Jungian sand therapy. Brief description of Jungian ideas related to sand therapy

The content of the article:

Sand psychotherapy is a method that was described in detail by Carl Gustav Jung and involves working with sand to solve psychological problems. Voiced material has always been popular among people, because in itself it implies the availability of its acquisition and the effectiveness of its use in some matters. You should understand the concept voiced in order to use it in the future when working with children.

Description and objectives of sand psychotherapy

Sand psychotherapy for children is a fairly well-known technique that arose on the basis of analytical psychology. It allows the child to communicate not only with the world around him, but also with himself. In addition, when using it, there is a real opportunity to relieve internal tension in a depressed little person, which subsequently leads to increased self-esteem in problem children.

Sand psychotherapy is a natural game for children that does not make them wary or fearful.

However, despite the simplicity of this technique, during classes the child’s deep self is revealed and even a holistic picture of the world is created in his imagination. With the help of created sand figures, children gain important experience in overcoming crisis situations by resolving the problem at the level of understanding symbolism.

Every intervention in a child’s inner world must be clearly justified and regulated by people knowledgeable in this matter. Experts in the mentioned field of psychology consider the use of sand psychotherapy as a necessary maneuver exclusively in these cases of helping children solve their problems:

• Increased anxiety. A child may have certain phobias, which is not a deviation from the norm even in the life of an adult. However, such connivance towards the voiced problem on the part of parents can result in neurosis and nervous tics in children who begin to intensively cultivate their secret fears.
• Inappropriate behavior. Quite often, children allow themselves to demonstrate their direct protest against the dictates of adults. However, children or teenagers do not always comply with the limits of permissibility, which should not be crossed through manipulation in the form of hysterics and provocations in order to achieve the desired result.
• Low self-esteem. This mental pathology is dangerous because it entails a large number of complexes in the child when he enters adulthood. Sand psychotherapy will help to maximally correct the self-esteem of a depressed little person.
• Conflict with society. When a problem is raised, complex relationships can form with both adults and children. In some cases, the child comes into confrontation with parents, representatives of the teaching staff or peers.
• Depression. In some situations, such a depressed state can even lead to suicidal thoughts. Consequently, calming sand psychotherapy will help children get rid of the voiced problem.
• Child abuse. This psychological trauma can occur as a result of moral or sexual pressure on an unformed little personality. In many cases, sand therapy alone will not be enough, but as an accompanying corrective technique it will be very useful.

Material and equipment for sand therapy

1. Exercise table. In this case, you can’t do without visiting a store that sells materials for lovers of art and creativity. It is better to choose a sandbox from raw materials in the form of coniferous wood. In this case, you can save money by purchasing plastic products. However, in this technique, the child’s tactile contact with the tree is very important. If parents want to carry out similar exercises at home themselves and do not have the opportunity to purchase a sandbox, then there is no need to be upset. In any hardware store, it is quite possible to purchase wood, from which dad or family friends will then make a worthy analogue of the commercially available product. However, it should be remembered that the inside of this self-made structure must be painted either blue or light blue. Psychologists are convinced that it is these tones that help a child, when in contact with sand, create the most successful models of compositions. If you wish and have financial capabilities, you can connect your children to sand animation. To do this, you will have to purchase a sandbox with special lighting and a transparent screen.
2. Sand for therapy. Typically, this method of working with children uses quartz sand, the color of which can vary from white to red. At the same time, the material for such psychotherapy is soft and flows easily in the baby’s hands. However, you can replace it with sea or river sand, which is thoroughly sifted, washed and then dried. If you plan to use wet sand, then it is worth purchasing a special spray bottle. 5-6 kilograms of sand is enough to carry out the described session.
3. Figures for psychotherapy. The foundation for creating sand models must be made of various materials. In this case, it is worth purchasing similar products made of metal, plastic, clay and wood. The shape of the figures can be on various themes: animals, people, birds, characters from famous works. If you wish, you can purchase whole thematic sets of all kinds of items for working with sand in a special store. At the same time, we should not forget about the use of natural materials in the form of pebbles, shells, fruit seeds and twigs.

Methodology for sand psychotherapy

After purchasing the material necessary for classes, it is worth understanding the very scheme of the proposed event. The methodology in this direction includes many different options for its implementation.

Warm-up during sand psychotherapy

• Induction training. Before starting to get acquainted with a new type of activity, it is necessary to interest the child, making him want to further cooperate. To do this, you can come up with any image in the form of the Sand Fairy or the Bulk Man. The next step is to become familiar with the rules for visiting a fairy-tale character. It is necessary to explain to the baby that grains of sand cannot be treated carelessly. Therefore, it is forbidden to throw them outside the sandbox or put them in your mouth.
• Getting to know the sand. First you need to ask the child to express his emotions after the first tactile contact with sand. He must say how he felt this granular substance and what he felt during this contact. Then you can play with the stream, drawing smooth lines in the sand. After your first acquaintance with the unique material being described, you can test its strength. To do this, you need to squeeze it into a fist and then pour it back into the sandbox. Next, you should start a blind acquaintance, in which the child is asked to close his eyes. After this, the psychologist or one of the baby’s parents should start pouring sand on the fingers of their ward. The children’s task, during the described action on the part of adults, is to identify and voice the finger where the described substance landed.
• Collective assessment of sensations. The child’s parents must definitely be present during this exercise. The technique of performing manipulations called “Fingerprints in the sand” is quite simple. You need to take turns immersing your hands in it and then voicing your impressions of the action performed.
• Rain against aggression. Especially anxious and conflict-ridden children will benefit from this exercise. In this case, the child needs to pour sand first from palm to palm, and then into the container itself for such activities. Parents can join this process and must support their beloved child throughout this type of psychotherapy.
• Association with animals. Each child should imagine how a certain animal moves. In this case, you need to imitate these movements on the sand, trying to achieve maximum reliability during the exercise.

