Sand Play

Therapeutic Sand Play

Sand play is a therapeutic method based upon nonverbal communication, suitable for both children and adults. The technique comprises personal development and psychotherapy, drawing from three core components: the analytic psychology of Carl Gustav Jung, the world technique of Margaret Lowenfeld, and Eastern thought and philosophy.

This technique is a particularly useful therapy for children as their thinking is primarily conducted and expressed through play and playing. It makes use of a blue sandbox and a variety of figures applied in the therapeutic process to encourage healing through creative or therapeutic regression, based upon factual images from the child's own life. The child is able to use the sandbox and figures to create a world and view it from their own situation.

Sand, water, and the color blue existed on the planet before human civilization, therefore the use of these natural materials in the therapeutic process mirrors that of the creation of life, allowing the child to create a new world from their unconscious. The use of a blue symbolizes thinking, and when utilized in the sandbox, it represents water or sky. The figures provide a source, which symbolizes good, beautiful, fearsome and evil characteristics, to name a few. The figures can be operated to act out experiences of life and fantasy in a space, which Dora M. Kalff, founder of Jungian sand play, indicates is free but protected at the same time.

Both wet and dry sand trays should be provided to allow the child to mold the sand if this is required. In addition to the range of figures supplied, rock, wood, seashells, colored glass, and a variety of other raw and natural materials allow the child to create any figures they feel are missing from the therapeutic space.

The method of sand play allows the expression of the self and reaches the core of being through the unconscious. It gives permission to play as the conscious mind relaxes, permitting material from the unconscious to surface, allowing fears to be addressed. Lenore Steinhardt explains that material produced during sand play, when created, are not immediately identifiable as a representation of emotion or the life events of the child. However, the material produced by the child may have a recognizable meaning, which will also expose further meanings when one picture is compared to those created throughout the entire therapeutic process.

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