Foundation and Form in Jungian Sandplay

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Freely available

An art therapist will be sensitive to visual images, in nature, art, art therapy or sandplay. An important part of the work is to witness the process of emergence of many kinds of images, some of which will bedifficult, and some which are harmonious.

Patients tell stories about their artwork and but the graphic qualities of their art may also symbolize a less conscious knowledge. Images belong to the person who creates them, but in art therapy,as symbols from the collective unconscious as well, their deeper meanings should be considered. Both the art therapist and the sandplay therapist provide patients with concrete materials to form visual images, with several differences.

Art materials- paper, paint, oil pastels, clay or plasticine, are manufactured, not reusable and art works are saved in portfolios or on shelves until a final review of the work. Sand and water are natural substances that are used repeatedly in the same sandtray by all patients.

The miniatures and natural objects placedin a sandplay scene are usually displayed on shelves in fixed locations and are endlessly reusable. After observation, sand pictures are left in the tray after the client leaves, and are photographed and dismantled by the therapist. The photograph is seen by the client at the end of a process, for review.

It is important to remember that in art, drawings are two-dimensional because they are made that way from the start. Sandplays are three- dimensional, but we view them later in a two-dimensional photograph. Understanding a drawing or understanding a Sandplay is based on a different range of understandings.

They have in common the use of symbols, but in Sandplay the ready-made object is easily accessible in such a wide range that sometimes an art-maker will choose Sandplay to give form to a deep issue without conscious acknowledgement Steinhardt, Sand can be molded while wet into simple large structures, but when dry, they fall apart.

When sand is fired, the silica content becomes glass. Our earth surface formed in the presence of sunlight and rain that generated development of plant and animal species in cycles of growth and decay. Clay is fine earth found in caves or river beds where fresh water streams. Clay can be molded into subtle forms while in a wet pliable state. When dry it retains its shape, and when fired clay becomes stone-like. Thus earth or clay is closer in time to human culture and consciousness while sand connects us psychically to the beginning of creation on earth.

Artists Picasso, Braque, Gris began to incorporate objects into their paintings around At about the same time verylarge objects became part of paintings Robert Rauschenberg ,common objects such as beer cans and flags Jaspar Johns and Brillo boxes Andy Warhol became sculptures themselves.

The Sandplay therapist who is an art therapist will be able to view the sandtray as a container for artistic creativity, within which an array of assorted objects are chosen and carefully placed,meaningful to the sandplayer, with no verbal explanationnecessary.

The bas-relief historically is a partially three-dimensional sculpture that tells a story. It is not independent but always attached to a larger structuresuch as a public monument, and its use of space is illusory for example the PergamonFrieze in the Berlin Museum, ca. A miniature collection contains people of all ages and kinds, gods, goddesses and fairy tale characters, animals from land, sea and air, plants, sky powers, natural objects, man-made structures such as houses, bridges, wells, portals and fences, vehicles, and any other object that the therapist finds interesting.

Often beautiful objects such ascrystals, or an object that activates a personal memory are chosen in an early stage. It may represent something in the personal unconscious, or the collective unconscious. However, Jung had to break with Freud when he drew a sharp distinction between the Personal Unconscious and the Collective Unconscious, whose contents are known as archetypes.

Sandplay & Art Therapy

Archetypes are the typical patterns of human experience and behavior, i. Archetypes arrange psychic elements into certain images, in such a way that they can be recognized only from the effects they produce. It is not just a gigantic historical prejudice, so to speak, an a priori historical condition; but it is also the source of the instincts, for the archetypes are simply the forms which the instincts assume.

The symbols it creates are always grounded in the unconscious archetype, but their manifest forms are moulded by the ideas acquired by the conscious mind. We find the archetypal in symbol dictionaries, myths and fairy tales. When we relate to an animal or plant as a symbol we should know its evolutionary process and biological history and habits in addition to myths and folklore concerning it.

On the cultural level, we need to know something about the culture of the people we work with. Foundation and Form in Jungian Sandplay London: Bollati Boringhieri Editore, Torino, Amatruda, Kate ; Simpson, Phoenix Helm.

Healing and Transformation in Sandplay. Muki Baum Association, UC CabrilloCollege , Bradway, Katherine and others. Bradway, Katherine ; McCoard, Barbara. Sandplay - Silent Workshop of the Psyche. Temenos Press, Cloverdale, CA Ernst Reinhardt Verlag, George Allen and Unwin, London, Jessica Kingsley Publisher, In Search of Beatrice. Edra, September 13, Mitchell, Rie Rogers ; Friedman, Harriet.

Sandplay - Past, Present and Future. Konzepte und Anwendungen des Sandspiels.

Waterfront Digital Press, Feb Giocando con la sabbia. Daimon Verlag, Einsiedeln Jungian Sandplay - The Wonderful Therapy.

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