THE IMAGINABLE ARCHETYPE:

PRACTICES AND PRINCIPLES OF SANDPLAY THERAPY

A Research Report submitted to:The School of Social WorkFaculty of Graduate Studies and ResearchMcGill University

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for: The Master's Degree in Social WorkBy:Ruth Claire WeintraubMontreal, March 1992

PREFACE

This paper is an introduction to sandplay, a therapeutic modality with a growing constituency of practitioners world-wide. In it, I describe the origins of sandplay, the process and the materials used. Highlighting its suitability for Social Work, I explain what sandplay is used for, clinically and diagnostically, provide information on who uses it, for what purposes and with what success. To demonstrate how the process works, I share an illustrated account of my first sandplay process, then discuss some of the initial problems encountered in understanding and interpreting that process. I provide some information on how people become sandplay therapists and indicate some of the training issues. I conclude with some further directions for theory and practice.

This paper would not exist were it not for the warm and thoughtful guidance of my faculty advisor, Dr. Barbara Nichols. I am also indebted to the assistance of excellent librarians. At McGill University, especially Liz, Ailsa and Marcus; Doris Albrecht of the Kristen Mann Library at the C. J. Jung Center in New York City. Drs. Lawrence Kirmayer of McGill’s Dept. of Transcultural Psychiatry and Davis Landis at SUNY Stony Brook Medical School made their personal libraries accessible. Sandplay therapists Estelle Weinrib, Nehema Baum and Yvonne Federer were gracious and responsive to my short-notice appeals.

Acknowledgement is due to my family: my late maternal cousin Simonne Marcus Fuchsel, and of course my parents, Charles and Celia Weintraub; my sister Karen and my brother David, along with their respective families; my sons Noah and Jacob and each of their fathers. The love and good faith of all these people helped make this work possible.

The integrity of the information in the creative matrix of my life is authenticated by the vitality and fidelity of friends: Guna, Louise, Sonia, Faith, Marilou. Rob got me to the bus on time; John and Nick thought the boxes deserved Japanese joinery; Paul helped me make space for them. Finally, (last but not least), I am grateful to the F.C.A.R. of the Government of Quebec for having supported my research.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

1. What sandplay therapy is; what its origins are; the process and the materials used; its suitability for Social Work

2. Who uses sandplay; for what purposes and with what success

3. My introduction to the sandplay process

4. How sandplay works; understanding and interpreting the process

5. Training in sandplay therapy; how people become recognized as sandplay therapists

6. Further directions; issues in theory and practice

CONCLUSION

APPENDIX

BIBLIOGRAPHY

O blessed rage for order! - Wallace Stevens

The great need of our time is for people to be connected to spirit; for people to be connected to a core of feeling in themselves that makes their lives vital and full of meaning, that makes life a mystery ever-more to be uncovered.

- Harold Stone

INTRODUCTION

Sand play. The words conjure sunny memories: days at the seaside, saltfoam waves, crabs and distant sailboats for company. Pail and shovel at hand, earnestly the building begins -- tunnels and roads, castles and moats: a world arises from the waters, just as imagination decrees. Then, with the imperceptible shifting of the tides, the ocean reclaims the "world" made in the sand ... .

The thought of such treasured times may evoke nostalgic feelings for the past, or even the fleeting thought that it might be fun to play with sand once again. After all, isn't a sandbox simply child's play? Yet a sandbox can be more than play. It can also be a primary element in therapy, for adults as well as children.

The sandbox is not an instrument of magic. It is a tool, an extremely effective tool, for getting to the imagination and allowing it to become creative (Kalff, 1980).

1. What sandplay therapy is; what its origins are; the process and the materials used; its suitability for social work

Although many peoples, such as the Navajo and Australian aborigines, have used sand for sacred purposes, including healing rituals (Farris,1989), the first person to use sandplay explicitly as a form of therapy was British pediatrician and child psychologist Margaret Lowenfeld, who began her work in the late 1920's.

[S]he was most of all preoccupied with the insufficiency of words to express those aspects of childhood thoughts and feeling which interested her most (Mead, 1977, in Lowenfeld, 1979).

Lowenfeld developed what came to be known as The Lowenfeld World Technique after reading H.G. Wells' (1911) description of his imaginative play with his children. Wells related how he and his two young sons covered the entire floor of one room with numerous miniature objects such as houses, people, soldiers, boats, trains, animals, as well as pieces of wood, paper and plastic. Their "floor games" consisted of the children's construction of fantasy scenes (Petti, 1991).

Lowenfeld arrived at her "World" technique independently, while working as a clinician. Her approach to treating children was quite different from the traditional psychoanalytic one. She developed her ideas outside of the framework created and sustained by the psychoanalytic community. She rejected the idea that the child's mind follows the same theoretical principles as the mind of an adult, and was more interested

in furthering a rational and technical understanding of the child's output than one within the psychoanalytic school's theoretical formulations of child development and psychopathology. Wanting to be able to directly contact the mental and emotional life of a child, she endeavored to devise an instrument that would let a child demonstrate her or his emotional and mental state without an adult's intervention; she discouraged both premature interpretation and transference. Stressing that the child's sandworlds not be interpreted obtrusively, her language is concerned more with a cognitive process than a sexual, aggressive conflictual experience (Petti, 1991).

For Lowenfeld, it was important was to be able to make an accurate record of the results, to keep a record of the child's own demonstration. She described as her goal "the achievement of an approach to the child's mind ... both objective in itself and susceptible of record" (Lowenfeld, 1979). Her experience with her World apparatus led her to conclude that its quality lay in its power of expression. Its multi-dimensional nature permitted the child to present processes and concepts of differing elements that were going on simultaneously at different levels in the child's psyche. Dynamic possibilities were an integral part of the action orientation of the apparatus: it made no difference whether the World the child presented was static or dynamic. The process had the power to present states of mind which had been unknown because they were pre-verbal. Most importantly, the process was independent of skill insofar as it required no technical ability of any kind.

The power of the technique was impressive to those who worked with it, and no less impressive to those who observed. Margaret Lowenfeld had been working for nearly thirty years when, in 1956, Dora M. Kalff, who was then training at the C.J. Jung Institute in Switzerland, observed several "World" demonstration sessions conducted by Lowenfeld at a psychiatric conference held in Zurich. Kalff was inspired. Encouraged by C.J. Jung, she went to London to study with Dr. Lowenfeld and her associates. Although Lowenfeld did not consider herself a Jungian, her approach was consonant with what has become Jungian sandplay theory and technique (Farris, 1989). When Kalff returned to her home in Zollikon, outside of Zurich, she began her practice with children, where she developed, using Jungian symbology, her own version of the technique (Weinrib, 1983). Kalff focused on the innate healing potentials of symbols from the collective unconscious, represented by the miniatures available to the child for play. She predicated that the manifestation of the Self, notable in the sand tray representations, was the primary means by which children overcome psychological difficulties. This approach was quite different from Lowenfeld's verbally interactive technique that relied on the child's cognitive understanding of his difficulties.

Today, some sixty years since Lowenfeld first opened her clinic, the therapeutic modality known as "sandplay" has now become established as a specialized form of psychotherapy. Of the ever-increasing group of therapists and researchers practising worldwide, several thousand in number as of this writing, the majority in some way utilize the analytical or archetypal theories of C.J. Jung.

Regardless of their theoretical orientation, however, sandplay therapists commonly use boxes constructed according to standard dimensions, approximately 57cm x 72cm x 7cm (19" x 28" x 3"). The size of the box is important, since the box creates a frame which allows the image or images being created to be viewed without moving the head. The observer can take in everything that is going on within the frame of the box in

a single glance, because the dimensions of the box correspond to his/her field of vision as s/he stands in front of the tray. The boxes, two in number, are half-filled with medium to fine sand, the texture of ordinary beach sand, and usually stand waist-high, or are located at such a level that the "world" can be made in it with the hands. Coarseness of the sand may vary, but when dampened with water, the sand must hold its shape for several hours, or at least the length of a session, about an hour. Some therapists choose sand of a different color for each tray. The interiors of the boxes are painted blue so that when the sand is moved aside, water or sky may be indicated by a glimpse of blue.