Children playing with sand

1. Hide and seek. The purpose of this method of finding contact with a child is to find out about the causes of his internal discomfort. In this case, you need to invite him to choose several (2-3 pieces) from the 12 offered items. Then the baby must bury the selected figures in the sand, hiding his preference from the adult until the last moment. After hiding the objects, the child needs to find them by touch and tell the psychologist and parents about each find.
2. Association game. Using sand and figures, children are invited to build a composition on a specific theme. At the same time, the child must explain why what he made with his own hands looks this way. Children love to fantasize about topics about their future, family, friends and existing professions.
3. Sand paintings. In this case, the expression “castle in the sand” will not seem like an unreasonable factor. You can try inviting your child to play an exciting game with adults. Many children enthusiastically watch films on historical topics, so it will not be difficult for them to describe, to the best of their ability, the castle of those times with all its knightly attributes.

Analysis of sand compositions

The decoding of some sand compositions may look like this:

• Location of items. The specific placement of figurines can reveal a lot about who designed them in a given structure. The object in the center of the composition should always be associated with its little author himself. The second figurine laid out clearly has a comparison with some significant event in the child’s life. When burying an object in the sand, the psychologist and the child’s parents should think about the fact that this is probably how children deal with the factor that frightens them.
• Motivation. If the baby is in a depressed state, then he will choose the first figures he comes across and will react sluggishly to inventing any situation in the game. In a state of increased aggression or with a heightened sense of justice, the child will willingly support the psychologist and will even develop the proposed topics regarding the struggle between good and evil.
• Characteristics of temperament. Many people are amazed by the fact that by the arrangement of sectors in sand psychotherapy one can calculate the voiced aspect of the younger generation. If a child prefers to act in the upper part of the sandbox, then we can assume that a romantic nature predominates in him. This factor is usually observed in melancholic people who are prone to some daydreaming. When the figures are located at the bottom of the sandbox, one can assume children who are not used to idealizing the events taking place around them. These are 100% sanguine people with a behavior that suits them.

What is sand therapy - watch the video:

Psychosomatic disorders in children are a fairly common reason for seeking medical, psychological, and psychotherapeutic help. (Zakharov A.I., Andropov Yu.F., Shevchenko Yu.S., Nikolaeva V.V., Arina G.A.). These conditions are common in childhood and this is largely due to the fact that the child, faced with a variety of external factors, namely, stress, changes in living conditions, frustrating situations, and especially, faced with internal factors, namely, intrapsychic conflicts associated with difficulties in emotional and personal development, often uses the body through somatization as a way to relieve emotional stress. (Arina G.A., Nikolaeva V.V., Shur M., Alexander F., Winnicott D.V., etc.) Therefore, in various conditions from bronchial asthma and diabetes mellitus to motor tics and headaches, it is possible to detect and analyze psychological reasons for their occurrence and course.

Accordingly, a method of psychotherapy that will allow us to work through and mitigate psychosomatic conditions must directly deal with emotional processes and allow various parts of the psyche and personality, especially unconscious ones, to manifest themselves externally. Jungian sandy therapy [i] , along with play therapy, is precisely an approach that, in a non-verbal form, through playing with sand and rearranging miniature figures, as well as through the construction of sand paintings, allows one to penetrate into the deep layers of the psyche, into unconscious emotions. The method makes it possible to determine and see in the building itself, in the manifested artistic form, the emotional state of the child himself, the nature of the relationship between consciousness and the unconscious, between Ego and Self. Working with sand, like spontaneous play, allows you to find forces within the psyche that move it towards healing and integration, resolving the conflict behind the psychosomatic symptom.

Such brightness and imagery of the method, which includes the child’s independent and unimposed play with sand, is complemented by accompanying questions and special comments from the therapist. The technical simplicity of sandplay should not be misleading, because the depth and power of the method is very great and special training and your own therapeutic experience are necessary so that the integrating symbols and energies of the psyche expressed in the picture can be used by you as a therapist for healing, to support the transformation of the soul your client, child or adult. A psychologist, working in the sandplay technique, must be able to create a safe space in which the child could express himself consciously and unconsciously, and everything that he creates, does or expresses in words in the therapeutic room during the session would benefit him , would participate in resolving his problems.

Popular methods for psychologists to work with psychosomatic conditions are body-oriented therapy, art therapy, the Gestalt approach, etc. Each of them works on certain aspects of somatization in its own way. Art therapy allows the images that accompany somatization to be expressed externally, for example, on paper. Body therapy allows the tactile language to unfold and regularly release the frozen and fixed energy of the psyche through the release of the body. The Gestalt therapist orients the client toward liberation from emotions here and now, leads the client to harmonize his momentary state, and sets the person up to listen to his processes.

Jungian sand therapy combines all of these aspects in a technically different way. It also includes the expression of spontaneous images, liberation of the body and tactile contact, harmonization of feelings and sensations, living every moment of composition and play, while all this is realized on the basis of unconscious symbolism, holistic psycho-corporeal symbolism of the psyche. Strengthening the Ego-Self axis (integral psyche), normalizing its functioning in the process of undergoing sand therapy, gives the child the opportunity to develop, find a balance between instinctive, spontaneous and controlling, directing forces of the soul (Neumann E.).

For illustration, several sand compositions and play structures of children with psychosomatic symptoms undergoing analytical psychotherapy will be considered.

We can see how in every symbolic composition (on a carpet or in a sandbox) a child’s problem, an intrapsychic conflict, is manifested. They also reflect the stage of transformation of the psyche at which the child is. By analyzing the buildings, one can discover integrating forces, healing factors that make it possible to understand where the therapeutic process is heading with this child.

