Intro to Sand Tray/Play therapy.
My work as a therapist has included working with clients that present with abuse histories, often complex trauma. I find this can take years to heal and is hard emotionally and spiritually, draining energy. So Sand Tray Therapy is wonderful due to its inherent gentleness. If you have heard of it for children, I assure you in is used with adults as well, even with couples!
Sand Play is a wonderful technique that taps into your unconscious to access deep emotions and experiences that can then be healed in a gentle way. What I love about this technique is that our natural healing centre chooses unconsciously what and how deeply you need to heal something, sometimes surprising you. Play is so natural to us that we can use this to heal, much the way children do as well. It can be used in a single session or every session until you feel your goals are met. It is great if you feel “stuck”, making the unconscious conscious. It is also a way to connect with the elements and heal without so much talk, which some struggle with, especially unhappy topics.
Using figures of your choosing and the arrangement of the sand in the tray, you become the "world builder," and watch whatever reveals itself. It can be transformational helping to process grief, past hurts or help to identify and process what is causing or maintaining depressive and other mental health symptoms, enabling recovery. It provides the possibility, to set up a world corresponding to your inner emotional state. Through free, creative play, unconscious processes are made visible in visual form.
It is a great way to get out of your head, stop racing thoughts and start processing issues, life events (past and present) and intense feelings in a non-threatening way. The feedback I get is that Sand Tray tends to result in less of the “hangover” we sometimes get after a talk therapy session. It is effective and also has the potential to speed up the healing process.
The set-up: The first Sand Tray session.
Picture it…you walk into a room that has two comfortable chairs and a small table between them. On that small table is a tray or large bowl full of sand. On a nearby table or placed on shelves are hundreds of tiny figures. These figures are a combination of everyday items that are miniscule ex. A house, chairs, animals…these figures also include mythical ones ex. mermaids and unicorns…and small sculptures that are more abstract. Some of these figures will fascinate you and some will feel odd or meaningless.
When I present the idea of a Sand Tray session to you, I have already seen you a few times and we’ve had a full assessment, you trust our initial connection. The work has slowly begun. The only exception to this is if a client specifically requests Sand Tray Therapy and contacts me to do this only. I give a lot of permission to slowly consider it as a therapeutic possibility when we meet.
I may say something like….
“Given that you have been talking about feeling ‘stuck’ in making life decisions, I wanted to suggest Sand Tray as an option that I truly feel you may find helpful. No pressure, you can just think about it if you wish. I find it can feel odd at first, but once you have completed one tray, I think you will either love it or see the effect it can have on your life, fairly quickly. If you decide it is not for you, it is only one session and we can try something else instead.”
The immediate set up…
“So get your hands in the sand for a few minutes. When you are ready simply take this small basket and walk around the room, choosing your figures and place them in the basket. You choose figures largely based on intuition. So choose the figures you have a strong reaction to, love or hate. Then bring them to the tray and place them in any way you wish to. There is no right or wrong way. And then we are going to chat about what you’ve created. There is no analysis we simply discover your tray together.”
I have found the majority of clients I work with love Sand Tray once they try it. Other clients are surprised at how fast they start feeling “unstuck” in an area of their lives. Get creative but also respect that it can still include some emotional intensity.
Creating safety to process trauma using Sand Tray.
So while Sand Tray can be used to process trauma, there are many other techniques
and approaches used for this purpose as well. So one of the ways I use Sand Tray is to create safety before I begin facilitating the processing of intense traumatic memories, even if Sand Tray is not used again in our work together.
I will bring it up at least one session before we complete the tray, so you know what to expect. When the time comes to complete the tray, I facilitate it in a slightly different way than usual, slightly more directive. For example:
“We are using this tray to access feelings of safety and self-care within your spirit before we begin talking about the difficult memories you have alluded to. So I would like you to create a tray that creates feelings of safety, love and self-care today. This is a feeling you will be able to access while we get into talking about some horrible experiences you have had. There is no right or wrong. You are creating a world in which you are in full control and it can be anything you want it to be. So please choose your figures thinking about safety.”
The purpose of this tray is similar to using visualization(s) to create a safe space, if this is familiar to you. The tray deepens the feeling of safety so when you leave the session you will likely feel really good. This is a feeling we refer to throughout the next sessions in which we talk about your traumatic experiences. If a time comes in which you have been healing some negative memories for awhile and we decide you need a break, I may suggest another sandtray, a self-care tray. This is a similar process in which you re-create a feeling of safety in the tray and introduces figures that depict self-care, whatever that looks like for you. It is a wonderful way to rest the spirit and remind yourself of all of the ways you take care of yourself.
Many of these types of trays depict nature or garden scenes. They may include a wise other, a partner or may even have a figure that you identify as me, your therapist! Some trays include war worlds with warriors to protect you. I have also seen trays in which a client has placed themselves on another planet with no one, only themselves so no one can hurt them. I do not try to correct any of these worlds. It is simply a wonderful way to deepen that feeling of safety as intensely as possible so you have it in your spirit to refer to later in your personal life as well as in a therapeutic session. It can also be used in a visualization at the end of an intense session to help pull you out of the past before you leave your session.
If this sounds intriguing, please reach out. I would love to connect and chat!
I was trained by Lalita Salins MA, LMFT www.lalitasalins.com/about-me
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