An extensive assortment of miniature objects, absolutely integral to the play, is located nearby. The miniatures may be of any type: children's toys, model and hobby materials, curios, souvenirs, bibelots, handmade objects, etc. The size and nature of the collection will depend upon the orientation of the therapist and the attributes of the patient population. For instance, therapists who practice with children, or disturbed adolescents or the handicapped might steer clear of precious or fragile objects.

Whatever its particulars, the collection of miniatures, placed on low or easily available shelves, is usually arranged in a number of categories. These categories are: Living creatures: ordinary people (men, women and children) of every ethnic and racial type and from every period of history; soldiers; entertainers; wild animals and domestic animals; Religion, fantasy and myth: figures and animals (prehistoric, space age, and media-driven); symbolic objects; Scenery: buildings of every kind, trees, flowers, bushes; fences, bridges, gates; Transport: for road, sea, air, and space; Tools and equipment: utensils for roads, towns, farms, gardens, playgrounds, fairs, schools, homes, etc; Raw materials and miscellaneous objects: stones, shells, marbles, bits of colored glass, rocks, wood, string, wire, paper, plasticine, fabric.

At the beginning of the approximately one-hour sandplay session, water is provided so that sand in one tray can be dampened; the other tray's sand is left dry. Any of the objects in the room can be utilized to create images (or worlds) in one or both of the trays. During the session, the therapist generally will keep recording sequentially the patient's activity in the trays. This is done by drawing a kind of map of the image being made in the trays, using standardized representations of the objects and sometimes accompanied by sketches of the finished worlds. These sketches show, on a horizontal plane, the sand world as it appears in the tray. Any verbal description made by the patient is noted next to the object as it is being mapped/drawn, with an indication of the sequential order of placement and verbalization. Remarks made by the patient during the process are placed in quotes (Lowenfeld, 1979).

When the sand world is complete, photographs are taken to record the finished product. The photographs record the patient's completed sand world with all its miniatures, close-ups of clustered objects, and, as well, the arrangement of the sand in the trays after the miniatures have been removed. Eventually these may be reviewed by the therapist and patient together.

Initially, however, the photographs remain with the therapist. What the patient takes away with her is the emotional after-effect of the images she has made. After the

session, the miniatures are restored to their shelves and the sand is raked smooth once again by the therapist. A sand picture is never dismantled in front of the patient. Not only would doing so devalue the patent's creation, it would break down the patient's connection to her inner self, as well as her non-verbal connection to the therapist (Weinrib, 1983).

According to Ammann (1991), the sand picture should be cleared away by the therapist immediately after the hour. As with the sand-paintings of the Navajo, which are made solely for healing, the patient's sand picture should not remain long in the outer world. What is important is the energy of the inner image.

That energy is fundamental in sandplay, which provides direct access to the personal inner world of impulse and feeling, and an opportunity for inarticulate patients to emerge from inner isolation (Weinrib, 1983). Although sandplay as it is currently practiced is largely in the hands of clinicians in private practice, some therapists are using it successfully in community and government-funded clinics, schools and hospitals. The relevance and utility of this powerful therapeutic tool for social work will be made evident in this report.

2. Who uses sandplay, for what purpose and with what success

Aliyana came to pick me up at the therapist's house. "You've got to see what she does," I told her.

"What do you do?" Aliyana asked the therapist.

In reply, the therapist led her downstairs, opened a door and stepped inside. Aliyana followed her in. Taking in the sandboxes in the center of the room, her eyes travelled slowly over the thousands of miniatures filling the shelves which lined the walls. "I see," she said. "You do magic." Falling silent for a moment, "The imaginable archetype," she added.

(conversation, 1992)

Margaret Lowenfeld's World Technique is the basis of sandplay as it is practiced today. Dr. Lowenfeld used sandplay in her London Clinic for Nervous and Difficult Children. She noted the following qualities of the World Apparatus from which, she suggested, its power of expression derived: its multi-dimensional nature, its dynamic possibilities, its power to present states of mind that had been previously unknown; and especially its independence of skill (Lowenfeld, 1979).

Lowenfeld's World apparatus enabled her to open the doors of an interior world she would otherwise not have reached. The experience of war in Europe had devastated children and adults alike, destroying the primal essence of many children and reducing the interior lives of those adults who had fought or been prisoners of war to the bleak depressions of infancy. Lowenfeld took as her central mandate the psychotherapeutic task of making contact with the whole of the patient's mind, "not only by intuition but by direct and conscious knowledge and understanding of the laws of mind." To this end her World Technique was bent, and she duly noted its successes with disturbed children, and to adults who were able to use it as an aid to understanding themselves and to

communicating with children.Credit for the subsequent development of sandplay as a form of Jungian therapy,

following Lowenfeld's initial start, must go to Dora M. Kalff, who trained most of the first-generation sandplay therapists now in practice all over the world. Kalff initially used sandplay to work primarily, although not exclusively, with adolescents and children.

Who uses sandplay and with what populations is it effective? The technique originated as a form of child therapy and has been generally been commended as a technique that works well with children. This is because sandplay is, in part, play.

Play, which can transcend the immediate needs of life, can impart meaning to action. Klein (1960) has said that it is necessary for a well balanced life, while Huizinga (1970) called it the "determining characteristic of human sensibility." Play functions as a bridge between the consciousness of children and their emotional life; as well it connects them to other children and the significant adults in their lives (Lowenfeld, 1979). In play, children symbolically represent fantasies, wishes and experiences in the same mode seen in dreams. In a sense, says Weinrib (1983), the sand pictures can be viewed as an extended dream or prolonged state of active imagination that needs to work itself out.

Reed (1975) outlines the principles of sandplay as a form of play therapy. She found, in her practice, that the frequently disorganized energy of an emotionally disturbed child needs expression, control and channelling. She describes the three-dimensional approach of sandplay as being more efficacious and meaningful than verbalization and free play. She stresses the benefit of direct contact with the elements of sand and water, and the tactile processes required for sandplay activity.

For Ammann (1991), working in the sand tray can initiate a holistic psychic process that can both lead to healing and further the development of the personality. By using the sand trays, the hands are able to give shape to powers in the unconscious in a way that words cannot. She says sandplay is especially suited for adults and children who suffer from disturbances rooted in early childhood or of a narcissistic nature, because the process is able to lead the person back into the deeper layers of the early childhood psyche.

Lowenfeld (1979) used her World Apparatus with violent children, and Kalff (1980), Weinrib (1983), Ryce-Menuhin (1992) and others of the Jungian school use sandplay to help patients of all ages channel aggressive outbursts, but Feldman (1988) suggests that sandplay may be counter-indicated as a form of therapy where expression of rage and aggression might result in injury to the child or the therapist.

With respect to psychoses, all sandplay therapists are emphatic that any resistance to sandplay must be respected (Chichester, 1984). Ryce-Menuhin (1992) prefers that adults ask for sandplay treatment themselves, rather than suggesting it to them. He says he has had some "real success" treating adult hysteria with sandplay. There are mixed reports as to the effectiveness of sandplay with schizophrenics, and it has been suggested that a reluctance to play in the sand may be a diagnostic indication of schizophrenia (Weinrib, 1983).