That is, at least three layers of analysis of the child’s symbolic material are distinguished:

• Intrapsychic problem, conflict, lack of emotional development
• Stage of transformation, the beginnings of conflict resolution or defect transformation
• Healing factors that describe the prognosis of therapeutic work and emotional and personal development (teleological, prospective component).

Boy, 9 years old, chronic motor tics. He was in therapy for two years, after six months of work, motor tics disappeared as a symptom, analytical work continued with the emotional-personal sphere, with the structure of the Ego and the processes of self-identification and self-identity.

Construction and play on the carpet. "House of Frogs" The boy built a house on the carpet, arranged rooms inside the house, allocated a dining room, a bathroom, and a bedroom. Small frogs live in this house, and outside the house there are two large female frogs who hold swords in their hands. Large frogs guard the house. Building and arranging a home is a characteristic motive at a certain stage of therapy for a given client, when tics as a bodily symptom have already subsided.

What does this composition tell us? We see at least three important symbols here. This is a house in itself, small frogs are children and large frogs are women protectors.

How is the boy's problem expressed in this picture?

Building a house in the game means the desire to find your inner home, to somehow strengthen and equip your internal space, an internal container for emotions, sensations, desires and thoughts. This house is very feminine, very maternal, which may speak to the boy's key problem - the problem of identity. It’s as if this child cannot answer the question of whether he is a boy or a girl, since he is probably now unconsciously identified with his mother, as a child who has not yet resolved the Oedipal conflict. The feminine identity is still rooted in him and we can say that there are certain difficulties in passing through the oedipal stage, and his masculine identity is in the shadow, it is not sufficiently manifested. If we talk about the etiology of his condition, then, of course, this feature is associated with difficulties in relationships with his mother, primarily associated with a very strong symbiosis, fusion between them. Therefore, the child identifies himself with the maternal figure.

Another problem for this client is difficulty in managing and experiencing aggression; aggressive drives are overly blocked and are experienced as destructive. And indeed, motor tics are often accompanied by suppressed aggression; aggressive energies cannot be sublimated and strengthen the Ego, but are somatized into a bodily symptom. Symbolically, the difficulties of integrating aggression are expressed in the fact that it is the female figure that is endowed with aggressive elements and the composition does not represent characters from whom protection is necessary. We can also say that in the composition we see the theme of the non-manifestation of the Shadow. Frogs protect, but we do not see the enemies that attack. Those. shadow projections onto someone were not sufficiently realized. The classic of psychosomatic research in French psychoanalysis, Joyce McDougall, points out that economy on projections is a characteristic feature of the psyche with a psychosomatic structure; in this case, archaic unconscious shadow contents cannot express themselves through projections and are therefore expressed in a bodily way (McDougall J.). And this prevents differentiation, the development of the unconscious, and complicates the emotional development of personality.

Another important question is whether the child identifies with baby frogs or adult frogs? This is a question of identity, how are these different parts of the psyche, designated by small frogs as children and adult frogs as protectors, connected? The splitting into such pairs of figures largely reflects the fear of growing up, the difficulties of growing up, the unconscious fear of future storms of adolescence.

Let's look at this composition from the point of view of the stages of transformation. What transformational mental processes does this composition speak of? The child constructed this composition after the somatic symptom had subsided, but his mental structure was still not strong enough to guarantee that these tics would not return. Therefore, the boy still needs psychotherapeutic work, to work on various aspects of the internal space.

Frogs as heroes (heroines) are a rather strange choice, the frog is not a victorious hero, it is not a knight, not a pirate, not a boy. We can only remember the fairy tale about the frog princess, where this frog is one of the main characters, and we can also remember the German fairy tale of the Brothers Grimm "The Frog King, or Iron Heinrich", where the frog is an enchanted prince who must be disenchanted by a girl princess . We can also recall the modern cartoon “The Princess and the Frog”. This is a strange image to identify and it is non-anthropomorphic (not humanoid). A frog is a lower animal, not a mammal, but an amphibian, i.e. capable of living both on land and in aquatic environments. One can imagine that a boy should identify himself with a lion, a rhinoceros, a dragon, but it is difficult to imagine how to identify himself with a frog. But why does this image appear?

The frog in this case represents such a part of the child’s psyche that is capable of being in the environment of consciousness and in the environment of the unconscious (both on earth and in water), and thus reflects a certain degree of integration of the psyche that has already been achieved, a lower alchemical transformation that has gone through. This integration allows the child’s psyche to use and exchange energy from both consciousness and the unconscious.

What is also important to point out is that the frog is also a primitive projection of the boy’s bodily image, an unconscious body image. In alchemy we come across engravings where a frog or toad is involved in the processes of transforming lower matter into gold. This is a transitional stage, at which some unconscious and bodily integration has already occurred, so the symptom has gone away, but the child’s self has not yet been sufficiently strengthened.

Home improvement speaks of a process, the stage of mastering internal space, when a child recognizes himself, how he works, what happens to him at different moments, and this is the process of such elaboration of his place, his internal space. This stage precedes the opportunity to re-enter the oedipal conflict and work through it, rethink the relationship between the sexes, and develop one’s self-identity and sexual identity.

We can say in this way that this composition is characteristic of the phallic stage of psychosexual development; it reflects to us the inner phallic Mother of the child, preparation for the transition to the oedipal stage.

Where do we see healing factors in composition? It contains a movement towards mastering aggression, the appearance of figures who own and control swords, the development of internal space, the development of the ability to take care of oneself (strengthening the container and the inner mother, it’s like big frogs taking care of little ones) and here lies the vector for the integration of primitive emotions and sensations rather than somatization through the body. This gives and will give the child the opportunity to better understand what he is experiencing, what feelings he has, what he can do with these emotions, how he can name them, express them, and most importantly, comprehend them, i.e. use emotions as signals about what is happening to him, what is happening in his inner world.

