Sandplay Therapy

Research and Practice

Grace L. Hong

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780415570527
• eBook ISBN: 9781136896170
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book on sandplay therapy discusses this unique, creative and nonverbal approach to therapy. It focuses on the author's experiences in practice, research and teaching from both the US and Taiwan. Topics include:

• sandplay therapy research conducted in the US and Taiwan
• the importance of symbols in sandplay therapy
• overcoming depression and trauma through sandplay therapy.

It is essential reading for all psychotherapists involved with sandplay therapy, as well as those working with minority groups and those with an interest in cross cultural psychotherapy.

Selected Contents: Part I: Research Conducted in the United States. Part II: The Author's Sandplay Case Done in the United States. Part III: Study of the Symbol. Part IV: Author's Sandplay Research Done in Taiwan. Part V: Author's Sandplay Case Done in Taiwan.

Part I
Research conducted in the United States

Chapter 1
Introduction

In the fall of 1991, while I was a student at the Minnesota Professional School of Psychology, I took a course in play therapy. During one particular lecture, my instructor, Dr. Jacquelyn Wiersma, brought in a guest lecturer, Barbara Weller, ACSW, who is one of the founders of the Minnesota Sandplay Therapy Group. I volunteered to help Ms. Weller put up the posters that were part of her presentation. Later, she gave us a brief introduction to sandplay therapy. This proved to be one of the most pivotal events in my life. I began to take more sandplay therapy seminars and workshops. In addition, I started my own sandplay therapy process, and I completed this process in April, 1992. Shortly thereafter, I was given the chance to work on a sandplay therapy project, sponsored by the MSTG. All the therapists who participated in this project were supervised by Barbara Weller, who is a certified member of the International Society for Sandplay Therapy. Prior to the aforementioned events, I had been exposed to sandplay therapy for the first time by another instructor, Dr. Alice Wagstaff, who taught client-centered therapy at the time. Again, I was inexplicably attracted to this therapeutic technique. Dr. Wiersma and Dr. Wagstaff are also both members of the MSTG. In retrospect, my contacts with Dr. Wiersma, Ms. Weller, and Dr. Wagstaff paved the way for my enthusiastic participation in the unique and intriguing world of sandplay. I believe that my encounters with these people were not coincidental. Rather, they were synchronistic events, or what the Taiwanese people would call u-ian-hun.

For the first half of my life, I was raised in East Asia, primarily in Taiwan, or Formosa, which means “beautiful island.” Growing up in a little town on the island, I was exposed to nature and isolated from the Western, materialistic way of living. I was taught by the elders in town that everything in nature has a spirit. I also played with other children in natural settings near sand, water, and trees. In addition to the emphasis on the importance of my familial relationships (with my nuclear family and with my extended family), there was also a focus on the relationship between people and nature as well. I learned through my ears as well as my eyes and my hands. In Eastern culture and due to the era in which I grew up, I, as a female, was taught to just “be” rather than to be verbal. Silence was, indeed, golden.

When I turned 16, I had to choose whether I wanted to focus on science or on literature and arts because as a senior in high school, I had to concentrate on one or the other in order to prepare for the entrance exams to either the college of science or the college of literature. At that time in Taiwan, there was no such thing as a liberal arts college. A person had to study either science or literature and arts. Students with exemplary grades were urged to major in the sciences, which is what I chose, although I felt very ambivalent about doing so. One entrance exam would determine which college I would enter and to which department I would be assigned and choices were somewhat limited. I do not believe that it was by chance that I was assigned to the psychology department at the National Taiwan University, which is the most prestigious university in Taiwan. The Department of Psychology was part of the College of the Sciences rather than the College of the Liberal Arts. From that time on, the art and the science of psychology have become a part of my life and my journey.

There was a heavy emphasis on experimental psychology, statistics, and so forth in the Department of Psychology at the National Taiwan University when I attended the program. Even though I was able to obtain good grades in those classes, I felt as if there were something missing from my education. When I graduated, I took a job as a clinical psychologist at the Taipei Children’s Mental Health Center. At the time, I thought it was coincidence that I had this job as I did not have any other choice; in retrospect, I think it was another synchronistic event. After working there for two years, I came to the United States to further my education. I obtained my master’s degree in psychology in one year. Then, I began to work as a psychologist primarily in the area of assessment, also called evaluation. One of the biggest challenges in conducting psychological assessments was trying to integrate all the psychometric materials in a holistic manner. The question was often this: These are the test results; how do the results relate to one particular individual? The integration of the art and the science of psychology became my quest.

This study provides me with a great challenge because I have to assume dual roles. I have to be both a therapist, which I feel is more related to art, and a researcher, which is more connected with science. In choosing to do this research, I have become the bridge between art and science. Similarly, in becoming a sandplay therapist, I am a bridge between the conscious and the unconscious, the expressed and the hidden, the visible and the invisible, and the external and the internal words of my clients. Since I grew up in Asia in an Eastern, spiritual culture and have lived in the US, thus experiencing the Western, industrialized culture, I believe that I am uniquely qualified to take on the aforementioned dual roles. In this study, I am the researcher as well as the therapist for four of the ten subjects. I would like to emphasize that while I am the bridge or mediator between research and therapy, my role as therapist takes precedence over my role as researcher. I would never sacrifice the welfare of my clients for the purpose of the research. The clients are my primary concern, and I am indebted to them for their participation in this study.