However, Oda, Funai, and Hazama (1982), working in Japan, report successful therapeutic results with this population. Therapists working in hospital settings, primarily in Italy and Japan, have utilized sandplay with a variety of mentally or emotionally disturbed patients (Funai, Oda and Hazama, 1982; Aoki, 1982), and Baum (1990, 1992) uses sandplay successfully with the mentally handicapped, a patient

population susceptible to traumatic outbursts. In Canada, Dr. Nehama Baum, a Toronto psychotherapist, has made a radical

contribution to the field of sandplay therapy with her application of this modality to multi-handicapped children and adults, who had been considered by many to be both untreatable and unteachable. Dr. Baum, herself the mother of a cerebral palsied child, specializes in the treatment of individuals with brain damage, developmental handicaps and emotional and/or psychiatric disorders. Her original work on a Multi-Focal approach to the treatment of individuals with a complex configuration of handicaps led to her establishing the Muki Baum treatment centers in Toronto, for individuals suffering from developmental disabilities combined with severe emotional and/or psychiatric disorders. The two centers now in operation are 100% funded by the Government of Ontario; in them sandplay is combined with other therapies: music, art and drama, as well as verbal, client-centered non-directive modalities. Dr. Baum has pioneered the use of sandplay therapy in Canada for this population (Baum, 1990; 1992). In September, 1992, the Association is opening three group homes in Toronto; sandplay therapy will be an integral part of the program in each.

Other practitioners have brought sandplay into schools, where it is being used in the classroom as a tool for facilitating learning (Noyes, 1981; Chichester, 1984). Envisioning being able to join its therapeutic effect to its effect on cognitive processes, Chichester (1984) investigated the method's usefulness in implementing learning. Her subjects were primarily Grade 4 students whose skill level did not match their known ability. These children had been diagnosed as poor performers, underachievers relative to their ability level. Consent of their parents was obtained before they participated in the study. The sand trays were located in a private nook in the classroom created with the judicious use of a folding screen. Once a week, each child was given a 45-minute period in which to create a sand world. The activity was self-determined; a child could choose not to utilize the sand trays after time had been set aside for her, and some children chose not to play from time to time. The childrens' sandplay play was unmediated by an adult, but the children were encouraged to write essays about their sandworlds after they had completed them. Chichester, who describes her use of sandplay in the classroom as "atypical," reports increased reading level scores in a significant number of children following sandplay over the course of their school year. She observes that some of the children in her study were able to use sandplay as an outlet for aggression and suggests that the sand trays offer "a safe and secure place where demonic energies can be transformed."

Noyes (1981) also reports considerable improvement in children's reading scores after she introduced sandplay into first grade classrooms. Interestingly, she notes that she believes the 'vague guilt' she felt when she first began letting children "play" during reading instruction time was due to her own confusion about the difference between teaching and learning.

Sandplay is also used as a therapeutic tool by school counselors (Allen, 1988; Allen and Berry,1987; Vinturella and James, 1987). Allen (1988) reports on the use of sandplay in guidance counseling, where treatment usually comprises 8-10 sessions. The counselor witnesses the process of play, and interpretation is seldom needed. Issues seem to be resolved or are understood on an unconscious, symbolic level, as the play itself makes the inner problem visible and allows therapeutic movement and growth. At

termination, the counselor shows the child all the photographs, and sketches, if any were made, of the sandworlds, as a means of review and discussion.

There are some therapists who are attempting to integrate various other therapeutic modalities into sandplay, rather than connecting sandplay to other modalities in a unified treatment program consisting of "separate but equal" forms of treatment. Carey (1991), for example, writing from a Jungian perspective, has used sandplay in family therapy. She writes that introducing sandplay into a family therapy context aids integration, communication and boundary definition. Through sandplay, family alliances can be observed and unconscious contents of the family system are rapidly revealed. Carey reports (personal communication, 1992) that she did not deliberately seek to introduce sandplay into family work; rather, adults in families who came to her center seeking therapy for a child family member saw the sand trays and were drawn to them. Encouraging family members to work together in the trays brought relief to some of Carey's families, and their successes have led her to continue this experiment.

Glen (1988), a sandplay therapist in Hawaii who works principally with children, also concerns himself with other members of the child's family. Glen states that he was influenced by the work of the American family therapist Virginia Satir, and decided to incorporate a version of Satir's family map as a part of the developmental history intake procedure in his Sandplay Systems work. In the family system itself, however, Glen permits only the child access to the sand trays. He describes his family systems approach as an "expansive communications network joining the child-client, the therapist, and the parent(s)." This he accomplishes by creating an "ongoing communications pathway" between parents and the therapist through a "parental limited-partner relationship."

Kim (1992) has used sandplay in conjunction with drama therapy. She constructed a circular sand tray (39" dia.) that was used to represent "the dream world" in a group psychotherapy experience. Kim, an art therapist whose focus is the shamanic experience of drama, has been using sandplay as one step in a sequence of therapeutic processes. She uses first dreams, then sandplay; these measures are followed by mask-building, mask-decorating, mask-enactment, body-tracing, body-casting or life size puppet-making, and finally, dream performance, to bring on a cathartic release.

Kim's use of the sand tray to enhance individuals' sharing of experience in a group echoes that of Mizushima (1971; in Farris, 1988), who used sandplay with groups in Japan. Mizushima encouraged members of the group to add to a tray in turn, or to verbally comment on the tray. This was to allow individuals to express their inner worlds to others and thus free them from the limits and fixations of their individual egos.

Crayston (personal communication, 1992), working in Montreal, uses sandplay as an adjunct to body work, especially yoga. He does not consider himself to be a sandplay therapist, and does very little documenting of patients' sandplay processes, sometimes taking a picture of a patient's completed tray and then suggesting to the patient that various figures or parts of the tray could be rearranged to "change" the situation. The sand tray thus serves as a miniature stage in which a scene is set, the characters placed, with the therapist acting as dramaturg to the patient's play. Crayston reports using a sandplay process to help a patient write a report. The patient, who had developed a writing block, told the story that had to be written down in the report, while using the sand tray as a miniature stage. Crayston took notes while the patient demonstrated the action of the story, handed the patient the notes at the end of the session, and told him to

go home and write up his report. The patient was able to unblock the writing process after having used Crayston's sandplay materials as a visual communication tool. (Not all Crayston's creative efforts with the medium have been so positive, however; he once encouraged a patient to make a sand picture in an initial evaluation session. When he interpreted the picture for the patient and told him what they "would have to work on" in the course of therapy, the patient fled and never returned.)

In this case, the therapist's verbalization of his therapeutic assessment was a premature statement; it was experienced by the patient as an invasion of his requirement for a "free and protected space" (Kalff, 1980), which is emphasized in the Jungian literature:

[The therapist] does not as a rule offer ... information nor does he press for associations or confront the patient in any way. The aim of sandplay is to offer really free play devoid of rules and in safe circumstances. It offers an opportunity for being and doing without encumbrance (Weinrib 1983).

Therapy aside, sandplay is also used as a projective test (a procedure or device that can be used to infer an individual's personality traits, attitudes, propensities, or feelings through responses to vague, ambiguous or unstructured stimuli). The most prominent of these projective psychologists was Charlotte Buhler, who identified different styles of sand worlds, each of which could indicate a type of maladjustment. Buhler (1951) reduced the number of objects available for play when she devised the World Test, which utilized the following categories: aggressive: scenes concerned with officially recognized force, accidents, danger, or other violence (a sign of aggression but not necessarily of emotional disturbance); emptiness: too few elements, indicating escape, withdrawal, passive resistance; may also reflect temporary blocking or a reaction to the test; can also be partially related to age; closed: use of many enclosures indicating a need for protection, for concealing feelings, separation, imprisonment, seclusion, self-defense; disorganization: indicating varying degrees of confusion or lack of integration of the personality, depending upon the age of the child; coupled with aggression, implies more extreme confusion, including decompensation, ego disintegration; rigidity: elements arranged in rigid rows indicating compulsive trends towards perfectionism, excessive orderliness, constriction, obsessive fears. symbolic signs: containing "symptoms not yet quantifiable."

