Images of the Self

The Sandplay Therapy Process

Temenos Press

Contents

INTRODUCTION

Sandplay is a nonverbal, non-rational form of therapy that reaches a profound preverbal level of the psyche . In this psychotherapeutic modality, patients create three-dimensional scenes, pictures or abstract designs in a tray of specific size, using sand, water and a large number of miniature realistic figures.

Unlike the customary practice in verbal dream analysis, interpretations are not offered at the time the pictures are created. Although the patient may associate to the sand pictures as he or she would to a dream, the therapist is receptive but makes minimal comment. Interpretation is delayed until a certain degree of ego stability has been reached. The rationale for this unusual practice and other points made here will be discussed later.

A basic postulate of sandplay therapy is that deep in the unconscious, given the proper conditions, there is an autonomous tendency for the psyche to heal itself.

In the verbal analysis of dreams, personality and life problems progress in the direction of consciousness. In contrast, the sandplay process encourages a creative regression that enables healing. In short, when both modalities are undertaken two separate but related therapeutic processes occur, and the interaction between them seems to hasten and enrich the endeavor.

Sandplay enables the three-dimensional tangible expression of inchoate, unconscious contents. Sand pictures represent figures and landscapes of the inner and outer world. They materialize to mediate between these two worlds and to connect them.

Sandplay therapy provides the conditions for a womb-like incubatory period that facilitates the repair of a damaged mother image. This enables the constellation and activation of the Self, the subsequent healing of the wounded ego, and the recovery of the inner child with all that implies in terms of psychological renewal (see Chapter 5).

THE EVOLUTION OF SANDPLAY

Magic Circles and Fantasies

Perhaps the earliest precursors of sandplay therapists were primitive tribes, who drew protective magic circles on the earth. The nearest cultural parallel to sandplay therapy seems to be the sand painting of the Navajo religion. The Navajo people use ritual sand pictures extensively in ceremonies of healing, as well as for divination, exorcism and other purposes. Chanters, medicine men or initiated assistants make pictures by molding and painting symbolic figures out of sand on the ground.

The sand paintings are composed according to prescribed arrangements, and they are enclosed by "guardian" boundaries marked in the sand. The figures represent mythic deities in human or animal form, as well as natural or geometric symbols. Usually, all the figures are arranged in quadrants around a center, strongly suggesting a mandala form. The exception to this is the outer boundary (circular, square or rectangular) that has an opening to allow evil a way out and good a way in.

These sand paintings can be quite simple or very elaborate. A sand painting may be as large as 20 feet in diameter and require up to forty assistants eight to ten hours to complete. When the painting is finished, the patient or seeker sits on it, while the chanter applies sand from the various figures of the painting to specified parts of the patient's body. This is done to identify the patient with the deities represented in the painting. Additionally, the sand itself is felt to have healing properties. It is said that the patient absorbs good from the sand, while the sand absorbs evil from him or her.

The pictures are believed to carry manna and are held sacred.

To watch the laying of a sandpainting may be somewhat dangerous for the uninitiated ... There is, however, a time when even he must not witness the completion of the sandpainting preparation, a moment of sanctification when the painting becomes sacred — the instant when the encircling guardian [boundary] of the sandpainting is started (Reichard, 1950/1974, pp. 160-161).

Sand paintings represent blessings only. They attract good and repel evil. They are believed to be particularly efficacious in the treatment of trauma, when the patient has been shocked or frightened into unconsciousness. The sand paintings also "... correct symptoms due to the contemplation of supernatural things too strong for the patient" (Reichard, 1950/1974, p. 717).

The first Jungian to be involved with sandplay therapy might be said to be Jung (1963) himself, who described in his autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, how in 1912 he happened upon a healing form of play.

After his break with Freud, Jung wrote that he found himself in a painfully confused inner state that yielded neither to analysis of his dreams nor to reexamination of his life. He decided to submit himself to impulses of the unconscious, to do whatever occurred to him. He remembered that as a small boy he had built castles and buildings of stone and mortar, made of earth and water. In Memories, Dreams, Reflections, he writes:

"Aha," I said to myself, "there is still life in these things. The small boy is still around, and possesses a creative life which I lack. But how can I make my way to it?" For as a grown man it seemed impossible to me that I should be able to bridge the distance from the present back to my eleventh year. Yet if I wanted to re-establish contact with that period, I had no choice but to return to it and take up once more that child's life with his childish games. This moment was a turning point in my fate, but I gave in only after endless resistances and with a sense of resignation. For it was a painfully humiliating experience to realize that there was nothing to be done except play childish games (Jung, 1963, p. 174).

