An emotional disturbance can be dealt with...by giving it visible shape.

~Carl G. Jung~

A basic postulate of Sandplay Therapy is that deep in the unconscious there is an autonomous tendency, given the proper conditions, for the psyche to heal itself.  This work heals wounds that have blocked normal development.  It is a prime facilitator of the individuation process.

~Estelle Weinrib~

Awareness is the capacity to focus, to attend.  Thinking is not awareness, feeling is not awareness, sensing is not awareness.  I need awareness to be in touch, to know that I am sensing or feeling or thinking.

~J. S. Simkin, Individual Gestalt Therapy, 1970~

What is Sandplay Therapy?

The uniqueness of Sandplay Therapy includes its combined use of sand, water and miniature figures.  This combination helps the participant to explore inner strengths and to find the resiliency that exists in their imagination.  Because Sandplay involves the body in the placing of figures and the moving of sand, it is an actual experience, not simply potential.  As such, once a participant has created a significant image in the sand tray, it's power becomes available to enrich everyday life.  Participant’s immediately show their individuality by responding to the same materials and introduction in many different ways, but almost always with interest, enthusiasm and eagerness to explore the possibilities.  There is little awkwardness, difficulty in establishing rapport, or confusion about what is expected of them.

There are several important features of Sandplay Therapy.  The PLAY ASPECT is vital—this method brings up less resistance than more confronting approaches.  The client uses HANDS to shape the sand.  Through the moving hands energy can be released.  Fingers flowing through dry sand leave ripples.  Wet sand can be shaped into a landscape.  The SAND focuses the energy of those with hyperactivity and attention deficit, encourages regression in a playful way, provides a sensory experience for the desensitized and allows the angry to make positive use of aggressive energy.  The sand is also changeable, allowing for stories to unfold.  The SAND TRAY contains the scene and provides boundaries for the work being done.  By the client’s own actions, energies are made visible for which s/he is clearly responsible.  The sand tray thus offers security while fostering independence.  Within the boundaries of the sand tray the participant makes a visual representation of the inner world.  The SYMBOLS that represent many diverse aspects of life add meaning to the use of sand and water.  The small figurines enable participants to communicate their deepest thoughts and feelings and usually engage even the most resistant individual.  The CLIENT’S UNCONSCIOUS presents what the client is ready to deal with.  The FACILITATOR is a co-journeyer, one who supports the client’s wish to explore.  The facilitator must already be clear about his/her own personal need for resolving issues, so that there is no projection onto the client. Support for the client will be to see the counselling process as an exciting journey of growth rather than simply problem solving.  INTERPRETAT ION is not used in Sandplay Therapy.  The vital role of the facilitator is to support the emergence of meaning from within the client, to follow client-centered practice.  The effectiveness of the Sandplay does not depend on the facilitator’s or client’s intellectual understanding of the process, although clear insights will often be evident.  The facilitator directs the client to draw or journal and share the insights at the end of the session to bring COMPLETION, perhaps drawing out any particular implications for their current life.  The facilitator creates a SUPPORTIVE ENVIRONMENT.  The most vital aspect is a feeling of safety that supports the emotional healing.

If you, as an adult, would like to experience the potential of Sandplay Therapy, check out our series of Sandplay Workshops for Adults.

A client comes to the sandtray or the symbol shelves with their own unique blend of therapeutic needs.  While they touch the sand or inspect the figurines a positive or negative attraction to a symbol or sand formation begins — this begins the process of projection.  Next comes some satisfaction with either the sand shaping or gathering a collection of figurines.  Visible form for what is already inside the individual takes shape as a story or a picture.  The freedom to create allows the client to drop any defences.  Facilitation can help the client observe, explore, comment, reconstitute and heal destructive and sabotaging tendencies. 

Sometimes there can be immediate feedback from the picture or story, in the form of insight, enhancing cognitive understanding of self and issues.  Forming the sand supports a shift in awareness from cognitive and verbal to kinesthetic involvement.  Sandplay aids metacognition—thinking about thinking, and acts as an aid for reflection.  The sand construction in the tray with the arrangement of figurines often reflects a strength for the client from which they may have been disconnected.

By concretising or making visible any conflict or tension, the client is then able to reconstruct the situation and gain insight and a clearer understanding.  There is a move from a negative mood to a more positive state.  Blocked energy is freed and the client appears more alive and more communicative. 

The freedom to create, without judgement, enhances self-esteem and in itself is very satisfying.  This process of transformation involves a clearer cognitive understanding of self, often accompanied by spontaneous problem-solving.  The client becomes an active participant in their own healing process.

Play involves the child’s physical, mental and emotional self in active and creative expression.  In play, attention is centred, while action and awareness, thoughts and feelings merge.  In play, children find their own answers from within.  In play involving familiar experiences in familiar contexts, children are able to reason logically from a very young age.

Play encourages an active connection to thinking and imagination.  The ability to make-believe is now recognised as highly correlated with academic success.  Imaginative play is used by children to resolve the past, cope with the present and prepare for the future.  In play, children can represent different aspects of themselves, inviting rejection as a fly or exercising control as a teacher.  Through play they are anticipating the consequences of their actions and the effects of their behaviour on others.

Play allows the child’s imagination to become a principle problem-solving tool.  It is an essential way in which children become an active participant in, and feel control over, their environment.  Children use play to control fears: there is one place where you can meet a ferocious beast on your own terms and leave victorious.  That place is the imagination.

Through learning to play and create with the symbols in the sandtray, the client comes into connection with deeper levels of the psyche that may have been held in check by the rational mind.  Sandplay can be a relief from the challenge of dredging up memories, personal details or data that may be required in more cognitive-based frameworks.