Sandplay: traces in the sand - traces in the brain

For more than 40 years I have been using sandplay with children and adults in my practice of analytical psychology. In this article I describe the development of sandplay from simple playing in the sand, to the technique of using sand, water and figures in different forms of therapy, to the sandplay method based on the foundations of Jungian psychology. I put special emphasis on the so-called review of a sandplay process, namely the careful, comprehensive analysis of sand pictures, dreams and reflections at the end of the therapeutic process. This happens in a mutual exchange between analysand and analyst and brings about a deeply effective synthesis of the therapy process, both in the analysand and in the analyst. One further emphasis is on the physical component of sandplay: the physicality of sandplay creates a resonance between body and soul and makes sandplay therapy also a psychosomatic method.