#sandtherapy

---Teach children about self-regulation so they learn how to tolerate negative emotions. Frustrations happen in life, so it is important that children are prepared and understand that they must control their impulses.

---Feeling charts can be used to help children identify and process emotions. Teach children to clearly communicate how they feel by using a simple formula in which they label their emotion and explain why they feel that way.

Sand tray theorists suggest that universal themes are reflected in how the tray is organized, how the space is occupied, and whether human figures are included in the tray.

Although each sand tray creation is a unique reflection of the client’s inner world, these general environments or worlds help to guide the counselor in understanding the personal world the client has created.

1) Empty world symbolizing sadness and depression

2) Unpeopled world symbolizing pain or abuse

3) Fenced world or closed world symbolizing compartmentalized or protected issues

4) Rigid or schematic world or world of rows symbolizing control or hiding abuse

5) Disorganized world, incoherent world, or chaotic world symbolizing chaos

Carol was a childhood survivor of terrible physical abuse. She lived on the streets as a teen eventually pulling her life together to finish high school and work her way through college. When Carol married Joe, she repeated the cycle of abuse. Her life was in chaos and memories of abuse as a child paralyzed her when she began therapy. Through sand tray, she slowly worked through her victimization and powerlessness and created a new life for herself and her young children.

Carol’s sand trays followed a gradual progression of development and healing. In the early chaotic stage, her creations were characterized by filling the tray haphazardly with ferocious dinosaurs, wild animals, inanimate rocks and mountains, with no human figures. The next stage was marked by fighting and struggles. Carol shared intricate, symbolic stories about battles, burying figures that represented her and the abusers. In the third stage, Carol’s sand trays reflected growing resolution and hope. She arranged figures representing her and her children, dogs and cats, trees and a colorful clay rainbow--her favorite object. Carol shared stories about her new life and recorded them in her journal with photographs of the sand trays.