The World Test was developed by Buhler as a projective instrument to assist in the diagnosis of various clinical groups, but Petti (1991) reports that other researchers who followed Buhler determined that her categories were better used to differentiate well-adjusted children from the emotionally disturbed, rather than for discriminating between diagnostic categories. Lowenfeld herself had discouraged any standardization of the apparatus and all scoring methods because she was convinced that the utility of the technique lay in its psychotherapeutic value. Her belief in its clinical utility has been firmly entrenched by the Jungian therapists who have adopted the method, and who are generally disinterested in sandplay as a projective test or diagnostic measure.

Sandplay is nevertheless still used with notable success for some types of

assessment. Li (1985) evaluated play levels of children described as handicapped or retarded. Volcani (1982), Caproni (1989), and Segal (1990) record using sandplay as a diagnostic measure with individuals. Gazur (personal communication, 1987) uses sandplay diagnostically in her work as a career counselor. Mason (1987) has used the medium to assess couple interaction. Lenhart (1988) has explored the range of symbolic language used by a particular group. Volcani (1982) utilized sandplay in conjunction with other measures or tests.

3. My introduction to the sandplay process

Psychological writing is always a confession about the writer's own psychology. ... It is a continuation of one's own analysis. Nobody can really understand these things unless he has experienced them for himself. (C.J. Jung, in Humbert, 1984).

In the late-80's, I was introduced to sandplay at an annual meeting of intercultural consultants. My attention riveted by what I saw, I wanted immediately to see how sandplay worked. On Monday, May 9, 1988, I entered the upper West Side New York City apartment and sandplay studio of Estelle Weinrib, a Jungian sandplay therapist.

On one wall was an armless couch (a "real" analyst's couch, I thought, a bit nervously); on the other, a high shelf lined with black drawing books over a note-taking desk and chair. Flanking the doorway were five floor-to-ceiling shelf-cases filled with miniatures, iconographic figures of all kinds: people of all sorts; birds; boats; beasts; edifices to create habitats; cars; natural objects; etc. Right next to the shelf cases stood two smallish waist-high trays filled with clean sand. At the far end of the room, a wall of windows looked out on West 86th Street. More artifacts -- large crystals, stones, bits of wood, shells, and figures, stood on low tables in front of the windows. In response to my admiring comment on the size, complexity and apparent completeness of her collection, Estelle replied that the practice of her profession was "a good excuse for gratifying greed."

Oh yes, I thought, with a surge of excitement. Since early childhood I'd been intrigued by Lilliputian buildings stocked with perfectly scaled replicas of this and that, as well as by collections of tiny things on what-not shelves. But my pleasure in such static displays, where the purpose of the collection was simply adornment or decoration, had always been tempered by an impression of their triviality. To the idea of collecting such things for a purpose, the enhancement of a dynamic, playful, potentially aesthetically satisfying therapeutic process, I was immediately responsive.

As I stood examining the miniatures on her shelves, Estelle settled into her chair and took out a pen and paper. What I found irresistible was a set of carved wooden pueblos (reminiscent of Hundertwasser's apartment building in Vienna or Gaudi's Sagrada de Familia in Barcelona); these, Estelle said, had been made by "Swiss hippies." I picked one up and, holding it in my left hand, awkwardly began patting the sand in one of the trays with my right. Seeing my tentative swipes, Estelle took the pueblo from my hand and planted it firmly down on the sand in the tray in front of me - the dry tray. No, not there, it doesn't belong there, went a blurt in my head. I snatched up the pueblo and placed it in the damp tray, then added others, one by one.

To me, the moist tray represented the world, the world outside, the external world.

I found myself weighing the effects of scale, struggling with the effort, trying to maintain as exact a scale as I could, as literal a reality representation as the materials and my imagination would permit. Sculpting a lake, mountains, towns and a city, I placed a little train in the mountain pass, heavy ceramic and metal buildings, a tiny Chinese coolie, and a sampan in the city, a stevedore in the town, farm animals and farmer on his land, a sailing boat and fish on the lake.

Turning my attention to the mountain ranges, I fitted them out with trees, then a tiny frog with a crown on his head. Finally, a pair of bears, one large and one small. The small one must be the cub ... a moment of panic with the large one sitting at the north end and the little one placed at the south: I must move it: I moved the cub next to the mother ... (illustration 1).

Working in the damp tray developed some literal sense of place, my place, but soon I was drawn to the tray of dry sand and began to make use of the two trays simultaneously. The dry sand crumbled away from my fingers as I traced a circle in it. I placed an unglazed orno (an outdoor oven one sees in the Southwestern USA, a powerful icon connecting the hearth with nourishment), squarely in the middle of the circle I'd drawn in the dry sand. I made a path of shells, stones and crystals, then arranged a coiled snake in one corner. Tiny birds went around a flat, circular mirror below the snake. A bird's nest with two blue birds in it caught my eye. This went next to the snake, along with the Virgin Mother and St. Lucia -- she with the candles in her hair. I told Estelle I was on my way from the orno (the dry tray) to our place in the mountains (the damp tray). (illustration 2)

In the days following, I found my creations stayed clearly before my mind's eye. I repeatedly returned to and reviewed my precise mental images of my "secret" miniature worlds, and they gradually became my concrete possession. My mental review awakened me to discreet but significant differences between the image projections and the real world. The mental images of these first two pictures became more discreet, more personal, as time went on; they stayed with me, retained their power and clarity, and they seemed to help me hold fast to a psychic center.

A month after the first session, the therapy continued, and I met with Estelle once a week during June and July of that summer. Not all those sessions were occupied with work in the sand trays but in the first one after my return from BC, the sand world I made in the damp tray was my picture of the confusion and tumult of the city around me. Placing figures, re-experiencing the chaos and disorder of the fast-moving treadmills of the city outside the door, practically overwhelmed me. With great difficulty I added a delicate bird, attached to a stick, "to oversee the chaos" (illustration 3).

"Eat watermelon," Estelle said as I departed, referring to a miniature in the dry sand tray, devoid of human figures (illustration 4).

Compared to the relative precision and heightened awareness of the first two sessions, at the end of the next few I felt inconclusive, couldn't explain the meaning of my worlds as I was creating them, and was not able to recall the images clearly afterwards. At the time, these memory lapses seemed like deficiencies; this was in itself disturbing.

Each set of sandworlds after the first two seemed totally different from the initial pair, and not as different from each other as the first two had seemed. In any case, I could not attempt to be literal in any of them. In one session, a fan, a nest of colored eggs, a male

figure, an obelisk, bridges, fish, boats, a large quartz crystal, a building, all went in the damp sand (illustration 5). I didn't recognize the meaning of any of these objects, couldn't say why I had placed them where I did, yet they had to go where they did: of that I was sure. The same was true for the dry sand, onto which went clear blue marbles, a large hunk of amethyst, an animal, a female figure (illustration 6). The sand patterns were wavy, the drawn circle an oval, like an egg. The last two pictures were full of movement, with female figures moving in from all four quadrants, although I could not say why that had to be so.

Anger, frustration, an odd kind of disorientation characterized this period. When I first began working with the sand trays, I was optimistic, buoyed by excitement and intuition, an expectant leap of faith into a process that had instantly appealed to me. As I progressed in the process, I began to experience deep feelings of loss, abandonment and incompleteness; although, paradoxically, I also felt strong – as if I were accomplishing just what I'd set out to do. Even though I didn't know where I was going or how long it would take me to get there, what I recognized was that it wasn't necessarily frightening not to know.

