The Embodied Brain and Sandtray Therapy

Stories of Healing and Transformation

Rita Grayson, Theresa Fraser, Rita Grayson, Theresa Fraser

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000515077
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Psychotherapie

The Embodied Brain and Sandtray Therapy invites readers to absorb the magic and mystery of sandtray therapy through a collection of stories.

Woven throughout these pages is the neurobiological foundation for the healing and transformation that takes place during deep encounters with sand, water, and symbolic images. Such scientific grounding provides the basis for clinicians to understand how sandtray therapy supports their healing work. In addition to client stories, the authors have also bravely shared their personal experiences, both challenging and rewarding, of being sandtray therapists.

Clinicians who are considering becoming sandtray therapists are given an inside peek into the learning journey and its many benefits. Those who are already practicing sandtray therapy will find this book both supportive and affirming.

Part 1

Introduction

1 Playing in the Sandbox

The Birth of a Healing Tool

Theresa Fraser and Caron J. Leader

DOI: 10.4324/9781003055808-2

In the Beginning With the Wells Family

Looking at the picture, you can’t actually see my shiny body, but I am right behind a building made of blocks. I have no soldier friends beside me. The boys put me here and move me from time to time. I stand in silence, watching how buildings are created. The dad gets on the floor too and curiously looks around to view what has changed day to day. The mother human looks my way at times as well but often spends time in a room down the hall. I have lots of other toy friends here. Many look different than I. The boys use the train sometimes to move toy friends from one end of the room to the other. I stand in anticipation, ready to serve. I don’t have an earnest need to join a war, but if the boys need me to, I am ready. I overheard the dad tell a friend that.

upon such a floor may be made infinite of imaginative games, not only keeping boys and girls happy for days together but building up a framework of spacious and inspiring ideas in them for life. The men of tomorrow will gain new strength from nursery floors.

(Wells, 1911, p. 49)

I have watched these boys grow. When they were younger, they spent much time on the floor, but as they have gotten older, they leave the toys on the floor and run outside whenever they have a chance. It was no surprise that one day the mom human packed me up in a box and took me to a store.

Margaret Lowenfeld: Off to London to Help Children

I love this photograph of Dr. Lowenfeld. She saw the photos of me and my friends in the book written by the father. She found me at a charity shop¹ and took me to her office with loads of other toys including soldiers like me. I overheard her tell a woman in a green smock that toys reflect the thoughts and feelings of children. I felt very important and wondered when I would be lifted out of my drawer to be used by a child. Would it be a young child or an older child? What feeling would I express for them?

Figure 1.1 Toy soldier as might be used in floor games described by H.G. Wells.

Figure 1.2 Margaret Lowenfeld.

Source: Photo courtesy of Dr. Margaret Lowenfeld Trust

One day, I did get lifted out. The young girl picked me up and eyed me from side to side and top to bottom. She then smooshed me into soft sand. I couldn’t see those behind me, as I was almost in the middle of this wooden tray box, but I could see what lay in front of me. There was a tree and a cow underneath the tree. The sand had been moved away to uncover a blue bottom. A boat sat on this bottom that looked like water. This was a different view than I am accustomed to. I am not on the floor. In fact, when I look around, there are walls keeping the sand in one place. I see the body of a female human sitting beside the child. She isn’t looking at the child or even talking. She is looking straight at me!

The little girl is humming now and adding more toy friends to this world. When she is finished moving her hands, she sits down beside the adult and talks about me and what I am protecting. I feel very, very important. After a while, she leaves the room, and two ladies with green smocks come in and move me and the other toys back to drawers. I heard them talking about how many of us lived in the wonder box. One of the green-smock ladies was called Dora. When she left the clinic, Dr. Lowenfeld gave me to her as a goodbye gift. Now I am on another adventure, and I end up going all the way to Switzerland.

