bandbsandtray.com - What is Sandtray Therapy?

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In pretending, children often express indirectly or symbolically pressing worries or fears and repeat these themes again and again suggesting a view of play as cathartic - an attempt to experience, and thereby resolve or master a difficult situation. Excerpt from the book Play by Cynthia Garvey

Sandtray therapy is experiential…expressive...
a form of play therapy, not just for children but adults as well.

Using the medium of sand in trays, you select figures/characters and elements, e.g., water, fire, and light, to tell a story or build worlds about life issues…

The sandtray is the container for the story telling or world building, with the sides of the tray acting as defined boundaries to “contain” past or present life crises explored and associated emotions which arise. You bring your own meanings to the figures or images...concrete representational symbols in the story/world...

And play...with the metaphors, themes, events, relationships, feelings ...and all myriad of possibilities for problem-solving, reaching a place of resolution, balance, peace.

You are in charge – in control of what you explore, the pace, the outcome...

You have the wisdom to figure out and make sense of confusion…life’s complications...

You empower your SELF to change and take action.

The sandtray therapist role is to be the observer and facilitator of the process, to document through note-taking, to make available a camera for taking photos, and to “be with” you on your sandtray journey for whatever shows up...to share in the sadness of endings...and celebration of beginnings and whatever comes in the ‘in-between.’

Stories provide a pathway for experience. Joyce Mills