Trauma Awareness and Treatment Center

Clinical Sandplay

with Traumatized Children

Larry Beall, Ph.D.

1. Why Sandplay?   How Does It Work?
   1. Integrating the child’s four critical functions: Thinking, Feeling, Sensing, Behaving.
   2. Bridging child and adult worlds.
   3. Expressing the inexpressible through “picture thinking.”
   4. Directing a child’s trauma expression and resolution more effectively.
   5. Helping the child make the goals for change more self-initiated and liveable.
   6. Sand Tray as a means for keeping a growing edge.  Therapist burnout prevention.
2. Major Themes

Good vs. Evil and Magic  These two themes are particularly represented with pewter items.  Pewter is found at cheapest prices in pawn shops. Pewter is expensive.  Tell the merchant what the pewter is for and you can often get a discount.

Violence    Violent action figures are useful – soldiers, including tanks and jeeps, war scenes, etc., Star Wars figures.

Death          Dying, headstones, skeletons, mourning figures.

Nature         Trees, mountains, and other features from hobby shops are especially good; rocks, sea shells, hornet nests, etc.

Plant Life   Natural/artificial.  Show life cycle of plants from seeds, pods, blossoming, dead, etc.

Environmental Scenery   Houses, buildings, bridges, furniture, farm items.

Boundaries    Fences, walls, barriers of various kinds.

Animals     Domestic, predators, realistic, fantasy, loveable, scarey, solitary, groups.  Try to get a few mother and young animal combinations.  Frightening animals such as snakes, spiders, insects, scorpions, are used.  Must have a lot of dinosaurs.  For this nature category keep an eye open in your nature encounters for natural objects to add to your collection.

People   This is one of your biggest categories and requires a variety of types of people.  Include realistic people such as miniature porcelains, Hansen porcelains are useful, Fisher-Price plastic people for doll houses are good, include different cultures, small clay oriental figures, wood carvings of Buddha or African natives, Native-American pieces.

Families    Have different family configurations, including grandparents, mother/daughter, father/son, various family sizes.

Fantasy  All of the Disney figures are useful, characters from recent Disney movies are usually in demand.  Children especially can identify a human more through a fantasy object than a real one.  Garage sales, toy store sales, flea markets, and McDonalds are frequent sources for these fantasy items.

Cultural   The mysteriousness of different cultures is important for your sand tray collection.  Many of these type items can be found at the Dickens Festival, UEA Convention, specialty stores, etc.

Religious Objects     Cross, Jesus, crucifix, manger scene, temple, angels, prophets, ministers.

Transportation     Toy cars, trucks, trains, airplanes.

Personal    Mirrors, candles, pieces of jewelry.

Miscellaneous   Material such as Sculpy Clay (can be formed and baked into a             hardened object), glue, string, paper clips.  Sand toys, strainer, paint brushes, funnels, shovels, etc.  Different colored paper, popcycle sticks, etc.

Live Animals   Birds, hermit crabs, turtle, hedgehog.  These small animals are often used by children to bring their sand tray world to life.

Other                                                                                                              

1. Two basic approaches to Sandplay Therapy: Non-Directive and Directive

A.  In Non-Directive Sandplay, the child chooses any items and places them in the sand tray without any instruction as to purpose or what they should be trying to do.  The first sand tray almost always should be non-directive.  Some general instructions may include:

1.  Objects may be placed in the sand to create a world or picture.

2.  They will feel how they want to place the items in the sand and they should move the items around until the sand tray “fits the way it feels inside.”

3.  We think in pictures, and this play is a way of expressing the way we think.

B.  In Directive Sandplay, the therapist has a purpose for the child based on the referral or something that has come up in therapy.  This purpose gives the structure to the sandplay activity.  For example, “pick things about your problem with your father and place them in the sand tray any way you want.”

Exercise: Determine which of the following therapy purposes best falls under Non-Directive Sandplay or under Directive Sandplay.  Some of the purposes may be justified by both methods.

