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 âbeautiful island.â 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 âbeâ 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 Childrenâs 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 masterâs 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 therapyâs 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 clientâs 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. 137â138). This story took place in the province of Yunnan in a village near Horse Year Mountain.
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 clientâs 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, âHelp! Help!â 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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