6 March 2016

By Dr Celia van Wyk

To work with any raw unprocessed material, is to experience a totally different dimension, feeling and intensity than that of the finished product. What happens during any single seemingly simple process can be visualised as a lively interactive network of sending, receiving and processing with numerous connections and correlations, almost like a psychic manufacturing mill. This is certainly true when we observe the modality of sandplay therapy. In the case of sand work there are multiple connections, interactions and pressures between the client, his or her hands and body, the brain, thought processes, feelings, emotions, consciousness, the unconscious and the sand. The natural effects of these intense interdependent operations promote movement, energy and transformation of the psyche during the process.

Add to this the transference and counter-transference aspect between the client and the therapist, and the motivation towards change is phenomenal. In her dissertation entitled, “An Investigation of the Impact of Sandplay Therapy on Mental Health Status and Resiliency Attitudes in Mexican Farmworker Women, ”Mejia(2004), referred
specifically to the client-therapist-sand part of the dynamic as follows: “Like the alchemical vessel, the tray within the relationship between the person and the therapist contains and intensifies the heat and pressure so that change can occur.”(p. 18).

What particularly actives these processes are the natural boundaries of the sand tray, and the presence of the well-trained therapist. Both serve to protect what is transpiring within the tray. Within this containment there is free flow, freedom, the “let go” aspect, referred to as “free to do what one wants. “The aspect of protection extends to include the room where therapy takes place.

The main elements in sandplay are the client, the therapist and the sand. When a client only makes use of sand as matter in the therapy process, the psychic confrontation is
direct and intense.

 This can be seen in the sandplay process of Nic * (pseudonym), a 57 year old male, who entered therapy saying he “hated women.” Nic was married twice and divorced twice. He said with his first marriage it was as if he married his mother. That was the reason why he divorced this wife. Sadly, he repeated the same pattern with the
second woman he took as his wife. However, this time he said his wife was a “more intense version of my mother.” Nic divorced her, too.

When Nic entered my room in early February, I was the first woman he had a conversation with in a very long time. It took him a couple of months to finally gather the nerves to book an appointment with me (a woman) after his medical care provider referred him for depression and emotional imbalance issues. He was so desperate at this point,
that he finally gathered the courage to book the appointment.

One of the first things Nic told me during the clinical background interview was that since he can remember, from the moment he opened his eyes, his mother “trampled on him until nothing was left” (of him). He said she yelled at him constantly. The underlying sadness in his voice hovered in the room.

It was fascinating that the moment Nic put his hands in the sand a visible change went through his whole being. With both hands he made slow, flowing movements through the sand, back and forth, from side to side. In a soft, riveting voice, he said: “This is a very pleasant experience.” It was as if he was talking to himself. These movements and motions carried on for more than 10 minutes, when Nic looked up from the tray and told me that he was done. I could only then trust my own breathing again and exhaled slowly.

The instant, visible connection between sand, psyche, emotions and hands was remarkable.

This is evident in the prominent handprint he left in his tray. Picture 1: Session 1