![\"sandtray\"](\"http:\/\/emmacameron.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/sandtray-4.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nSandtray in Therapy Helps You Access Your Deep Knowing<\/h1>\n
Have you ever had a chance to use a Sandtray in therapy? It’s an amazing resource.<\/p>\n
What is a Sandtray?<\/h2>\n
A sandtray is typically a large wooden box with low sides.\u00a0Some sandtrays have the inside base painted blue, covered over most of the time by an inch or two of fine, clean sand.<\/p>\n
Lots of little objects stand on shelves (or are gathered in baskets) in the therapy room. These can include miniature figures, toys, stones, shells, ornaments, beads and other small items. There might also be a water spray bottle nearby, for wetting the sand so it can be moulded more easily.<\/p>\n
(You can read about 14 ways that therapists can use stones in sessions, including sandtray, here<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n With the sandtray, and your therapist’s attentive support, you can explore ways to process:<\/p>\n Sandtray is amazing, because of what can come up, and how surprised we can be by that. And it can feel like such a relief\u00a0to have ‘got it out there’ in a form that can be seen.<\/p>\n Sandtray gets us to use the power of the right hemisphere of the brain.\u00a0This is the side that sees and understands things as a whole, thinks laterally, and uses metaphor and imagery to connect ideas and concepts in fresh and meaningful ways.<\/p>\nEver tried #sandtray in therapy? Here's why you should! <\/a><\/span>Share on X<\/a><\/span>\n Here’s an example of how Mila* used sandtray.<\/p>\n I invited Mila\u00a0to depict her family.\u00a0First, she decided she wanted to find something that could represent her Dad. Realising that I don’t have\u00a0a little figure that looks like him, she quickly understood she was going to have to pick something else.<\/p>\n Mila\u00a0scanned the collection, running her fingers over the dozens of different objects. She noticed that her hand kept being attracted to a feather.<\/p>\n This is silly<\/em>, she thought. My Dad was a big, burly man: surely the lion or the bull would be more like him<\/em>.<\/p>\n But somehow Mila felt like the feather kept ‘calling’ to be put in the sand tray. And sure enough, when she put the feather in, she felt a partial sense of satisfaction — it felt ‘right’, at least to some extent. Tuning in to her right-brain’s intuitive urgings, she\u00a0soon decided that actually, a combination of the bull and the feather was needed.<\/p>\n Mila added a kitten wrapped in a piece of tangled string to be her mother, and two little stones<\/a> to represent her brothers.<\/p>\n I asked Mila\u00a0‘where are\u00a0you<\/em>\u00a0in this picture?’ She realised that she hadn’t found something to represent herself. In the end, she chose a seal.<\/p>\n Mila\u00a0and I looked together at the sandtray she’d created. In the looking and the talking, we uncovered new insights about her family dynamics.\u00a0These were things she’d never thought of before, which she said felt like they hadfloated up from a deep well of knowing inside her.<\/p>\nWhat Can Sandtray be Used for?<\/h2>\n
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Surprise – and Relief<\/h2>\n
Sandtray Taps into a Different Part of Your Brain<\/h2>\n
Sandtray in a Therapy Session<\/h2>\n
Processing the Sandtray with the Therapist<\/h3>\n