“Play, Create, Heal: The Magic of Sandtray”

Why Sandtray?

Anytime you walk onto a beach, you can quickly find children, and even sometimes teenagers and adults, playing in the sand. Maybe they’re making tide pools, looking for seashells, or building sand castles, but something about the grainy substance calls out to us and catches our attention. Many early practitioners in the counseling field noticed that sometimes, it wasn’t just play that was taking place, but there were inner worlds and struggles being processed and created. 

Brief History of Sandtray

In the 1920’s, Dr. Margaret Lowenfield began using a tray, sand, water and small toys, which later she developed into the technique known as “The World Technique”. Dr. Lowenfield is seen as the original creator of the therapeutic uses of sandtray (World Association of Sand Therapy Professionals). Later in the 1950s, Jungian analyst and student of Dr. Lowenfield, Dora Kalff, began to develop what she called “Sandplay Therapy”. As the World Technique focused on the client’s personal interpretation and interaction with the sand, Sandplay focuses more on the archetypal and deeper meaning of the figurines used in the creation (Kalff, 1980). 

Fast forward to the 1990s when Theresa Kestly created “Integrated Sand Therapy”, which draws from both Lowenfield and Kalff’s work. This approach is non-directive and requires the therapist to treat the sand tray as sacred, refusing to work with the sandtray at all, allowing it to solely be the client’s creation. After the creation of the sandtray, the client and therapist then engage in a conversation where the client shares the feelings, emotions and stories behind their sandtray.

Why do we Use Sandtray?

Sandtray has many benefits, one of which being: it doesn’t always feel like “therapy”. Imagine sitting a five year old across from a therapist and asking the child to share the emotions they feel watching their parents get a divorce. How could we expect a five year old child to have the words to share their experience or ability to process what is happening? Take the same child and instead of bombarding them with questions, allow them to enter a therapy room where they see a sandbox surrounded by toys on the walls or shelves. Children often don’t even need to be told what to do, they instinctively grab figures and begin “playing” in the sand. 

While at first it may take some time for the child to feel safe enough to explore the “scary” or “big” things they are holding onto, after a few sessions, the child will begin to play out their inner life and their inner struggles in the sandtray. They will begin to unconsciously project these things into the sand and build confidence as they work through what they are battling. 

Does Science support this modality?

Simple answer: yes! 

When someone is “stuck” in an anxious state or reliving a traumatic memory, the brain shifts into a survival mode and the amygdala becomes hyper-activated. Simply introducing a tactile stimulus, like running one’s hand through the sand, helps soothe the aggravated amygdala. Bonnie Badenoch also found that sandtray therapy “awakens” right-brain limbic processes and new neural pathways are created, which allows traumatic memories to be rewired (Badenoch, 2008). 

Multiple studies have also shown that there are measurable reductions in anxiety after sandtray therapy, as measured by the Hamilton Anxiety Scale and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale (Foo et al., 2020). 

In studies of children that were sexually abused, sandtray allowed children the space to move from “stagnant to dynamic” play. This change in the child’s play shows that the child is able to process and integrate emotions and thoughts that were previously “stuck” in their trauma (Tornero & Capella, 2017). 

The Child’s Psyche

In all good therapeutic approaches, the goal should be the manifestation of what Swiss psychologist Carl Jung called, the Self. The Self holds the “patterns for wholeness, inner order” and “seems to guarantee the development and consolidation of the personality” (Kallf, 1980). In the hands of an equipped therapist, the sandtray can provide a temenos, a sacred space, where this unconscious work can begin. The language of the unconscious is much like that of the child, where instead of direct words or statements, images or symbols are used to convey a message. When the child is provided with a sandtray, they are able to communicate on their terms, using an innate language that is comfortable. 

Resources:

Badenoch, B. (2008). Being a brain-wise therapist: A practical guide to interpersonal neurobiology. W. W. Norton & Company.

Foo, M., Freedle, L. R., Sani, R., & Fonda, G. (2020). The effect of sandplay therapy on the thalamus in the treatment of generalized anxiety disorder: A case report. International Journal of Play Therapy, 29(4), 191–200. https://doi.org/10.1037/pla0000137

Kalff, D. M. (1980). Sandplay: A psychotherapeutic approach to the psyche. Sigo Press.

Tornero, M. D. L. A., & Capella, C. (2017). Change during psychotherapy through sand play tray in children that have been sexually abused. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 617. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00617

World Association of Sand Therapy Professionals. (n.d.). History. https://worldsandtherapy.org/page/history