Various forces contributed to this permissible irresolution. One was Estelle's describing how, having been through a normal Jungian analysis, she'd gone to Zurich, to Dora Kalff, for help in solving a problem she'd been having with her son; Estelle remarked that sandplay had made her life "possible." Another was her excellent piece of advice: if I wanted to become a sandplay therapist, I should study for a Master of Social Work, rather than a PhD. An MSW, she informed me, would be the best grounding, the best preparation for work as a therapist; it would also be the surest, quickest route to certification. At this, I was amazed; but her directive made instant, perfect sense. "I didn't know it was called 'social work,'" was my comment; but some of the jumble of my life re-arranged itself in an orderly way around that sudden new insight.

Nevertheless, what followed was a transitional, liminal time. I felt precarious, tentative. Trying to find inner calm, waiting for reflection or recollection to occur in tranquility, as Wordsworth said one should (to write poetry), I could not hold together in my mind's eye the picture-pieces of any of the sandworlds I'd made after the first two. Try as I did to recall them, to focus on them, they remained obdurately, obstinately hidden; in fact, they seemed locked behind a blank screen, a barrier.

My confusion was palpable, as if some terribly important part of me must have been living on the other side of that barrier. I thought of Octavio Paz's "impalpable, transparent wall -- that of our consciousness -- between the world and ourselves."

Initially, I'd been motivated to learn about sandplay therapy because, working with school children labeled ‘disadvantaged,’ I felt I needed an appropriate tool. After all, said the engineer/mechanic in me, one can never have too many appropriate tools. I thought of acquiring sandplay, of learning it, as one might perfect a new skill.

The actual immediate effect the work had on me, however, was deep psychic turmoil, unleashed - I daresay, by the process. The experience itself, short as it may have been, became the teacher.

A little, in my case, went a long way. Early in 1992, reviewing the collection of photos (slides) Estelle had taken of the sand trays I’d made in 1988, I was startled to see how much energy and power each of the images contained. Even more startling was how the meaning of the images, each one flowing from the previous one, yet independent of it, had also changed.

What is more, in the course of examining my own process, while reviewing the literature for this research report, my recall of the images I had made began to clear, as when one walks out of a mist. I began to see the distance I had travelled.

4. How sandplay works; understanding and interpreting the process

The sand picture produced by the child can be interpreted as the three- dimensional representation of a psychic situation. An unconscious problem is acted out in the sandbox, like a drama. The conflict is transposed from the inner world to the external world and thus made visible. This play of imagination does not remain without a reaction on the psyche of the player. Rather the sand play influences the dynamics of the unconscious in the child (Kalff, 1966).

The "drama" in the sandbox is created by the manipulation of miniature objects, utilized for their symbolic effect. Sandplay is thus a form of symbolic healing. The symbolic objects are said to act both as vocabulary and as explanation, since symbols change the psyche by converting energy into a different form. Symbols, according to Jung, act as transformers, their function being to convert the libido from a 'lower' into a 'higher' form. This function is so important that feeling accords it the highest value (Jung, 1956).

In symbolic healing, cure is said to come about in response to the presentation of a symbol from within or without. This may happen slowly or immediately, yet whenever it occurs, formerly separated compartments of the psyche are brought together, precipitating a forceful release of energy that prompts a feeling of relief. There is a sense of arrival, of being in the moment, of self-possession, of being at home in one's self. This moment of truth, which is the outcome of an individual's quest for harmony with her surroundings and peace of mind within, may actually be the beginning of a new quest: the quest to remain in, or to reproduce at will, that state.

According to Kalff (1971), the creation of images in sandplay, which she described as essentially an introverted act, is a form of Western meditation. By contrast, Eastern meditation systems tend to be imageless, whereas Kalff's view was that while Westerners may be drawn to Eastern systems, increasingly the meditation of the West will deal with imagery. Sandplay is one expression of this (Crable, 1976).

The sandbox provides us with access to [the] innermost feeling cores and permits a process to be set into motion which has as its hopeful result a connection to the central, eternal spirit, what Jung has called the Self or the objective psyche, what Maslow has called the biological basis of the psyche. (Kalff, 1980)

Sandplay has achieved its present place in the field of psychotherapy principally as a form of Jungian analysis, which in its classical form is dominated by verbal processing of dreams (Singer, 1973; Fordham, 1978; Mattoon, 1978; Johnson, 1986; Stein, 1982; Humbert, 1988; Douglas, 1991). The dream-work process is called 'active imagining,' which is dreaming guided by oneself or another person while relaxed and alert. The analytical element of the process takes place in a guided confrontation between the conscious and the unconscious mind of a person. The analyst at once

encourages and enables understanding of the associative process of the patient, through a verbal dialogue that takes place between the analyst and the patient. Although sandplay constructions may be, but are not always, literal representations of a patient's dreams, the connection between the two of them is the way in which they both are forms of archetypal imagining, and the archetypal content of both.

Many therapists recognize the insufficiency of language as a tool of inter-personal understanding. Verbal forms of therapy are subject to the strengths, but also to the weaknesses, of language, which are after all only one form of expression, and one primarily connected with the rational side of consciousness. A person may lack the words to express verbally what triggers a particular emotion because s/he is unconscious as to what caused it.

An important part of sandplay's particular genius is the way in which it permits the therapist to make contact with a patient and play with him to understand his way of thought. Thus, sandplay is seen as contributing an important complement to language-based therapeutic practices.

In the verbal analytical process, the thrust is toward etiological and teleological understanding and the expansion of consciousness. Symbolic material emerging from the unconscious and the stuff of everyday life is integrated into consciousness as soon as possible. In sandplay, a ruminative, contemplative process, understanding is less important than the healing process itself (Weinrib, 1983).

Weinrib (1983) also differentiates between psychological healing and the expansion of consciousness: healing implies that there has been a wounding and possible impairment of natural organic function which has been remedied with functioning restored. Expanded consciousness implies awareness of what one feels, thinks and does with a capacity to make choices in one's actions and communication that are relatively free of control.

The sandplay process allows telling a story through making a material image-picture: a three-dimensional scene in a tray of sand of fixed dimensions using miniature figures and objects. Miniaturizing the world in this way is said to reduce some of the unmanageable stresses or pressures on the patient, and allows him/her to experience better control of thoughts, fantasies, and feelings (Glen, 1988). The limitation of the sand tray ultimately assists the patient in his or her own limit-setting capacity (Carey, 1990).

Amman (1991) says that sandplay utilizes a small space to help a patient to achieve the significant therapeutic personal task, that of finding the healing or developmental forces within her/himself.

The material image-pictures created in the sand trays have a profound effect on the patient. The very production of these images can act as a form of control as well as a form of release. This is a characteristic of image-formation in a therapeutic context.

Because of its emotion-evoking ability, image formation can also be used purposefully (although not necessarily consciously) to transform emotions. It is close to perception and close to affect and it allows memories to be treated as if they were current perceptions of objects. Image formation also permits disguises and shifts of meaning, which, if represented in words, might be more difficult to disguise. Visual images allow

immediate depictions of objects in relationship due to the simultaneous organization of information in a single image (Horowitz, 1983).

Kalff (1980) and Weinrib (1983) identify the stages in sandplay therapy by the

content of the images: a) realistic scenes, indicating problems and their possible resolution; b) more chaotic pictures, signifying rapid penetration into deeper levels of the personality; c) images of centering, unions of opposites, overtly religious symbols, accompanied by a sense of having touched 'home,' indicating a touching or constellating of the Self; d) reviewing the slides, an experience which reinforces the transpersonal; e) regularly and orderly pictures in which figures of the opposite sex begin to appear, indicating the emergence of the reborn ego (these may take on a more creative character and be better organized); f) reappearance or appearance for the first time, of spiritual figures (as the process comes to a close).

A significant problem that arises is the therapist's interpretation of the image-symbols in sandplay, which is subject to considerable variance. Although there are numerous encyclopaedias of symbols adducing the meaning of various objects, sandplay therapists from Lowenfeld on through today issue strong cautions against assuming the meaning of any given object used in the therapeutic context.