Now, I would like to briefly describe the sandplay therapy process. Sandplay therapy is an unconventional, creative, primarily nonverbal form of therapy. It utilizes a setting of either one or two sand trays (one filled with wet sand and one filled with dry sand), and the client places miniatures in one of these trays in order to create any type of three-dimensional sand picture. Within the boundaries of therapy’s protective environment, the client is free to explore, venture, create, and simply play. In general, the therapist does not physically participate in the creations. Instead, the therapist is an observer and an empathic witness whose active presence facilitates the client’s therapeutic process.

When there is a meaningful connection between the client and the therapist, the client is more likely to work out his/her unconscious conflicts through the sandplay process. Symbols play an important role in this process. An example of the conflict between the conscious and the unconscious, and of the importance of symbols, is present in a modern Chinese myth (Christie, 1985, pp. 137–138). This story took place in the province of Yunnan in a village near Horse Year Mountain.

One year, there was a great drought. All the people of the village were starving because nothing was growing. One day, when Chao and his daughter, the sea girl, went up into the mountains to cut bamboo trees so they could make brooms, they saw a clear and shiny lake. The next day, the sea girl took an axe to the lake because she wanted to make a path so that the water would flow from the lake down to her village. She failed, then sat in despair under a tree, not knowing what to do. A wild goose appeared and informed her that all the girl had to do was find the golden key which would unlock the lake. Before the sea girl could ask the wild goose where she could find the golden key, the wild goose took off.

The girl went into the forest and asked three parrots where she might be able to find the key. They told her, “You have to find the third daughter of the dragon king.” Before she could ask where she could find the dragon king’s daughter, the three parrots flew off. As the girl was walking home, despondent, a peacock appeared and told her, “Don’t despair! You can find the daughter of the dragon king in the canyons of the southern mountains.” As the sea girl set off once again on her journey to find the maiden, the peacock flew ahead of her and said, “Wait a minute. Let me tell you that the third daughter of the dragon king enjoys songs that people sing.” The sea girl sang folk songs for three days in the southern mountains, and on the third day, the dragon king’s daughter appeared. She admired the sea girl’s singing so much, she broke her father’s instructions of never entering the human world. The dragon king’s daughter asked the sea girl where she was from and why she was singing. The sea girl replied that she needed the key to the lake in order to save the people of her village. The dragon king’s daughter answered that she knew where the key was, but it was guarded by an eagle at the dragon king’s treasury, and the eagle would kill anyone who went near the treasure. The dragon king’s daughter added that she would take the sea girl to the treasury to see what they could do.

The two girls went to the treasury, and as they sang, the eagle woke up, spread his wings, and went to see who was singing. At this moment, the sea girl slipped past him and went into the treasury, which was filled with gold, silver, and jewelry. After resisting her impulse to check out the treasures, the sea girl searched for the key. She accidentally knocked over the box in which the key was hidden. As soon as she found the key, she hurried back to the dragon king’s daughter to tell her the good news. The two girls went back to the lake near the sea girl’s village. As the sea girl unlocked the lake with the golden key, the water immediately gushed out of the lake. If the dragon king’s daughter had not told the sea girl to turn off the flow, the whole town would have been destroyed by the flood. The sea girl used straw screens to stem the threatening flood, then the straw turned into stones. When the dragon king discovered what his daughter had done, he banished her from his kingdom. The dragon king’s daughter decided to live with the sea girl, and the two of them sang folk songs together. The women of the village honored the two girls with communal songs on the twenty-second day of the seventh month.

As I was reading this story, I drew an analogy between this myth and how, when we are not in touch with our unconscious lives, a great drought occurs in our conscious lives. This is a story rich with symbols (the birds, the eagle, etc.), but for now, I want to focus on the main story and how it reflects the sandplay process. As a people, we need to find the golden key that will unlock the mystery of our unconscious lives in order to achieve a balance and integration between our unconscious and conscious lives. It is not an easy task to find the key. Additionally, when we do find the key, we may be flooded with unconscious material. It is extremely important to know how to properly transfer the unconscious into the conscious in order for that information to be useful to our conscious lives. In the context of therapy, the better the therapist understands the symbolic meaning of the client’s three-dimensional sandplay world, the better their alliance will be, and the easier it is for the client to work out his/her conflicts. Interpretations are not usually done during the session. A review session may be held after the completion of the process at a time determined by the client and the therapist. During this review, the therapist interprets and discusses all of the sand pictures with the client.

In concluding this introduction, I would like to share a dream that I had a few years back. This dream occurred around the time I decided to further my studies and to be a therapist instead of being just an evaluator. In my dream, I was standing on the shore, and I saw a pond filled with sand in a swamp area. Three figures covered with sand rose out of the pond and held out their hands, crying, “Help! Help!” Standing at the shore, I felt compassion for the misery they were experiencing, and I quickly pulled them out of this chaos and brought them to a safe place. At the time of this dream, I did not consciously know that I was on my way to becoming a sandplay therapist.

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Table of contents

• Contents
• Figures
• Foreword by Katherine Bradway
• Foreword by Chi Hui Jung
• Foreword by Barbara Weller
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I Research conducted in the United States
• Part II The author’s sandplay case done in the United States
• Part III Study of the symbol
• Part IV The author’s sandplay research done in Taiwan
• Part V The author’s sandplay case done in Taiwan
• Appendix
• References
• Index