• Child needs to build a bridge with the therapist and to trust___________________
• Child needs to explore their environment to achieve mastery and a sense of safety _________________________
• Child needs to get into better contact with their senses_______________________
• Child needs to be validated as a person, to be accepted_______________________
• Child needs to uncover dissociated memories______________________________
• Child needs to create a safe place________________________________________
• Child needs to recreate a specific memory_________________________________
• Child needs to know it is alright to talk about the trauma_____________________
• Child needs to master a challenging situation______________________________
• Child needs to work through a family or relationship problem_________________
• Child needs to solve a particular problem_________________________________
• Child needs to indirectly express their trauma in a concrete, real way_____________________________
• Child needs to identify and express strong emotions_________________________
• Child needs to own parts of herself she has disowned________________________
• Child needs to deal with a significant other________________________________
• Child needs to play and have fun________________________________________

4. Instructions for Non-Directive Sandplay

There are phases to the sandplay session:

1. Introduction to Sandplay
2. Building or Creating Phase
3. Experiencing or Reflective Phase
4. Sharing and Focusing Phase
5. Exploring and Application Phase
6. Drawing and Photographing Phase
7. Disassembling Phase

A.  Introduction to Sandplay.   In the first phase, your goal is to introduce sandplay in a way that the child feels free to explore the items and the sand and has a general idea that the items can be placed in the sand tray to create a picture or world.  The child may spend most of a session just exploring the items or playing with the sand.  This, of course, is okay and

with some children should be encouraged.  It is the process that is paramount.  Some suggestions you may want to include in this phase are:

1.  Show them your sand and items.  Explain how wet sand can be shaped and molded.  Explain how the bottom of the tray is blue to represent water.  Show them the tools that can be used in the sand, like small paint brushes, scoops and strainer.

2.  Experience items and the sand with the child.  If the child finds an item of which she is particularly fond and she wants to play with it in the sand without getting more items, encourage her to do so.  This exploration should be open ended. Remember, there is no right or wrong way to introduce the child to sandplay.

3.  It is important for you as a therapist to observe the child as she picks her objects. You may notice her gravitate to certain objects and pick them without hesitancy. Others she may be ambivalent about and handle them and then put them down, or leave them and then go back to them.

B.  Building or Creating Phase.   As the child builds her sand tray world, it is important that she feels free to follow her own intuition or instincts.  It may take some time before she feels free to do so, but the process of her learning to trust herself is as important as the outcome of what she builds.  Process is often more important than outcome.  Here are a few suggestions:

1.  Remind your client to take her time and look over all the items and pick those items she feels an attraction to.  (Have baskets available in which to place items.)

2.  She can get sand, water, and items together in a tray in any way she desires.

3.  She can move things around in the sand tray until she is comfortable with it, or has an “inner sense of correctness.”  Encourage the child to ask for anything she doesn’t see.  She may go back to the shelves for more objects as many times as she needs to, until her sand tray world feels complete.

4.  The key to this phase is for the child to follow her heart, her inner self.  This often makes the building phase extremely important and may leave only a few minutes at the end.  (Follow your own clinical sense as to what phase of the sandplay toemphasize.)

5.  Again, observation is important.  What objects go in first?  Last?  Watch how the objects are treated or handled as they are placed in the tray.  Her response to objects will often say much about the process she is engaged in as she builds her world.

6.  As you observe the child place things in the sand tray, it can be helpful to reflect to her what you observe her doing or feeling, to direct her awareness to her process: “You put those houses in very slowly and carefully.”  “You don’t seem to like to use those animals.  You don’t want to touch them.”  “You like to feel the wet sand.” “You are burying the soldiers.”  “You look angry.”

C.  Experiencing or Reflective Phase.   This phase deepens the process of the child building her own sand tray world.  You can encourage the child to experience her world by asking her to “please get into your world, feel it, experience it as if you were part of it.  Take your time. It’s your world and you can enjoy it.”

D.  Sharing and Focusing Phase.   You will know when the child has finished experiencing her world because she will look up or shift her gaze somewhere else.  This is your cue to give her the opportunity to share her world with you.  You might consider the following:

1.  A simple request is often all that is necessary to encourage the child to share her creation: “Would you please share with me what you have made here?”  “What is happening in this world?”