No object ... and no arrangement of objects, should be taken at its face value ... . [F]or the proper understanding of the nature and use of this technique no interpretation [should] be given by the therapist to the child. My own direct use of the material in the presence of the child is to treat it like a cipher language, and concentrate my attention on an endeavour to discover what exactly the objects used represent to the child who uses them (Lowenfeld, 1979, emphasis in the original).

Any symbol can have many interpretations. It is therefore incumbent upon the therapist to check rigorously any interpretation or hypothesis he may infer, against the reality of the patient's life, his attitudes and behavior, and the context of the verbal analytical process (Weinrib, 1983, emphasis added).

Assumptions about object meanings are quite controversial. Ryce-Menuhin (1986) has called it one of the real dangers therapists face when interpreting sandplay. According to Ryce-Menuhin (1992), what is needed to work with symbols is an 'as-if' quality, since they act as bridges between what is familiar and what is strange.

The Jungian therapist will evaluate the sand pictures in the light of Jungian symbology and any archetypal ramifications that suggest themselves. Weinrib (1983) recommends delayed interpretation, because deliberately pressing for associations during the therapy session would encourage cerebral activity. This would not be desirable, since it is a basic premise of Jungian sandplay that psychological healing is emotional in nature and not cerebral. The therapist is free to use any indications or ideas derived from the sandplay process in any subsequent or accompanying verbal discussion; and in fact the

patient's response to the introduction of the therapist's ideas provides one way to check on the validity of the therapist's reading of the patient's image pictures.

Certainly facile interpretations are to be avoided: Lowenfeld (1979) explains that a horse, for example, may represent something feared to one child, "a dearest friend" to another, "a strong thing which runs," or "what Daddy rides," and so on.

Symbols are so rich in meaning that it is impossible to fix upon a single interpretation without peril. For example, Ammann (1991) refers to the snake as "an ancient symbol of nature's healing power," thus contradicting an alternative impression of the snake as a creature to be feared or even hated; while Ryce-Menuhin (1992) points out that snakes iconographically represent both the feminine and masculine principles, deeply rooted somatic and archetypal processes, measures and boundaries or borders of the unconscious, and more!

The use of masculine or feminine figures in the sand trays may give an indication of the patient's relationship to the masculine and feminine archetypes within the Self. The archetypes are devoid of content until personal experience renders them visible (Gordon, 1985). The pictures created in the sandtrays are a way of imagining archetypal forms. The female archetypal symbols are manifested in objects signifying the feminine principle. The sand tray itself has been called a feminine symbol; it is equated with the hermetic vessel of alchemists, called the vas hermeticum. This vessel, in which a psychic transformation takes place, originally referred to a vessel filled with spirit and sent down to earth by a creator-god so that those who aspired to a higher consciousness could be baptized in it. The vas acted as a kind of womb in which spiritual renewal and rebirth could take place. Thus, in the Jungian therapeutic context, sand trays containing their miniature sand worlds act as a vessel in which psychic transformation can occur (Ammann, 1991). In addition, representations of the feminine principle and the masculine principle may be revealed by the placement and grouping of objects. For example, threes, in Jungian psychology, are masculine; twos and fours are feminine.

Through the therapy process, the therapist helps the patient make retrospective connection between the visual images and her or his inner and outer life. At the same time, the patient may spontaneously recognize the connections between the symbolic meaning of her/his sandplay pictures and her/himself.

Given the richness of the symbolic vocabulary in sandplay touched upon briefly here, it would obviously be impossible to deal exhaustively with this subject in this paper. In fact, the topic of archetypal symbolism is a lifetime adventure, an always-open gateway to discovery and revelation. At the 1992 Sandplay Therapists of America conference, entitled "Sand, Psyche and Symbol," presentations touch on diverse archetypal forms including Buddhist creation myths (M. Kalff), Uroboros (Von Bobo), Don Juan, the Grim Reaper, the wicked man, the wise old man (Larsen), the Wildman (Weller), and so on. Out of such fascinations is classical Jungian sandplay made.

5. Training in sandplay therapy and how people become recognized as sandplay therapists

The psyche heals itself. Psychotherapy helps (Wilmer, 1987).

Sandplay is more than a tool. It is also an expression of the therapist, as a

creative personality, who relates to the patient both personally and symbolically at an extremely deep level (Kalff, 1981)

Sandplay is a young therapeutic modality, developing over approximately sixty years into its present form. As has been explained, some teachers and counselors use sandplay in or as an adjunct to classroom activity, for the modality's reported capacity to improve children's cognitive learning ability. Research psychologists who classify sandplay as a projective measure may employ the medium primarily for diagnostic purposes, rather than as therapy. Some practitioners, often with a Jungian perspective, use sandplay in addition to, or in combination with, other forms of therapy, but at this time most sandplay therapists are psychotherapists utilizing a Jungian framework to work with individuals, whether children or adults.

Whatever their orientation or training, wherever they come from and whatever they did before, it seems to be a fascination with the medium and its method that makes people involved in the helping or healing professions want to become specialists in sandplay therapy. Ammann, who is also an architect, says

I was attracted to the sandplay method from the moment I first encountered it. One reason for this attraction surely lies in my love of images and three dimensional forms. This has always been close to my heart, especially as I like to use my hands. Another reason for my preference may lie in the fact that I experienced early in life the way in which one can use one's senses in a differentiated way without words (Ammann, 1991).

In Jungian sandplay practice, the essential contribution of the therapist is to provide a free and protected space for the therapy. The actual therapeutic task remains the task of the seeker: the healing or developmental forces are within.

Through the manifestations of the unconscious in the form of dreams, fantasies, images of various kinds, or in our case, through sand pictures, the [patient] seeks contact with his Self, or, to put it more simply, with the 'other' sides of his psyche (and his body), which have been repressed or forgotten or never did have the power to emerge into consciousness. ... The [therapist] cannot 'do it' for the [patient] -- that is, he cannot as if by proxy live this psychic process for him. Yet, he too experiences it 'with one joyful and one watchful eye.' (Ammann, 1991)

Most adherents to Jungian principles of analytical or archetypal psychological practice specialize in sandplay as a form of individual therapy. A majority of the "first-generation" sandplay therapists now in practice were trained by Dora Kalff. In addition to maintaining a well-established child therapy practice, for many years Kalff provided training analyses at her home in Switzerland, and gave clinical seminars on sandplay regularly. Since 1985, her home in Zollikon, outside Zurich, has been the headquarters of the Dora M. Kalff International Society for Sandplay Therapy, founded as a training and clinical research group. Until she was well in her 80’s, Kalff travelled extensively all over the world to lecture on sandplay, establishing sandplay as a form of Jungian analysis and "single-handedly creat[ing] a community of sandplay therapists around the world" (Stewart, 1982).

The International Society of Sandplay Therapists (ISST) is the training group for sandplay therapists. The number of ISST members is, as of this writing, about 100, an extremely small number in proportion to the more than two thousand practicing sandplay therapists who are members of various national organizations, including groups in the USA, Italy, Germany, Great Britain, Switzerland, Japan, Australia, and Sweden. Furthermore, not all clinicians using sandplay belong to any special sandplay therapists' group, nor do they all call themselves "sandplay therapists" even if they do use sandplay in their therapeutic practice.

Members of the ISST teach introductory and advanced courses and also provide individual supervision ("control," in Switzerland) to trainees, who are then eligible to join the ISST and become trainers themselves. Although not a legal regulatory body per se, the ISST has established firm guidelines for the training of sandplay therapists in the Jungian tradition. According to a report by Lenhart (1988), qualifications for membership in the society include: advanced education in psychology or a related field; clinical experience with patients; in-depth inner development through personal therapy as well as accreditation or accepted licensure to practice psychotherapy; completion of a personal sandplay process; one hundred hours of training in sandplay therapy, at least half spent in group presentation and discussion of cases, the remaining time spent studying theory; a minimum of twenty hours of individual clinical supervision; two papers of approximately ten pages in length each, about aspects of sandplay of special interest to the individual; and finally, submission of a completed case study, approximately thirty pages in length, with photos and slides of the patient's completed sand trays.