We see in this way that the use of toys and play itself allow the child to create such integrating symbols and develop them. Spontaneous play shows what stage the child is at and it suggests what interpretations the therapist can make to help the child develop and overcome his problems.

Case 2. Girl, 7 years old, behavioral disorder, external aggression, overeating as a psychosomatic symptom. "City of Dirt"

Oral psychosomatic symptom - desire for food, insatiable hunger, desire to eat. Overeating itself is often associated with the fact that food is unconsciously equated with a good internal object; food is the equivalent of love. It is as if the girl can absorb a good object through food, but has difficulty doing this not literally, symbolically, emotionally.

Dirt City is a space where black women live. They are black because they are all covered in mud, their houses are in the city and in the center there is a source of mud where they regularly go and bathe. The source is located in the crater of an extinct volcano. The symbolism of dirt allows us to say that this sand composition certainly reflects the symbols of the anal stage of psychosexual development. We see that in the center of the sandplay there is a volcano, a source of dirt, and women come there. And dirt is perceived positively here. You can be dirty, you can enjoy being dirty. The triumph of anal pleasure, which is probably forbidden, taboo, impossible in the family and inner world of a girl. The client has little opportunity to positively fantasize that she is bad and to live it out. It’s as if the picture reflects the girl’s bad self, from which she gets pleasure. But this pleasure cannot be manifested and integrated with other parts of life, because in the composition the entire sandbox is occupied by the city of dirt, other space is not represented there.

Bathing in the spring symbolically represents renewal, pleasure, regression and relaxation, dissolution (solutio as an alchemical operation). This image also reflects the ability to receive pleasure from the body, hinting at hidden masturbation and fantasizing. This all speaks of a great desire to receive pleasure from the body, of the need for this pleasure for the psyche. Overeating food also hints at forbidden pleasures. The girl's rigid superego prevents the integration of her physicality and primitive sexuality, and this client also was stuck before the oedipal stage, did not resolve the oedipal conflict, did not emerge from it. Therefore, she regresses to some compromise available oral and anal pleasures (obsession with food, aggressive behavior). These same things are confirmed by the absence of male images in the composition; all the figures are women. As if the male world is incomprehensible, dangerous, unimaginable. Also, none of the heroines in this construction is the main one, the leading one, i.e. It is not clear what figure a girl can identify with; many female figures represent a support for identification.

The healing factor in this example lies in the area of ​​normalization of asociality (wrong behavior, forbidden pleasures). In this asociality there are opportunities to express and integrate aggression towards the mother, the desire to lay claim to the father and thereby develop one’s feminine identity, without fear of losing support in the relationship between parents.

Case 3. 6-year-old boy, atopic dermatitis on the hands. A very poor composition, a crater in the lower left corner of the sandbox and buried in it is an elongated egg-shaped blue stone that is hidden there. The boy does not comment on the composition. The stone in the crater evokes such associations as a child inside the mother’s womb and reflects the boy’s expressed desire to become small again, to return to his mother’s belly. The child expresses this desire spontaneously after building it in the sand. This sandbox reflects the boy’s desire for great regression, for merging with his mother, where the mother is a mother-womb, a mother-breast. This is a very primitive archaic oral image. To be in his mother’s belly, never part with her and talk to everyone from his belly—this is how the boy voices his fantasies and, as we see, he previously expressed them in the images of a sandbox.

Such a desire tells us about a symbiotic desire and that during the first year of life, for some reason, the child was deprived of the emotional maternal space, perhaps because the mother was in postpartum depression or was fascinated by some other people, giving away her emotional energy to him, and not to his son, thereby strengthening this unquenched, at that period of life, normal desire for regression and merger (Elyachev K., Stern D., Winnicott D.V., Dolto F.)

Allergic dermatitis figuratively tells us that the allergy seems to be caused by the outside world, any possibility of separation from the mother. The regressive desire for fusion denies any separation from the mother and then the probability of losing the mother would be zero. As if the boy cannot take (hands) from the outside world, he does not want to get rid of his mother. (Marty P., Dolto F.)

For such a client, the opportunity to have his own space, inside therapy, the sandbox space is vital, because in his regressive desire he is ready to abandon himself. On the one hand, this is omnipotence - I will be inside the mother and I will be like a mother, and on the other hand, this is renunciation of oneself. Psychological work with such a child should be associated with strengthening his space, with the opportunity for him to fantasize, express himself in drawing, play, sand, create such products of the unconscious that would show him that he exists as a subject, would give him the opportunity to acquire it is a sense of subjectivity.

Psychosomatic symptoms indicate a pronounced emotional weakness of the boy, as if the boy refuses to develop, since development represents the death of fusion with the mother, equated to the loss of the mother.

All these examples show us that psychological work should be based in its depth on working with the unconscious, on the ability to allow unconscious conflicts and fantasies to appear and be understood by the psychotherapist and on the ability to contain them in various ways, through play, integral symbols, through verbal integration, with with the help of transference-countertransference processes and, of course, through their comprehension in the therapist’s head in the form of interpretations. It is this kind of work that makes it possible to understand what is behind the physical symptoms of certain patients, to create a strategy for working through the difficulties of a child and transforming his psyche, and to formulate suitable recommendations for parents. The compositions clearly show what is happening in the child’s inner world, where his development should move and how we, as therapists, can create suitable conditions for them to realize their development, work out their unconscious fantasies and confront them, as for example in the last case, show that these fantasies do not correspond to reality. The compositions teach us to interpret those psychic contents that lie behind the symptom, cause it and indicate what is needed to strengthen the ego structure. In the process of psychotherapy, a child acquires an Ego that gives him protection from somatization in the event of stress, conflict, frustration, or transition from one age stage to another. Sandplay and play therapy provide us with rich opportunities to work with, as does the analytical interpretation of play and sand paintings.

