PuzzleArt pieces, relate more closely to them, and practice working with them while developing solid breathing and relaxation practices.
Through the exercises in this level, participants will first become oriented with the PuzzleArt pieces, and will be guided through exercises that help them make connections between colors, shapes, lines, edges, as well as providing them with an opportunity to manipulate the pieces to form their own patterns and designs; becoming a visual artist right from the beginning!
Participants will be making these connections in a way that unifies physical movements with visual tracking. Neural pathways will be developed and strengthened while they settle in with the mesmerizing PuzzleArt pieces that are just irresistible – they are made to be touched and that is exactly what participants will want to do!
As they work through the levels, participants will be challenged to break away from the obvious connections and find more subtle associations, ones that might even seem to “break” rules they didn't even realize they were attempting to impose (for example, connecting the pieces in a way that lines, colors, or textures align but in which the actual pieces don't square up – it sounds simple, but you'd be surprised at how many people think squares must be evenly lined up with each other in order to be “right!”).
Level Two Modules
The level two modules are dynamic and creative. As participants move deeper into the PuzzleArt universe, they will learn how to expand their creative horizons.
This level guides participants through a process that helps them see the pieces instead of just look at them. It then takes them through guided exercises to examine what they see, and observe how that changes as they follow the exercises. They're then taken through a series of questions that prompts them to critically evaluate and synthesize both what they've seen and the process they've gone through.
We continue to develop guided relaxation and breathing techniques in this level, as well as adding in more whole-body movements that strengthen bilateral skills.
Level Three Modules
The level three modules deal with feelings and emotions related to the colors, shapes, textures, and lines of the PuzzleArt pieces, but more deeply, it is about recognizing the value of owning one's emotions, viewpoint, and perspective.
Challenges in this level have the participant literally take on a new perspective of the PuzzleArt Pieces, from changing their position in relation to the pieces, changing the piece's relationship to the viewer, and changing how the viewer uses their eyes to see what they're working on.
“[PuzzleArt] is opening my mind to see different things. I’m able to take something that’s a challenge and step back and see things from a different perspective.”
— Kathy Viola, a Senior Sales Director for Mary Kay Cosmetics quoted in New York Newsday
These three levels serve as an introduction to the basic PuzzleArt Therapy System, which all told, develops more than twenty skills, including:
- Amblyopia / Suppression
- Bilateral Integration
- Binocular Skills
- Cognitive and Problem-Solving Skills
- Creativity
- Directionality
- Gross + Fine Motor
- Letter + Word Recognition
- Memory
- Near / Far Focus
- Oculomotor
- Peripheral Vision
- Sensory PuzzleArt Protocol
- Spatial Relationships
- Visual: Closure, Discrimination, Figure /Ground, Perception
- Visualization
- And more!
Sign up today for a free brain game, and get a glimpse of what PuzzleArt Therapy is all about!
Alli Berman is a Brain Fitness expert and the Eye Brain Fitness Guru. She has been an artist, author, educator, creativity consultant, workshop leader, perceptual and sensory products and programs developer, and motivational speaker for the past 30+ years. Berman has served as an educational advisor to the American Academy for Anti-Aging Medicine for over 30 years, and she is the founder of The Art of Rehabilitation and Anti-Aging Art. She created the PuzzleArt Therapy System in collaboration with behavioral optometrist, Susan Fisher, OD, and through consultation with neuroscientists around the world. Berman uses the system herself on a daily basis to keep her own brain as healthy, engaged, and challenged as possible!