Jung (1963) reports that he played regularly and seriously day after day with the earth and stones on the edge of the Lake of Zurich:

In the course of this activity my thoughts clarified, and I was able to grasp the fantasies whose presence in myself I dimly felt.

Naturally, I thought about the significance of what I was doing and asked myself, "Now, really, what are you about? You are building a small town, and doing it as if it were a rite!" I had no answer to my question, only the inner certainty that I was on the way to discovering my own myth. For the building game was only a beginning. It released a stream of fantasies, which I later carefully wrote down. (p. 174-175)

The building game, which he continued for some time and later extended into painting and stone-cutting, released a flow of fantasies that eventually led to his appreciation of fantasy as, "... the mother of all possibilities, where, like all psychological opposites, the inner and outer worlds are joined together in living union" (Jung, 1954, Collected Works (hereafter cited as CW) Vol. 6, p.52).

Giving concrete form to his own fantasies and his later observation of those of his patients, led Jung to his discovery of the process of individuation, the transcendent function, and the technique of active imagination.

Pioneers In Sandplay Therapy

Sandplay was originated in England by Margaret Lowenfeld, who in 1939, published a paper called The World Pictures of Children: A Method of Recording and Studying Them. She attributed the inspiration for the method to H. G. Wells' book Floor Games, published in 1911.

The method, soon called the World Technique, was used by Dr. Lowenfeld, a Freudian psychiatrist at the Institute for Child Psychology in London, and subsequently at clinics in other countries.

In 1954, after attending the Jung Institute for six years, Dora M. Kalff went to a psychiatric conference in Zurich where she was impressed by Lowenfeld's exhibition of her World Technique. Encouraged by Jung, who was her mentor and friend, Kalff left for London to study and work with Lowenfeld and others, including Michael Fordham and D. W. Winnicott. Kalff's experience in London helped clarify the direction of her future work.

Returning to Switzerland, Kalff began her practice with children, using Jungian symbology and developing her own version of sandplay therapy. She started with the basic hypothesis postulated by Jung, that there is a fundamental drive toward wholeness and healing in the human psyche. To allow for the healing, she decided to give the patient "a free space," to accept him or her unconditionally, to observe without making judgments and to be guided only by her own observations (Kalff, 1890/2003). Since she was the only Jungian analyst doing therapy with children in Zurich at that time, there was no one to talk to, save Jung himself. Jung gave Kalff encouragement, advice and such psychological aid and comfort as time allowed.

Kalff used a nonverbal approach, doing nothing to intrude upon the child's process. She simply observed and accepted what happened in the hour. She prepared herself for the next hour with the child by trying to assimilate what had happened in the previous one.

Kalff's approach was not unlike Jung's, who in Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1963) recounts the beginning of his method of dream interpretation:

... I felt a necessity to develop a new attitude toward my patients. I resolved for the present not to bring any theoretical premises to bear on them, but to wait to see what they would tell me of their own accord. My aim became to leave things to chance. The result was that the patients would spontaneously report dreams and fantasies to me. ... The interpretations seemed to follow of their own accord from the patients' replies and associations. I avoided all theoretical points of view and simply helped the patients to understand the dream-images by themselves, without application of rules or theories (p. 170).

From the beginning, Kalff's patients made rapid and exciting progress. It soon became apparent that an autonomous process was occurring with little or no verbal comment or explanation being given to the child.

Kalff began to recognize stages of development in the sand pictures (to be described later) that were clearly expressions of a psychological maturation occurring within the child, but she had no conceptual frame of reference to explain the phenomena.

After she heard a lecture by Erich Neumann, an eminent Jungian analyst, on his ideas about psychological development in early childhood, Kalff and Neumann had discussions that convinced both of them that her practice was confirming and illustrating some of his theoretical formulations. Neumann, never having practiced therapy with children, had evolved concepts in a purely theoretical way. They planned to do some research together, but Neumann unfortunately died shortly after their meeting.