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Jungian sand therapy provides a therapeutic opportunity for the client to express their inner world, as well as the archetypal world of the soul, by building symbolic pictures inside a wooden sand tray and playing with miniature figures and natural materials, stones, water, sand, etc.

Psychoanalytic play therapy enables the child to create a symbolic game, which is an actual product of the unconscious, requiring timely interpretations by an analyst or psychologist.

The Self is the archetype of integrity - the fullest human potential and unity of the individual as a whole. The self is the regulatory center of the psyche.

More details in Blum G. Psychoanalytic theories of personality, M., 1996, McDougall J. Eros with a Thousand Faces. St. Petersburg, 1999

This trait is characteristic of children with psychosomatic conditions, as mentioned by various authors (McDougall J., Winnicott D.V., etc.), their aggression, especially aggression towards the Mother, remains unintegrated for a long time.

Shadow is the hidden or unconscious aspects of the psychological structure of a person, its negative side, usually rejected by the conscious ego, but influencing a person’s thinking and behavior. The sum of all unpleasant personal qualities, something primitive, infantile, unadapted. The task of analytical therapy is not to exclude the Shadow from the patient’s life, but to make him aware of its presence, to gain the ability to integrate it into the Self and coexist with it.

Original title: The Princess and the Frog, 2009, USA, director: Ron Clements, John Musker

The frog, an animal related to the moon, is associated with rain, symbolizes fertility, fecundity, eroticism, also personifies the dark and undifferentiated primordial matter, the element of wateriness and primordial mucus, the basis of created matter, is a female symbol.

Jungian sand therapy: getting rid of problems and self-discovery in creativity

One of the most comfortable and effective psychotherapeutic techniques that exist within the framework of art therapy is sand therapy, based on the analytical ideas of Carl Gustav Jung.

Jungian sand therapy has become popular and has become widespread in psychotherapeutic circles. It has gained popularity among clients and won recognition among psychologists due to the fact that the method:

In the products of creativity on the sand, the obstacles, difficulties, and problems that exist in the individual are symbolically reflected, and worries, fears, and complexes take on a “real form.” During sand therapy sessions, restrictions and destructive environments that hinder a person leave the world of the subconscious, as if embodied in the works created. Thanks to this, the creator has the opportunity to resolve the existing conflict in a convenient way and achieve mental healing. The amazing effect of sand therapy according to Jung is based on well-studied mental abilities: when frightening emotions and destructive feelings are reflected in the real world, that is, they materialize, become visible, tangible, then the individual begins to interact with his embodied experiences as with real objects.

Creativity on the sand, as a method of psychotherapy developed by Dora Kalff, is based on natural ways of getting rid of destructive sensations that every person resorted to in their childhood: self-expression through play. Almost every one of us, as a child, loved to create a magical world in the sand. We realized our wildest fantasies and wondrous dreams by erecting fabulous sand castles on the sea coast or on the banks of a river. We created strange figures in the sandbox, giving them magical qualities. Thus, while working on sand, the young lady boldly expressed her feelings, showed her attitude towards the world, thereby preventing worries and experiences from being deposited deep in the subconscious sphere and maintaining a stable psycho-emotional balance.

To work with adult audiences, followers of Jungian sand therapy use a standard set of tools:

Unlike other psychotherapeutic methods, Jungian sand therapy has a number of obvious benefits:

Another advantage of sand therapy according to Jung is that a person can create a three-dimensional world, endow his characters with special features, “communicate” with his heroes, “educate” and “train” them. Creation on the sand of a free and protected world, in the atmosphere of which all the understood and unconscious experience of the individual is embodied - the transfer of drama from the inner world to the sphere of reality. That is, this method allows you to openly express your feelings without being embarrassed by your feelings and without fear of being misunderstood by others. Any traumatic experience of an individual is reflected in the products of creativity on the sand, while the problem is assessed and studied from a different point of view, a deep rethinking and a different interpretation take place.

It is worth noting the psychotherapist’s position during a Jungian sand therapy session. He is not an authoritarian leader, but an active observer, an attentive companion, an observant accomplice. The psychotherapist does not interfere with the creative process and does not direct the client along any specific scenario. He is a wise fellow traveler and witness to the process of creation.

The secret to the success of sand therapy according to Jung is based on three pillars:

Carl Gustav Jung (Fig. 18) is one of Sigmund Freud's students, who ultimately disagreed quite strongly with his teacher. At the same time, he created his own direction, which provided the basis, the beginning, the impetus for the development of a number of techniques, including techniques related to art therapy.

Rice. 18. American psychologist Carl Gustav Jung

The first technique that will be discussed is Jungian sand therapy.

Sand therapy (Sandplay)- one of the most interesting methods that arose within the framework of analytical psychology. Sand therapy is a unique way of communicating with the world and yourself; a way to relieve internal tension, embody it on an unconscious-symbolic level, which increases self-confidence and opens up new paths of development. Sand therapy makes it possible to touch the deep, authentic Self, restore your mental integrity, collect your unique image, picture of the world (Fig. 19).

Rice. 19. Appearance of the sandbox in sand therapy.

The theoretical basis of sand therapy is created by the ideas of C. G. Jung and the principles of analytical psychology formulated by him.

The same principles are implemented in a remarkable direction art therapy. Art therapy is a method of psychotherapy that uses artistic techniques and various types of creativity for treatment and psychocorrection. Term "art therapy" put into use artist Adrian Hill in 1938 when describing his work with tuberculosis patients in sanatoriums. At the beginning of its development, art therapy reflected the psychoanalytic views of S. Freud and K-G. Jung, according to which the final product of the client’s artistic activity (be it a drawing, sculpture, installation) expresses his unconscious mental processes. In 1960, the American Art Therapy Association was created in America.