2.  As the child shares with you what she has made, use Rogerian techniques to reflect what she shares.  At this point, do not ask question, but support the child as she explores what she has made, and how she feels about what she has made.

3.  Learn the meaning and significance of each object and formation of sand in the sand tray.  Take seriously and respect her world and she can learn to do the same. This can be a powerful validation for her as a person and for what matters to her as demonstrated by the world she has made.  Do NOT judge or interpret the sand tray world. It is a personal  expression and a unique creation and should be experienced and respected.

4.  When the world has been fully explored, ask her if it would be okay for you to go

over to her side of the tray to see her world from her perspective.  Notice the relationship of the objects to each other, and what seem to be central objects that others are arranged around.

5.  This is a good time to ask questions about the objects that seem to have been given emphasis by her, or about aspects of the process you observed as she selected her objects.  “You seemed to struggle a bit whether to pick that little boy or not.  I wonder why that was so hard for you to pick?”  You can also ask questions about the objects in the tray and their relationships with each other.  “Hercules is right next to the lamb.  I wonder what could be the reason for that?”

6.  This is the phase where you can deepen the child’s experience of certain parts of

her world.  “If you were that horse, what would you be feeling right now?  What

Would you like to do?”

E.  Exploring and Application Phase.   A sand tray creation is not static.  As feelings and understanding change, it can change.  Use questions that may help a child more fully explore her sand tray world in terms of its possible connections to her outside world.  “Does this world have anything to do with what is going on in your life?”  “Now that you have explored your world, are there any changes you would like to make in it?”  “What message is this world trying to give you?”

F.  Drawing and Photographing Phase.   A record of the sand tray world is important.  Often   more meaning can be taken from the world if it is drawn, since how the child draws the objects in the world can indicate much about what the objects mean to her.  Because of time constraints, it can be best to have them take your Poloroid or digital photo or rough sketch home and draw it as a homework assignment.

G.  Disassembling Phase.   There are two schools of thought.

1.  The therapist takes down the tray because the visual impression and “energy” of the tray should not be broken for the client.

2.  The client takes down the tray while the therapist observes for the diagnostic and therapeutic information it provides.

The order in which the tray is dismantled, the expression of surfacing emotion, and how the

items are handled can give us useful information, just as watching the sand tray formed. As

clients who have been abused put away object representations of perpetrators, symbolically they can negate the “perpetrator’s” power to hurt them and this can also give them mastery over the abuse and trauma.  Disassembling a sand tray is like undoing the past as it had been represented in the sandtray.

5. Instructions for Directive Sandplay

The steps for Directive Sandplay are extensions of the steps for Non-Directive Sandplay.

With the use of certain directions and questions, the child can experience the sandplay creation, but along lines that are conducive to solving specific problems and dealing with specific issues.  Directive Sandplay is mainly involved in the Introduction Phase and the

Sharing and Focusing Phase.

A.  Introduction to Sandplay.   Preparation often precedes Directive Sandplay.  In play therapy, such as in drawings, issues may emerge that could effectively be resolved in Directive Sandplay.  An example would be John drawing his family with himself as tiny compared to other family members.  An introduction to sandplay might be “John, would you please pick items from the shelves that would show you and your family doing things?”

If you have an issue or problem to be dealt with in sandplay, you can suggest to the child that since some things are hard to talk about or explain, there is a way to share “picture thinking” or making a movie about it in the sand.

B.  Sharing and Focusing Phase.   Traumatized persons create more concrete sandtrays, while non-traumatized persons create more symbolic ones.  A person who has been chronically sexually abused, for example, often chooses real objects such as adults, babies, and beds to represent the abuse.  For this reason, look for repetitions of themes in a series of sandtrays.  Are there one, two or three objects that always seem to be in the tray?

One way to help a child explore feelings and events in Directive Sandplay is with gently probing questions:

Questions that help the child identify with a part:

• Can you be that part and describe yourself?
• Can you be that part and tell me what you do?
• Can you be that part and do something with this part?