Sandplay

An absolutely amazing, soul-supporting process tool is to use Sandplay Figures to set up dynamics, dialogues and expressions of what's going on within.

Sandplay is a branch of therapy, also often called Sandtray, which uses little figurines to stage snapshots and act out interactions among psychic parts. It is widely used with children, but like all Expressive Arts and play-related techniques, it works perfectly well with adults as long as they're not above playing around with toys.

The beautiful thing about Sandplay is that no conscious understanding is needed - if you just allow your psyche to play with toys, it will, amazingly enough, heal itself. That being said, I also like to use them as an insight tool, because there's a big part of me that likes to know what's going on and this helps her. 

Sandplay Therapy practitioners usually have hundreds of figurines and an actual tray filled with sand that you can get wet and mold into landscapes. It's incredible. I don't have such a tray yet, but I do have a modest beginning of a collection composed mainly of Schleich toys and a few natural elements like stones, shells, sticks and pinecones. 

I've attempted to assemble a very basic example of how Sandplay figures could be used as a play process.  

My invitation to you: Gather some toys, figurines, and/or make your own, and give yourself a snapshot of your psyche’s state by setting up a scene. As children know, anything can be a toy, so feel free to use anything you want for this. Suggestions below for how to dialogue, but of course follow your instincts.

Get some toys and some natural materials together. As you can see, I don't have so many toys, but I am still able to make rich Sandplay constellations out of them.

I put some crystals in my natural materials.

First step, choose something to represent you. I am the joey in the pouch. Just go with whatever instinct or impulse arises, no thinking required.

Next choose something to represent what is hindering or oppressing you.

Set them up in a way that shows their relationship somehow. In general it's good to define some kind of container, whatever it is, large or small - I'm using the top of my trunk as my playspace.

Next add some other parts of you, other figures which may be somehow related with the figure who's representing you.

Instinctively, I am choosing figurines which seem to represent some part of me.

A baby figurine helps me express the parts that feel fragile, newborn, or precious.

I place these additional parts of me in a spatial relationship that expresses where they are in relation to me. Here I sense these parts to be behind, and led by, the first me representative I chose. In my imagination, I sense that these characters are walking along a little bit behind me, following my lead.

I keep expanding the scene by intuitively choosing figures. I have now added a turtle, a hippo, and a white tiger, as well as a few natural elements: a small pine cone, a quartz, and an amethyst. I sense that these elements are here to help me, except for the amethyst, which I sense as a kind of intruder energy.

More natural elements help me fill out the scene.

This next scene is a result of asking myself, "What needs to happen?" and allowing myself to move the figurines around. What has happened is that the owl, representing my hindrance, has been escorted away from me by the white tiger and the turtle. You can see that my path has been cleared up, with the natural elements off to the side, perhaps also protecting me a little from the amethyst intruder energy.

Tiger and turtle escorting away my hindrance.

At any stage of this process, I can dialogue with any figurine, ask it about its relationship to the other figurines and elements of the scene, its motivation, its needs, and so on. I find this work to be both cathartic (by expressing the internal dynamics this way, it processes and releases some of the material) and illuminating (I usually get a feeling for what has been going on, and what the overall message is).

Interpretation, of course, is completely up to you and has no objective meaning. What another person might see in your constellation would be laden with their own associations and the most relevant information is always what it means to the maker of the image (this is always true in Expressive Arts and process play). 

To give you an idea of what can be harvested from such a process, I will share what comes up for me with even this very simple, quick sandplay (the whole thing took me about 5 minutes).

My Harvest

I chose a joey inside the pouch of a strong feminine energy. This represents how I feel, especially these days, that I am carried by a loving, Mother energy who is protecting me while I continue to need time in what is essentially a womb like space.

I sensed that my hindrance was a mental energy, a kind of harping, harpy energy represented by the owl. Owls represent many things, but to me they hold in particular the resonance of being associated with the goddess Athena, symbolically sprung from the head of Zeus, a tyrannical patriarch. Athena is also keeper of arts, culture, and war. This makes very much sense to me as an expression of a hindrance I have been experiencing - blocked, aggressive mental energy which has been heckling with me with the question of whether or not my music has value.

The figures of the calf and the foal are easily recognizable to me as expressions of my vulnerability, the youngness within, more of what needs protection and also of what is newly born. I have the sense with both the calf and the foal that they are stronger than they might initially seem - unlike the joey who needs more time in the pouch, these parts are already on their feet.

The panda to me holds the part of me that is very creature-y, who just likes to be soft, to play, to overeat and rest. She is also black and white, which I associate with the part of me that has existed in the black-and-white world of the previous reality, in essence a kind of "old me" or ego self, who I have been until now. It is significant to me that I am not leaving her behind, but bringing her along on my journey. 

The turtle, tiger, and hippopotamus all signal a kind of supernatural strength and aid, Guardian figures who have come to help me out. Each figure has certain resonances for me. The fact that they gently escort the owl away, rather than attack it, has meaning for me, too. The owl needs assistance and support in continuing on her evolutionary path. There is no unkindness shown her even though she is removed off of me and made to no longer be a hindrance. 

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You can see how each and every element may be mined for meaning, ad infinitum, as desired. I am always startled and deeply moved by how much information may be gleaned from this process. 

If you have been unfamiliar with this process so far and would like to try it, I invite you to start collecting a few small figurines who may help you do such a process, or your own variation of it. A trip to a craft store or thrift store can help source you with figurines to get you rolling.

If you have some resources to direct into this, sandplay figurine sets, trays, and sand can be ordered online. Having these will make your process even richer. 

In any case, each person's Sandplay collection will be utterly unique, wonderfully enough, as that person collects and attracts figures that want to be part of the set. Consider also that each time you use a figurine in a Sandplay process, you imprint it with some of your energy. Gradually, the set will carry a fair amount of resonance for you and become a deft, potent guidance tool. The potential for nourishing, enjoyable play here is infinite!

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Thumbnail image reverently appropriated from Ruth Heller's The Reason for a Flower.