The main goal of art therapy consists in harmonizing the development of personality through the development of the ability of self-expression and self-knowledge. The value of using art for therapeutic purposes is that with its help it is possible to express and explore a variety of feelings on a symbolic level: love, hatred, resentment, anger, joy, etc. The art therapy technique is based on the belief that the inner A person’s “I” is reflected in visual images whenever he draws, paints a picture or sculpts a sculpture.

The main technique of art therapeutic intervention is the technique of active imagination. It opens up unlimited opportunities for the client for self-expression and self-realization in the products of his creativity while actively learning about his “I”. During the creative process, the client has the opportunity not only to explore aspects of his personality, learn something new about himself, but also to move forward in solving his tasks and problems.

The art therapy process allows the client, through the product of his creativity, to touch his unconscious, to manifest the unconscious, to make it visible and accessible for control, change, to explore his feelings, to realize and process his past experience at a new level, to gain new experience.

Objectives of art therapy :

l obtaining material for psychodiagnostics and determining therapy strategies

l focusing the client’s attention on his feelings

l creating conditions for a socially acceptable outlet for suppressed aggression and other negative feelings

l mastering the skill of relaxation, concentration on the process, self-control, introspection

l development of creativity and personal potential

What art therapy can work with:

l increased anxiety, fears, crises, intra- and interpersonal conflicts,

l inadequate self-esteem and self-doubt

l neurotic and post-traumatic disorders, depression, low mood, psychosomatics, trauma, loss, family relationships and many others.

Art therapy works effectively in counseling and therapy for adults, children, adolescents, in an individual or group format. This method has no restrictions or contraindications.

Some types of art therapy (Fig. 20). :

l isotherapy

l puppet therapy

l fairy tale therapy

l cinema therapy

l make-up therapy

l mask therapy

l music therapy

l dance-movement art therapy

l body art therapy

l phototherapy

l working with clay and dough

l sand art therapy

l felt therapy

l landscape art therapy and many others

Rice. 20. From left to right: doll therapy, mandala therapy, felt therapy

From the point of view of a representative of classical psychoanalysis, the main mechanism of corrective influence in art therapy is the mechanism of sublimation. From the point of view of a representative of the humanistic direction, the correctional capabilities of art therapy are associated with providing the client with almost unlimited opportunities for self-expression and self-realization in creative products, affirmation and knowledge of one’s “I”. The products created by the client, objectifying his affective attitude to the world, facilitate the process of communication and establishing relationships with significant others (relatives, children, parents, peers, co-workers, etc.). Interest in the results of creativity on the part of others, their acceptance of creative products increases the client’s self-esteem and the degree of his self-acceptance and self-worth.

According to K. Jung, art, especially legends and myths and art therapy using art, greatly facilitate the process of individualization of personal self-development based on establishing a mature balance between the unconscious and conscious “I”.

The same words can be fully attributed to another technique, also rooted in the analytical direction of psychology - symboldrama (catatymic-imaginative psychotherapy).

Catathymic-imaginative psychotherapy– a method of deeply oriented psychotherapy, developed by the famous German psychiatrist and psychotherapist Professor Hanskarl Leiner (Fig. 21). For more than 50 years, the method has been successfully used in European countries to provide effective assistance to patients with neurotic, post-traumatic, psychosomatic, affective and personality disorders.

Rice. 21. The founder of symboldrama is a German psychiatrist, psychotherapist, professor Hanskarl Leuner

The “Eye of Horus” amulet (Fig. 22) was chosen by Professor Hanskarl Leiner as a symbol created by his symboldrama method.

Today, the lunar eye of Horus, looking into the unconscious, symbolizes the amazing ability of symboldrama to look into the depths of the human soul, to return a person to a sense of integrity and internal unity

Rice. 22. Eye of Horus

The concept of “katathym” translated from Greek is "coming from the heart" and means a connection with the emotional sphere of a person. The term indicates that the content of the presented image is determined primarily by currently relevant emotional experiences. “Imaginative” means that the method uses imagination(figurative symbolization is a special product of the imagination, similar to the dreams that the patient sees).

The symboldrama method is based on the principles of depth psychology.

In him a special method of working with imagination is used in order to bring to the surface, make visible a person’s unconscious desires, his fantasies, conflicts and defense mechanisms, as well as the relationship of transference and countertransference

Simvodrama promotes their processing both at the symbolic level and in the process of psychotherapeutic conversation and analysis.

The purpose of presenting images (imagination) is to obtain projective material for diagnosing the patient’s current psychological and somatic state, his communication strategies, unconscious relationship conflicts, unconscious fantasies, defense mechanisms, etc.

The obtained material is used in the therapeutic process to build therapeutic hypotheses and create a program for correcting the patient’s psychological state in accordance with the formulated request

At the moment, symboldrama is an original independent method with meaningful, consistent theory (classical and modern psychoanalysis, Jungian analysis) and practice, which is constantly updated and expanded through the exchange of experience between psychotherapists using the method.

Today, symboldrama is widespread and officially recognized by the health insurance system of a number of European countries.

Symboldrama is an important tool in the arsenal of a practicing psychotherapist and psychological consultant. It goes well with classical psychoanalysis, Jungian psychotherapy, psychodrama, Gestalt therapy, play therapy, and body-oriented therapy.

Jungian and symbolic methods include the quite popular today method of therapeutic metaphorical cards (Fig. 23).

Fig.23. Decks of metaphorical cards

Metaphorical associative cards are a set of pictures the size of a playing card or a postcard, depicting people, their interactions, life situations, landscapes, animals, household items, abstract paintings. Some sets of cards combine a picture with a text, others include separate cards with pictures and cards with words. The combination of words and pictures creates a play of meanings, which is enriched with new facets when placed in a particular context, studying one or another topic that is relevant to a person at the present time.

This is a projective psychological technique: what is important is not the meaning originally laid down by the researchers, but the emotional response of each individual person to the picture he comes across. In the same picture, different people will see completely different phenomena, and in response to the stimulus they will bring out their own inner content of current experiences.