Kalff began doing sandplay therapy with adults and discovered that the same developmental process occurred as in children, indicating that sandplay operated on a quite primitive level of the unconscious.

Later she met and exchanged ideas with the renowned Zen scholar, Daisetz Suzuki. In Kalff's practice of delaying interpretation, Suzuki saw a parallel with Zen practice, wherein the pupil/seeker-after-wisdom is not given a direct answer to his or her question, but is rather thrown back on his or her own imagination and inner resources. The meeting with Suzuki reinforced her feeling that her approach was right.

A GAME WITHOUT RULES

The basic equipment for sandplay consists of a shallow rectangular sand tray, 28-1/2 inches by 19- 1/2 inches, 3 inches deep, and half-filled with sand. The inside of the sand tray is lined with sheet metal or rigid plastic and colored light blue. By moving the sand away from an area at the bottom of the tray, one gets the impression of blue water, which can then serve as a river, lake or ocean. Because of the waterproof lining of metal or plastic, real water can be used to wet the sand so that it can be molded or shaped. Hundreds of miniature figures and small objects are arranged on open shelves and are available for use in making a sand picture.

The figures include:

• realistic representations of wild and domesticated animals

• fish

• birds

• shells and craft materials

• cars, trains, boats, planes

• bridges

• buildings

• churches, temples

• work implements

• trees and flowers

• human figures (adults and children of many nationalities and races in various walks of life: farmers, workers, soldiers, knights, Eskimos, Africans, Asians, etc.)

In short, the collection includes a breadth of symbolic objects necessary to create a world. The figures should be of good quality so as to appeal to and stimulate the patient's aesthetic and creative sensibilities.

No instructions are given. The patient is simply encouraged to create whatever he or she wishes in the sand tray. The patient may choose to make a landscape or any other kind of picture, or decide to sculpt or just play with the sand. Using the sand tray, the patient is free to play out fantasies, to externalize and make concrete in three dimensions his or her inner world.

The therapist sits quietly at a little distance, observes the reactions and behavior of the patient, the development of the picture, and draws a sketch of it to identify the objects in the picture for later study. The patient may or may not speak. He or she may be perfectly quiet, or may spontaneously talk about the picture, tell its story, give some explanation of what he or she is doing, or relate the personal meaning of the objects. Often something in the picture moves the patient to speak of personal memories or present concerns. Sometimes, after reacting to the picture, the patient may decide to change it, which he or she is free to do. When this happens, one can see that a development has occurred, perhaps just by virtue of the patient's having created the picture and having reacted to it.

The mere making of the picture seems to have a good effect. Deeply introverted and particularly tense patients tend to relax. Hyperactive or hysterical patients tend to quiet down. It is as though touching concrete, three-dimensional reality has a calming effect in itself. It is particularly effective in reaching patients who tend to over-verbalize, rationalize, or intellectualize. Of course, it is also effective for the opposite kind of patients, those who have trouble verbalizing at all. Intuitives benefit from the concreteness of the process, which tends to slow them down and "ground" them. The therapist listens, observes and participates empathically and cognitively, with as little verbalization as possible.

After the picture is finished, the therapist may ask the patient to tell the story of the picture. The therapist may ask relevant questions or elicit the patient's comments and associations regarding the picture. Starting with those comments and associations that are readily forthcoming from the patient, the therapist privately evaluates the picture in the light of Jungian symbology and any archetypal amplifications that suggest themselves. The therapist does not offer this information at this time, does not press for associations or confront the patient in any way. Interpretations can imply value judgments, or they can be inferred. The aim of sandplay is to offer really free play, in safe circumstances that is devoid of rules. It offers an opportunity for being and doing without encumbrances. To press for associations would be to encourage cerebral activity, which is not desirable here except in its most spontaneous exercise. Pressing for associations would encourage verbal discussion and the expectation of response from the therapist.

I do make occasional exceptions to this practice. If the patient does not enjoy doing sandplay and is skeptical of its value, I may comment on some aspect of the early picture to assure him or her that the pictures are, in fact, communicating his or her unspoken feelings, plus other information that is helpful. There are other exceptions, such as when a particular theme has urgent significance, or if a patient is acutely anxious and needs the reassurance of cognitive understanding.