In North America, publicly-funded establishments utilizing sandplay therapy (such as the Muki Baum Foundation in Toronto, which is 100% supported by the Government of Ontario), are at best rare at this time. In the USA, clinicians trained as sandplay therapists are usually in private practice. At the present time there are but a handful of fully qualified sandplay therapists in eastern Canada. The two with greatest experience are Nehama Baum, a member of the ISST who is now training sandplay therapists in Toronto; and Yvonne Federer, also a member of the ISST, who, upon her return to Canada from Zurich, established a private practice in Ottawa.

It should be noted that the financial outlay for beginning a sandplay therapy practice is considerable. Unique miniatures can actually be quite expensive; established sandplay therapists can fairly claim to have several hundred or even thousands of miniatures in a given collection. If the therapist is not setting out in private practice, the administration of the practice setting must be able to allocate an adequate appropriate space for the materials, and permit dedication of the therapist's time not only to the sessions themselves, but to the concomitant record-keeping tasks. As well, there must be sufficient financial compensation to cover essential practice expenditures such as photo equipment and supplies for record-keeping, and, until a saturation point is reached, augmentation of the miniature collection.

6. Further directions; issues in theory and practice

Sandplay, which acts as a bridge from the individual unconscious to the social world, is a creative process. The fact that no real skill is involved in making sand

pictures makes the sandplay process particularly appealing. It is an extremely powerful therapeutic modality, and moves the psychotherapeutic process much faster than many other methods. Unlike predominantly verbal therapies, it can engage people who can't get out of their heads as well as those who can't say where it hurts. These are often the kind of people whom social workers see. My own experience with the sandplay process has reinforced my intuitive, first-sight conviction that it is a tool worth having and I am motivated to use it in the professional practice of Social Work. I am convinced that sandplay can be an effective healing experience for both adult and child patients in a clinical practice.

Notwithstanding its successes, there are several issues I would like to raise which any social worker or practitioner might discuss or debate; these may secure further directions for my own research, clinical and community work, and teaching, as well as for the work of others. I will present four problems I see that relate to the nature of sandplay therapy: 1) the spirit of symbolic healing; 2) the intellectual tradition of sandplay; 3) the nature of images formed during sandplay; and 4) the gender aspects of image-interpretation.

6.1 Symbolic healing

We undertake all therapy, whether in social work or another milieu, under a dominant paradigm. The predominance of Cartesian rationalism in Western thought has led to the tendency to dichotomize healing: healing is either ‘physical’ or ‘mental.’ After figuring out what the sick part is, medicine can go in and fix it. There is much support for such intervention, a product of the evolution of the scientific method. Whether the intervention is surgical or psychiatric, the results are valuable and need not be lightly dismissed; they are the miracles of modern medicine. But the emphasis on support for medically permissible manipulation and control of human beings does tend to reduce the practice of healing to various forms of mechanical "tinkering."

An alternative way of approaching the problem of illness, wellness and healing is more holistic.

If we postulate that the human mind has a basic need to remain integrated and in harmonious relation with its parts, we must realize that this can only be done with the readiness to tolerate much pain and conflict. To avoid the "legitimate pain," as Jung called it -- the pain of being alive in a conflicted world -- the psyche has the automatic ability to disassociate one part of itself from another and remain unconscious of its sacrifice. If the pain gets too great it can be shut off or amputated, but feelings go with it (Sander, 1979).

If disassociation goes far enough and the energy is strong enough, the result may be unconscious alteration of the personality. An inability to resolve conflict is a consequence of experiencing the apparent impossibility of affirming the whole of one's nature. What occurs is a struggle for autonomy. If the result is disassociation and compartmentalization, psychological, social or political incapacity can occur (Sandner, 1979).

In contrast to the rational analytic models of practice underlying most of Western medicine, sandplay emphasizes the human need for integration. It is a form of symbolic healing, which does not rely on detailed scientific knowledge of bodily organs. Rather, symbolic healing relies for its effect on the patient's ability identify with supernatural or intra-psychic power through the mediation of symbols. It is based on ritual and myth, not on physiological principles. In such a system, both the cause and the cure of an illness are connected to a greater mythological whole; both cause and cure are seen against the supernatural background of a person's life. (Sandner, 1979).

Different symbolic healing ceremonies utilize a common conceptual framework, the stages of which may or may not occur sequentially. The first stage is usually called Reparation or Purification; the second, Presentation or Evocation; the third, Identification; the fourth, Transformation; the fifth, Release. Two or more of these stages in symbolic healing may overlap. There are four similar stages identified in Jungian psychotherapy: confession, elucidation, education, and transformation (Davidson, 1987). Kalff (1980) says the corresponding stages in sandplay therapy do not appear as discrete entities nor in a strictly given order, but rather in a spiral manner, reminiscent of the one which Lowinsky (1990) has called ‘looping.’

Symbolic healing ceremonies are typical of Native cultures, while Jungian analysis and sandplay therapy are a product of Western (and to some extent, Eastern) cultures. Understanding the stages of these therapies from a transcultural perspective is a practical as well as a theoretical concern. I believe it would be useful to identify the connections and elucidate the rational and symbolic convergences between these various stages, and to focus on the strength of sandplay as a symbolic healing system, prior to or while introducing sandplay into clinical and community social work settings in the First Nation territories of Canada. (This is what I envision myself as doing.)

6.2 The Neoplatonic tradition

Consciousness inevitably is located in time. Because humans are temporal creatures, it is of more than academic interest to ask where our ideas have come from. In fact, knowledge of the historical evolution of our ideas is crucial if we are to understand why we see and act in the world as we do. Archetypal theory is one such idea. Therefore, the history of archetypal theory and what it means as an idea is worth considering.

The basic philosophic idea of archetypes, which is central to sandplay as a Jungian healing practice, can be traced back to Plato. Nagy (1991) is emphatic about the Platonic origin of Jung's archetypal theory, but admits that the connection between Jung's doctrine of archetypes and Plato's doctrine of forms is difficult to see. However, when Hillman (1981) says that Jung's archetypal psychology axiomatically assumes the relevance of "fantasia" or imagistic experience, which is a ramification of the Platonic doctrine of forms, he places Jungian interpreters of sandplay firmly in the Neoplatonic tradition elucidated by Vico.

According to Vico (1668-1744), imaginative representations (such as those created through symbolic healing systems like sandplay) do not arise from a rational process (Grassi, 1990). Cultural artifacts (in an anthropological sense, which includes

such creations as miniature fantasy worlds constructed in sand trays) cannot be understood, interpreted, evaluated, in terms of timeless principles and standards valid for all people everywhere. Instead we must seek to obtain a correct grasp of the purpose and peculiar use of the symbols which uniquely belong to a particular time, place and stage of social growth. This requires a kind of transcendental deduction of historical truth, obtained through a particular form of knowledge which Vico called the ‘reconstructive imagination.’

The reconstructive imagination is a form of knowledge obtained by entering into the mental life of other cultures, into a variety of outlooks and ways of life. It is not a method of arriving at an unchanging reality via its changing appearances, but a way of apprehending a changing reality through observing its systematically changing modes of expression. Vico's conclusion was that it is the activities of the imagination (or "fantasia") which make this new form of knowledge possible. It is to this image-activity which Hillman (1981) refers. A theoretical problem for further research is how precisely this aspect of sandplay can be situated in the Neoplatonic tradition, as it must be the reconstructive imagination which makes image-interpretation (the use of archetypal symbol-systems) possible.