Game techniques are also partly based on the Jungian concept of personality. These include, for example, the modern direction therapeutic games (theta games).

The game is effectively used to achieve life goals, resolve internal and external conflicts, increase emotional tone, and in the treatment of neuroses. ( psychogenic and noogenic), phobias, hypochondria and anxiety disorders, PTSD, distress, in palliative care, to alleviate the course of the disease, in the process of recovery from injuries, operations and diseases, in the rehabilitation of chemically dependent people.

The theta game helps you achieve your goals, understand the reasons for failures and learn to manage your inner world. During the game, integration of dissociated and reconciliation of warring subpersonalities occurs, as a result of which internal conflicts that create neurotic obstacles to achieving life goals are resolved.

Play is a natural therapeutic medium and can help relieve mental illness. Psychotherapy has traditionally focused on the patient, homo patiens, or “the person suffering.” By developing a method of play therapy for adults, which we call “therapeutic transformational play,” we consider the patient as a homo ludens.

Three main components of theta play: group, humor, imagination.

Group. Psychology has long viewed groups as a therapeutic setting for adults. Group interactions can give people hope, promote socialization, provide emotional support, and help them connect with others. Playing in a group counteracts social isolation. People like to spend time together and act together. Viktor Frankl, Abraham Maslow, Carl Jung, and other personality theorists defend our social nature by insisting that human personality develops within social systems. The group makes you feel like an integral part of something bigger. The group game format promotes socialization, develops communication skills, mutual assistance, altruism, and makes you feel friendly support. Players gain confidence in their own abilities and distance themselves from situations and conditions that cause mental discomfort.

Humor. Humor has been called a "social lubricant" for its ability to reduce interpersonal tension and strengthen bonds between people. Humor has appeared along with the game since time immemorial. Since Freud, psychotherapists have been interested in the use of humor in the therapeutic process. Humor relieves anxiety and worry and helps relieve accumulated emotional tension. Humor reduces the impact of stress and helps you put situations into perspective, creating a healthy detachment from traumatic events. Laughter can reduce the severity of any serious situation. Plato wrote: “Without the funny, the serious cannot be known; and in general, the opposite is known with the help of the opposite, if only a person wants to be reasonable.” Humor enhances the effectiveness of message transfer from therapist to client. Just as empathy demonstrates a level of caring and understanding, the use of humor can strengthen the bond between therapist and client, and humor strengthens the therapeutic alliance. The ability to laugh at your mistakes and make them the butt of your own jokes demonstrates healthy self-esteem. A sense of humor distinguishes humans from other living beings. Hans Selye, a stress researcher, said: “Nothing eliminates unpleasant thoughts more effectively than pleasant thoughts.”

Imagination. Imagination knows no limits. Imagination is an endless space for the realization of human freedom. Logotherapist Viktor Frankl, while in a concentration camp, imagined himself as a free man. In his imagination, he could be transported to a university auditorium, and, as if from the outside, see himself free, having survived all the horrors of imprisonment and telling students about the lessons of camp life. The game changes a person’s mental state and allows one to go beyond the limitations of existing reality, beyond the boundaries of one’s own identity, which in the case of a neurotic disorder is identified with a symptom or a negative “I” image. The game takes place in a special time, or rather, in a happy timelessness. Such a loss of the sense of time, as is known, is characteristic of happy people or children who play too much. The game is a way out of the world of everyday life into the world of freedom, into a world where everything is possible. Imagination helps a person suffering from neurosis to become someone else, to achieve self-transcendence - to go beyond neurotic limitations.

Today it is important to study the phenomenon of play from a psychological perspective: it is obvious that the direction of play psychotherapy for adults will soon take its full place along with traditional forms of psychological assistance. “Each time has its own neuroses - and each time requires its own psychotherapy,” said Viktor Frankl. The method of organizing the therapeutic process in the form of a game, in our opinion, corresponds to the demands of the time and meets the essential human need for freedom to be a “person who truly plays,” regardless of age, despite the suffering and limitations of life.

The theta board game format (Fig. 24,25) is ideal for play therapy in adults. The gaming set can easily fit on the table in a psychological office.

Fig.24. Board game “Pantheon”

Rice. 25. Clients during the game “Master of Two Worlds”

The need for play is genetically inherent in a person, like the ability to walk, talk or see. The game accompanies us throughout our lives. The game allows us to work more efficiently and get much more pleasure from life. Play increases our openness to change and improves our ability to learn. So before you say that play is not serious, it is worth considering that play does not mean frivolity. We should not feel guilty for what nature has given us.

Another direction based on the game, and which has already become a classic - psychodrama. Psychodrama is a method of psychotherapy and psychological counseling created by Jacob Moreno. Classical psychodrama is a therapeutic group process that uses the tool of dramatic improvisation to explore a person's inner world. This is done to develop a person’s creative potential and expand the possibilities of adequate behavior and interaction with people. Modern psychodrama is not only a method of group psychotherapy. Psychodrama is used in individual work with people (monodrama-psychological), and elements of psychodrama are widespread in many areas of individual and group work with people.

The “cousin” method of psychodrama is theater therapy, a method based on the use of training techniques from the Russian psychological theater school.

Theater therapy is an integrative psychotherapeutic technique, the value of which is that it connects:

Body-oriented techniques

Techniques for training verbal and nonverbal communication

Relaxation and concentration techniques, techniques for managing multidimensional attention

Memory training techniques

Techniques for working with imagination

Adaptation techniques in space and proposed circumstances

Techniques for seeing a partner, effective targeted interaction with a partner

Techniques tuned to the implementation of creative resources (two layers of work: the first - in training, the second - more complex, deeper - in the workshop). Moreover, this can be done in different “roles”: actor, director, stage manager, costume designer, stage worker, etc. Everyone can find their place, which is effective in the light of systemic family work and awareness of their place in the family. Here the patient can try himself in any position, which will help him identify, realize and try to influence the place he occupied in his dysfunctional family.

