Best Self Family Post
What is Sandtray Therapy?
1/31/23
When feelings or memories are too difficult to talk about, Sandtray therapy provides an alternative way to process deeper emotions. Sandtray is an expressive therapy that invites clients to create their “inner worlds” through the use of miniatures and sand. This form of therapy is accompanied by talk therapy, in order to support the processing of each client’s thoughts and inner struggles. Expressive forms of therapy are powerful tools to access the emotional pockets of our brains that may be hidden by fear, trauma, or other stressful life experiences that impact our ability to verbalize feelings.
The use of the Sandtray can facilitate profound healing, as clients create solutions to free themselves of deep-seated negative emotions. I ask my clients to create various types of scenes in the sand, prompting them to represent their values, goals or fears. Clients explore a wide variety of miniature objects and figurines. Independently, they select which objects to use to represent themselves, family members and anyone else in their lives - as they process the prompts they are given. Then, I look for themes that emerge through the tray and ask clients to explain what they created. I help guide clients to add or discard miniatures in the tray in order to create healing and begin to write a safer, more positive story for the future. Creating healthy, forward thinking narratives together is always the desired outcome.
The use of sand is also a highly therapeutic sensory experience. Often times, clients will come into my office overwhelmed with experiences from their day. Both children and teens love to move their hands through the sand. Sometimes just the way it calms their bodies and soothes the nervous system, allows the talking part to come easier. Other times, my clients will feel exhausted from talking and ask for the sandtray to express their feelings without speaking. Either way, it is a beautiful method of self-expression and healing.
Please note, we do not recommend this as an at-home activity or as casual play. Sandtray therapy is a specialized, clinical intervention. Sandtray therapy should only be executed by a licensed professional in a therapeutic setting.
For more information about Sandtray and how it may help your child, please give us a call at (312)643-0268.