What is Sandplay Therapy?
Sandplay Therapy is not just for children. Sandplay Therapy is a gentle form of therapy that allows a child, adolescent or adult to use objects in 3-D form, which allows the unconscious to come into conscious awareness. Adults have the opportunity to express themselves without ego defenses and children have the opportunity to express themselves without the pressures of traditional talk-therapy.
Sandplay is a "hands on" and can be very powerful for individuals, couples, families and groups.
premise
A basic premise of Sandplay therapy is that the psyche possesses a natural tendency to heal itself, given the proper conditions. Similar to how our physical wounds heal under beneficial conditions, the psyche also has an instinctual wisdom that emerges when left free to operate naturally in a protected environment. The aim of Sandplay is to activate healing energies at the deepest level of the psyche through the use of miniatures and the sand tray to reflect the client’s inner world. By this symbolic activity and through the experience of free and creative play, unconscious processes are made visible in this three-dimensional form, much like the dream experience.
~Harriet S. Friedman, M.A., M.F.T., J.A.