Theater therapy methods can be divided into theater therapy training and theater workshop. The theater therapist’s arsenal includes training exercises from the subjects “Actor’s Skill” and “Speech Technique” from the classical theater school. Acting techniques are necessary for the development of psychophysical liberation, multi-dimensional attention, increasing concentration, activating the imagination, and learning complex interaction with a partner. Speech techniques also help with psychophysical liberation, activation of the verbal component of interaction with a partner, the ability to accurately express one’s thoughts or feelings in words, improvement of the technical characteristics of speech, and help get rid of the fear of public speaking and self-presentation.

Rice. 26. During theater therapy training

Professional training of an artist according to K.S. Stanislavsky consists of two stages: the actor’s work on himself and the actor’s work on the role. The first part is relevant for the therapist when creating theater therapy training, the second - when working in a therapeutic theater workshop.

Objectives of theater therapy training (Fig. 26):

Removing psychophysical clamps

Training and strengthening multidimensional attention

Getting to know I (Who am I and what do I want here and now?)

Identification of I (I and I, I and partners, I and the World), managing my place in different systems

Formation of skills for effective adaptation and adequate behavior (“I am in the proposed circumstances”).

The second stage of theater therapy is the theater therapy workshop (Fig. 27). This is a kind of limited space in which members of the theater - therapeutic group, usually in a clinical setting, stage some small sketches. And this space is a safety zone for them. Theater therapy workshop is usually a method that is used in a clinical setting, as it requires more time-consuming work than training. Often these are addiction treatment clinics. In the clinic, the theater therapy workshop is a separate room with its own atmosphere, where patients can rehearse, prepare simple props, and organize their creative working climate. We are talking here, basically, not about staging performances (although this is possible with a long stay in the clinic).

Fig.27. Screening at a theater therapy workshop

We are talking about work that is usually performed by 1st-2nd year students at a theater institute - this is a sketch work. It is good because in the etude version you can play through any topics (and this, first of all, should be used for indirect therapy of individual situations, especially in the context of the characteristics of the family system of a particular patient).

As part of a traditional acting show, you can periodically (so that everyone can try themselves) conduct a show of educational acting works.
Such an action will have a good therapeutic effect, performing the function of “emphasizing” a new stage in which each patient has gone through his own creative path, learned new ways of interaction within the system - the theater group.

Such a demonstration helps to develop organization, composure, the ability to be here and now, to work in a team, to bear a certain, pre-agreed load within the framework of collective relationships.

If we are talking about an addiction treatment clinic, then after the show you can add the so-called “Bonfire” block. This is an experience of celebration, of “celebrating” success - without alcohol, in an atmosphere of unity, ideally with the clinic staff who were previously spectators. They cook, set the table “by the fire”, and clean up by the patients themselves. Thus, they gain the experience of unity, mutual acceptance and mutual need - the experience of happiness without the “help” of chemicals. This psychological “anchor” is a powerful final chord of theater therapy work.

Theater therapy techniques are good because they use a holistic approach, working not with a problem, but with the client or patients as a whole, as an individual, focusing not on difficulties, but on the strengths of the individual. In the process of theater therapy, clients begin to feel self-worth, their sense of self changes, and they have the courage to try new ways of communication, interaction with themselves, the world and people.

Theater therapy includes active work with the body in its arsenal. This kind of work is the basis body-oriented therapy, which is presented in various versions.

Psychologist, art therapist, member of the Russian Art Therapy Association.

Sand therapy is a type of psychological assistance where the main tool is a psychological sandbox of standard size 50x70x8 cm, often with river sand.

There are two main directions in sand therapy: Jungian sandbox and fairy tale therapist sandbox. What these two directions have in common is the same size and color (blue inside) of the sandbox and the variety of small toys.

Jungian sandbox

In fact, sand therapy is similar to diving - when we look at the surface of the water, we don’t see anything special, but once we put on a mask, a wetsuit, stock up on oxygen and start diving, after some time a wonderful world opens up to us. Likewise, in sand therapy, we do not rush and dive into the depths gradually and carefully, and just like in diving, the client’s wonderful world or our own, if we ourselves are the client, opens up to us.

In this case, the sand therapist can be an instructor who monitors safety, draws the client’s attention to especially beautiful and unusual fish, corals and algae, and when the time comes, shows that it is time to float to the surface.

This is how a person gets acquainted with his inner world, his unconscious. He can find both treasure and a sunken ship there. Metaphors and symbols are given great importance here, since each figure placed in the sandbox has its own symbolism, meaning and history. And if the client is ready, then the psychologist can always tell this story. The toys don’t end up in the sandbox by accident and all the stories are also relevant to the client’s process.

Fairy Tale Therapist's Sandbox

Today this technique is very common and loved by psychologists. “Worldbuilding” is used both in group work and individual work.

The instructions are very simple: the child is asked to build his own world in the sandbox using the available toys. This technique is very diagnostic for a psychologist and allows for corrective work. In addition, it can be repeated and modified for a specific task.

Work with sand is also used for pedagogical purposes, studying topics of the surrounding world with preschool children, or introducing letters and numbers that can be drawn in the sand.

In the last 10 years, sand art therapy or sand painting has become popular in Russia. Initially, illuminated sandboxes with sand were offered more for the entertainment of children, where they could play or watch theater on the sand. Today, such sandboxes are increasingly appearing in psychologists’ offices and in kindergartens. Light sandboxes can be used to develop fine motor skills, imagination, thinking, and study given topics.

Art therapists can also work with a sandbox as an object where a child or adult can express themselves through drawing in the sand. And here all the diversity of classical art therapy is included.