6.3 Image-formation

Sandplay therapy involves the production of images, instruments of cognition. Images enable us not only to understand stimuli and meanings, they also help us deal with problems of living (Greenleaf, 1978). One issue mental science-oriented researchers might explore is the exact nature of the formation of images in the sandplay process.

Some images are retained in the mind of the patient. These after-images, as they are called, are a distinct classification (Horowitz, 1983), one type of which is eidetic. These are especially vivid memory images, which have a multi-dimensional aspect: the image itself; its accompanying somatic pattern (a set of bodily feelings and tension including somatic correlates of emotion); and its cognitive or experiential meaning. Together these leave a semi-permanent impression far stronger than their separate elements.

Images of the picture or pictures created in the sand trays are mentally carried away from the therapy room after they have been constructed. Mental recall of them may affect the patient. It may be that the patient's impression of the sand picture is a kind of eidetic image, an especially vivid kind of memory image. The experience of eidetic imagery is apparently more frequent in childhood, as the capacity seems to diminish or is lost with adolescence; only a small percentage of adults appear to retain it. It would be interesting to discover if sandplay encourages an experience of, enhances, or even reawakens, eidetic capability.

Evidence of a connection between sandplay and eidetic imagery is speculative. In addition to the fact that sandplay is a relatively new form of therapy, speculation about eidetic imagery itself has been subjected to severe criticism from the scientific community (Haber et al., 1979). To my knowledge, no researchers have attempted to test the retention of sandplay images in light of the criteria for identifying eidetic images.

A related unexplored area of research would be an investigation of this aspect of sandplay in relation to eidetic psychotherapy. Eidetic psychotherapy, which originated in

Pakistan, uses a magical model, similar to the Jungian active imagination. Unlike Jungian therapy, eidetic psychotherapy focuses on the multiplicity of states that comprise the personality rather than the unity of ego structure which makes them adhere (Sheikh, 1983).

6.4 Image-meaning

Sandplay is a formal and powerful image-making activity system which mediates, within a given cultural system, the experience of the unconscious. The choice and placement of objects in sandplay is profoundly subjective, and constructions cannot be unqualifiedly universalized, although there may be ready agreement between therapists (and patients) as to the meaning of any given tray. This raises some interesting questions about the effect of cultural variables on sandplay image-making activity.

One aspect of culture that has profound consequences for social work practice is the attitudes held about men and women. It might be possible to examine this problem by looking at the meaning of the archetypal feminine images in Jungian sandplay therapy. Archetypes, which are described as universal experiences of the collective unconscious, are constellated, according to Jung, as feminine and masculine. Jung contributed to clinical theory by exploring and describing the character and quality of the feminine as it appears in symbols, myth, and alchemy. He affirmed the presence and the importance of both masculine and feminine elements in each gender, allowing for the expression of the attributes or qualities of the opposite sex in each. Jungian practitioners distinguish the masculine and the feminine principle from masculine and feminine traits (Ulanov, 1981).

In Jungian sandplay therapy, understanding the meanings and definitions of the archetypal masculine and feminine principles (which Jung called the animus and the anima) will also have important ramifications for practice, as both the patient's and the therapist's attitudes towards the feminine and women will determine the treatment of patients of both sexes.

According to Sullivan (1988), the feminine principle seeks "an embodied relationship to the world," while the masculine principle "reaches toward the world of the spirit." Where the Feminine accepts the weight of the body, an acceptance that necessarily includes the gruesome ills of the body and its ultimate death, the Masculine seeks to transcend the body and death. Where a feminine viewpoint urges us to emotionally experience our grounding in our physical incarnation, to relax into our being, a masculine approach seeks the immortality of achievements that will live after one's physical death (Sullivan, 1988).

Yet this aspect of gender-related theory continues to undergo subtle revisions as it is subjected to a variety of influences and criticisms. One of the most important levels of criticism directed at Jung and this aspect of Jungian theory has come from feminists.

The most substantial work on this topic to date has been written by a practicing Jungian analyst and clinical psychologist, Claire Douglas. The Woman in the Mirror (1990) is an exhaustive survey of the history and a review of the literature on the feminine in Jungian psychology. According to Douglas, Jung was able to make the

crucial distinction between the feminine as a psychological concept and as a gender classification. However, his ideas about the feminine were conditioned by the beliefs and expectations of his era and by his own experience and personality. The traditional Jungian equating of the feminine with Eros, feeling, the contained, and the masculine with Logos, thinking, the container, is not sufficient today. It is unacceptable to treat women and the feminine as representative of the unconscious or diffuse consciousness, relegating them/it to the related and passive modes. Woman's psychology is not simply opposite to and complementary to man's. The conceit that men and women belong in separate, even if equal, spheres is "an ill-conceived anachronism" (Douglas, 1990). Douglas thinks the rising use of sandplay itself may be a manifestation of style and focus that reflects the effect women are starting to have on clinical practice.

There has not been great clarity in Jungian thinking about women and the feminine. I think the animus and the anima should be re-examined in light of the increasing body of psychological and anthropological evidence that divergent views held about the Self fall into two basically distinct, culturally proscribed categories (Markus & Kitayama,1991). These categories contrast an ‘independent’ view of the Self with an ‘interdependent’ view. I propose to equate the animus with the independence view and the anima with the interdependence view. This interpretation is an outcome of thinking about the anima/animus problem (the problem of the feminine) in Jungian psychology while simultaneously reading transcultural psychiatry literature in the context of the powerful insights of current Western feminist scholarship (Gilligan, 1982; Miller, 1976; Belenky et al, 1986). This interpretation of the anima-animus problem is one I intend to elaborate on and refine in my future work with sandplay.

CONCLUSION

My studies at McGill have confirmed, for me, the truth of Estelle Weinrib's instruction that obtaining grounding in social work would be the best preparation for future work with sandplay. This is due to the fact that social work training involves the reflective practitioner in a wide variety of personal and community issues which, through sandplay, can be brought to the surface even if they are extremely difficult to articulate. Consequently, although in North America sandplay is predominantly used with individuals who can pay for private practice, my experience leads me to believe that the introduction of sandplay therapy into a variety of professional Social Work settings will be truly beneficial. As time goes on, more extensive studies on sandplay will be available, and cost-effectiveness studies in various practice settings may determine its therapeutic usefulness or special effectiveness with drug abusers or other chemically addicted patients, prisoners, abused youth, and so on.

To this discussion, a caveat is in order. Although it is a form of play, and a wonderful form at that, sandplay therapy is not simply "fun." Immense psychological turmoil can manifest during sandplay.

Virtually all sandplay therapists and researchers observe that sandplay has the capacity to ‘dredge’ from the unconscious the deepest of inner problems, and transport them into the external world. Nevertheless, there are individuals who have adopted the tools, the materials and the methods without having undergone a formal training period. Unless a therapist is knowledgeable in the method and is also capable of dealing with any

difficulties that may arise during the development of the course of therapy, sandplay is a dangerous method (Crable, 1976; Weinrib, personal communication; 1988, 1992). It should not be used by amateurs.

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PUBLICATIONS AVAILABLE IN LANGUAGES OTHER THAN ENGLISH

Funai, Tetsuo. "Sandplay representations in chronic schizophrenics." In Kyushu Neuro-psychiatry. 35 n. 1 (April 1989): 10-20.

Funai, Tetsuo, Takao Oda, Hidebumi Hazama. "The values of therapeutic stagnation in sandplay." In Kyushu Neuro-psychiatry. 28 n. 3-4 (December 1982): 260-267

Golfeto, Jose H. "Psicoterapia infantil: Una abordagem Junguiana" (Child psychology: A

Jungian approach). In Arquivos Brasileiros de Psychologia 41 n. 3 (June-August1989): 79-94