What Is Sandtray Therapy?
Sandtray therapy allows you to safely explore your thoughts, memories, and emotions in a therapeutically connected environment. You can use various objects to help express yourself including sand and figurines that represent your world.
Sandtray therapy may be a great choice for you if:
Talk therapy sometimes feel overwhelming for you or your child
You sometimes feel stuck in sessions not knowing how to verbalize what is going on in your mind
You’re not sure what to talk about
You’re interested in a gentle approach that lets you use creative expression to navigate your inner world
What to Expect in a Sandtray Therapy Session
Sandtray sessions are all about you practicing trusting your mind, body, and inner wisdom. The therapist will teach you about the sandtray and the figurines. She will allow you to explore the sand and sand tools to see what feels comfortable sensory-wise. She may also share about the figurines you can choose from once the sandtray creation begins. She may pick out a prompt for you to create your first sandtray, for example “Show me your world” or “Show me that situation you mentioned as if it were a screenshot”.
After that, it is time for you to practice trusting your mind to help you find healing through the sandtray work. This part of sandtray is especially helpful for healing because our mind does not have to worry about verbalizing or listening to others. It can simply just focus on creating what it needs to create in the sand.
After creating your sandtray, depending on your goals for therapy, you can process the sandtray with your therapist as much or as little as you want. A big component to the storytelling part of sandtray is the act of creating the sandtray and presenting it in the room.
“Sandplay provides an opportunity to process life experiences through a tangible, visible procedure which is both fun and intensely meaningful, both intimately revealing and symbolically concealing. The process of healing takes place while playing with the sand and figures, without the need for interpretation, verbalization, or conscious awareness” (Hunter, 1998, p. 4).
In other words, you are expressing yourself and finding a greater understanding of your world through the art of creating your sandtray.
If you feel like this type of therapy fits well for you or your children, please reach out to one of our sandtray therapists! We are happy to provide this space for you to find comfort and healing through your Sandtray experience.
Resources to learn more about Sandtray therapy:
Hunter, L (1998). Images of resiliency: Troubled children create healing stories in the language of sandplay. Behavioral Communications Institute.
