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Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Important Information Regarding Sand Tray Therapy

By William Kennedy


Sand tray refers to an increasingly recognized powerful therapeutic method that facilitates healing particularly within environments that do not intimidate patients. It utilizes miniatures and sand to express the way clients feel or their reaction to certain traumas they may have experienced in their lives. The technique can be utilized both with adults and children with proven effectiveness in all instances where patients are resistant to expressing themselves because of being frightened to open up. Sand tray therapy can, therefore, be utilized for those who having verbal expression difficulties.

It is a technique often used with adolescents and children as they usually find it difficult to express themselves through words or properly articulate their feelings and thoughts. The therapist provides a sand tray, eater, and miniatures of different kinds. They include cars, human figures, buildings, trees and other natural objects, fantasy and many others. These miniatures allow the client the chance to create an entire world that expresses their creativity.

The world created does not need to be artistically or architecturally correct in any way and it is good to know that creativity is not a significant requirement. The therapist is more concerned with the inspiration behind what the client has created. There are some who just use the soil type and water but some employ more of the miniatures.The story behind how the clients have decided to portray their own imaginative world helps the therapist to link the client life experiences to the world created.

Not many clients are comfortable with expressing themselves verbally and may leave out vital information while trying to verbalize the images in their head. This tool allows the client to convey their feelings, perceptions, thoughts, psychological and emotional conflicts through the displaying of their own created world as they play with the soil type and miniature.

This tool aids in creating awareness of emotional conflicts that was previously not known. As these emotional conflicts are brought to light, the therapist is able to share with the client suitable ways in which they can be resolved. The use of this exercise promotes self-awareness and improves their expressive styles including verbal communication.

It is often utilized with kids who may not yet be in their stages of being able to appropriately articulate words or even those who may not be mature enough to articulate their feelings through spoken word. It becomes effective because kids are usually enlightened with the ideas of playing using toys and sand provided in some safe space.

Although this technique has been considered to be juvenile and applicable only to children, it has been proven to be effective in teenagers and adults as well. This is especially for the ones who are unable to complete their verbal expression as a result of lacking the words of the general fear of opening up. With this tool, the therapists can create a deeper bond quicker than when only words are being relied upon.

It is just not used on individuals but also remains applicable to married couples or even groups of people. It assists in paving the way for discussions that clients may previously have wished not to talk about. Therapists allow clients to remain in control hence creating some safe place for clients to relive trauma as well as establishing gradual healing processes.




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