Dora Kalff: Standing at Attention on a Shelf

Dora took me to her home office. Her office had white shelves, and I found my place on a shelf and could see the whole space. When others visited this space, she would ask them if they would like to make a sand picture. I once heard her tell another big person that “what we want to mediate for others should emerge from our own experience. This means that the therapist/counselor should possess an openness that is the fruit of an open encounter with one’s own dark and unknown sides” (Sandtray Therapists of America, 1991).

The Beginning of Sandtray Therapy

Margaret Lowenfeld discovered combining sand and play was much more natural to children than talk therapy (Homeyer, 2019). Lowenfeld is generally accepted as the first clinician to use a tray, sand, water, other toys, and art materials as she treated children in the late 1920s. Lowenfeld initially used these items in sessions with children who were displaced in the First World War. She recalled a book she had read written by H.G. Wells entitled Floor Games (1911). This book described using small toys and objects with children as they created scenes on the floor (De Domenico, 1995).

Dr. Lowenfeld recognized that a child does not think the same way as an adult and that their emotional expressions seem complete to them. Children can react impulsively without thinking of consequences; therefore, Lowenfeld elected to work with an apparatus to better give children a means to express their feelings and ideas. This apparatus was a tray with sand, and as she described,

My own endeavor in my work with children is to devise an instrument with which a child can demonstrate his own emotional and mental state without the necessary interventions of an adult either by transference or interpretation, and which will allow of a record being made of such a demonstration.

(Lowenfeld, 2007, p. 3)

Lowenfeld believed a sandtray would provide a method of accessible expression for children, and it did not require learning any special skills before use. She further described that the apparatus “must allow for representation of movement and yet be sufficiently circumscribed to make a complete whole, must combine elements of touch and sensation, as well as of sight, and be entirely free from a necessary relation to reality” (Lowenfeld, 2007, p. 4).

Lowenfeld decided to call this therapeutic method “The World.” The nickname formally evolved to be known as The World Technique (Lowenfeld, 2007). She refined her method when she provided specific criteria for the tray size, discussed how much sand to use in the trays, suggested tables of varying heights, and detailed the types of materials to use with the sand. Lowenfeld fostered the richness of creative expression this method invites as she described obtaining a variety of sand toys, tools, natural items, and miniature objects that included:

Living creatures: ordinary men, women and children; soldiers; entertainers; people of other races; wild and domestic animals.

Phantasy and folk-lore: figures; animals, including prehistoric and space specimens.

Scenery: buildings of any kind, trees, bushes, flowers, fences, gates and bridges.

Transport: for road, rail, sea and air.

Equipment: for road, town, farms and gardens, playground and fairs, hospital, school, etc.

Miscellaneous objects: which may be anything at any time obtainable in shops.

(Lowenfeld, 2007, p. 5)

As sandtray therapists, we know the seemingly endless array of objects that can be collected for use in sandtray and can get quite excited when we add something new to our collections, ensuring that we “select not collect” (Landreth, 2002, p. 133).

Not only did Lowenfeld provide the specifics for the tray, sand, and what objects to use in it, but she also provided a protocol for how to introduce the method to children, how to allow for other types of creative expression to accompany sandtray, how to record sandtray sessions, and how to discover what each object placed in the tray means to the child. Her focus was not to interpret but rather to assist the child in exploring their experiences that manifested in the tray. At the time of her work and research, the sandtrays were recorded as a drawing, which allowed for continuation of the work from session to session (Lowenfeld, 2007). She later added therapists dressed in green smocks who may not even work with the same child upon their return to the playroom. The play was considered the most important part of the process versus the relationship with the therapist.

The miniatures and objects used in the sand became an accepted way for children to express themselves non-verbally. They would choose these objects and begin playing in the sand, using their innate senses to guide them as they assembled their world. The play unfolded visually and in real time, allowing the child’s inner experiences to manifest and be explored with the help of the therapist’s observation and inquiry about the play. Through this process, the therapist could gain further understanding of the emerging world, which reflected the inner and outer experiences of the child (Lowenfeld, 2007).

Lowenfeld’s development of The World Technique sparked many other clinicians’ interest in using the sandtray, leading to more research and models, each adding their unique spin to her original method. One of these was a student of Lowenfeld’s named Dora Kalff (1904–1990), a Swiss child psychoanalyst (Homeyer, 2019). Kalff merged her influences of C.G. Jung, Margaret Lowenfeld, and Eastern contemplative traditions into her method of sandtray psychotherapy, which she called sandplay (Kalff, 2020). Kalff emphasized the importance of the therapist to “create a free and, at the same time, protected space for the child within our relationship,” which served as the foundation for building a trusting relationship in which the child could feel a safe connection with the therapist, allowing them to express “whatever is moving within” (Kalff, 2020, p. 5).

The main difference between Kalff’s method of sandplay and Lowenfeld’s World Technique was the emphasis on Kalff’s view of how to help children obtain a developed self through the archetypal understanding and use of symbols. Her understanding of children’s play, art, and language was through the use of symbols as ancient and universal images of wholeness. Taking Lowenfeld’s work as the foundation for her sandplay model, Kalff felt the symbol played a major role in the building process of sandtray work and informed her analysis. She described her work as the “innate healing forces within the unconscious, the transference connection between the client and therapist, delayed interpretations, and the evolution of trays over time” (De Domenico, 1995).

If someone visited the play space of Dora Kalff, they would find sandtrays that could hold both sand and water. The individual therapist decided the best categories of figures or symbols, which were typically displayed on open shelves and represented archetypal and universal symbols in miniature form. While she also used sandplay with adults, her focus was on using this method specifically with children. She stated, “the child plays out an unconscious problem like a drama in the sand. He or she transposes the conflict from the inner world into the outer world and makes it visible” (Kalff, 2020, p. 7). Dora Kalff’s value was to hold a “free and protected space” (Kalff, 2020, p. 16) for the child. She also viewed the analyst’s space as a part of the treatment. This meant that the child was welcomed into her home and invited to explore and make decisions about how the therapy time would unfold (Kalff, 2020).

This very brief overview of Margaret Lowenfeld’s World Technique and Dora Kalff’s sandplay is just a cursory background for understanding the beginnings of sandtray as a psychodynamic process for children. In the opinions of Lowenfeld, Kalff, and the authors and editors of this book, each sandtray session centers around the building of a sacred world, one with (or without) images that depict the child’s psyche as they are allowed to freely create and integrate their being in the here and now.

Others came after Lowenfeld and Kalff. Homeyer (2019) shares that some therapists/researchers used miniatures and the sandtray to assess what the builder was thinking. The sandtray equipment became a diagnostic tool for Bühler, Bolgar, Fischer and others where the child would be asked to create a picture about a specific topic (Homeyer, 2019). These clinicians/researchers clearly used the sandtray process for the purpose of assessment, which the editors of this book distinguish as using the sandtray equipment versus engaging in sandtray therapy. In fact, according to Friedman and Mitchell (1994), Lowenfeld was concerned “that my whole research and therapeutic method should not be misunderstood or distorted when part of the equipment is borrowed and adapted to a different purpose” (p. 12). This purpose being to give the builder a sacred space to manifest inner and outer thoughts, feelings, and ideas. Since the days of Lowenfeld and Kalff, there have been numerous influential trainers in sandtray therapy who seek to preserve the nondirective essence of the original method.

For all of our differences, we share commonalities. Respect for the contribution of our elders in our learning is cited in our writing about sandtray, and we need to continue to be generous with each other as we continue to learn and practice.

Thank you to all of the clients that bravely use these healing tools.

Thank you to the teachers who inspire therapists to learn.

Thank you to our colleagues who are as passionate about this work as we are. It is a privilege to stand alongside you in th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• Preface
• About the Editors and Contributors
• Part 1 Introduction
• Part 2 Stories of Healing in the Sandtray
• Part 3 Tying It All Together
• Index