Jungian Sandplay: The Wonderful Therapy [Reprint 2014 ed.] 9780415821797, 9781315754253, 9781138794856, 9781315756646

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Original Title Page
Original Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
1 At the Threshold
2 The Entrance Hall
3 Into the Reception Room
4 Working in the Sandplay Room
1 The story of John: A man matures in time to avoid a midlife crisis
2 The story of Clive: A young man is healed of traumatic childhood ego damage
3 The story of Marie: A mature woman in grief works through her mourning process
4 The story of Agnes: A young girl enters puberty as her parents divorce
5 Passing by the Author's Study Room
Tile first mapping of sandplay forms - author's original and controversial new theory of the psyche as it maps into the sand
Sandplay as diagnostic - diagnostic use for cancer in a Milan children's hospital
Free-wheeling uses of sandplay - dialogue in sandplay (with therapist and between the one and the many); group sandplay; Jung's psychology as the parameter of sandplay
The universality of sandplay and its further shores
Epilogue
Basic sandplay equipment
Guidelines for training to become a Sandplay Therapist
The Lowenfeld-Kalff correspondence
Note on Ryce-Menuhin's British Sandplay Group
References
Name index
Subject index

Citation preview

ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: JUNG

Volume 6

JUNGIAN SANDPLAY

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JUNGIAN SANDPLAY The wonderful therapy

JOEL RYCE-MENUHIN

Routledge Taylor & Francis Group

LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published in 1992 This edition first published in 2015 by Routledge 27 Church Road, Hove BN3 2FA and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 1992 Joel Ryce-Menuhin All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-0-415-82179-7 (Set) eISBN: 978-1-315-75425-3 (Set) ISBN: 978-1-138-79485-6 (Volume 6) eISBN: 978-1-315-75664-6 (Volume 6) Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. Disclaimer The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace.

JUNGIAN SANDPLA Y

Sandplayis an increasinglypopularJungiantherapy. Developedin Englandby Margaret Lowenfeld and in Switzerlandby Dora Kalff, it knows no barriers of age, gender or language,and by allowing non-verbalarticulation it addsconsiderablyto the material available to the analyst. Joel Ryce-Menuhin,who trained with Dora Kalff, is the leading exponentof sandplayin Britain. In this engagingbook he draws upon twenty years' experiencein using this method of therapy to show how children and adults of all ages and backgroundscan benefit from Jungian sandplay therapy. He expresseshis deep convictions about the healing of pathology, neurosis and grief through sandplay,and describeshow he incorporatedsandplayinto his work as a non-verbaltechniqueto help patientsexpress'beyond words and before words' the deepestarchetypalimages projected from the unconscious. At the heart of the book are four case studies, illustrating the range and effectivenessof sandplayin its human clinical dimension, and including a moving account of a woman'shealingfrom grief, separationand mourningin sandplay. A former concert pianist, Joel Ryce-Menuhin is now a Jungian analyst.He first introducedJungiansandplaytherapyto Britain. He is the editor of Harvest, the journal of the CC. Jung Analytical Psychology Club, London, and the author of Tile Self ill Early Childhood.

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JUNGIAN SANDPLA Y The wonderful therapy

Joel Ryce-Menuhin

London and New York

First published1992 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneouslypublishedin the USA and Canada by Routledge a division of Routledge,Chapmanand Hall, Inc. 29 West 35th Street,New York, NY 10001

© 1992 Joel Ryce-Menuhin Printedin Great Britain by Mackaysof ChathamPLe, Chatham,Kent All rights reserved.No part of this book may be reprintedor reproducedor utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,or other means,now known or hereafter invented,including photocopyingand recording,or in any information storageor retrieval system,without permissionin writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguingin Publication Data Ryce-Menuhin,Joel. Jungiansandplay: the wonderful therapy 1. Play therapy I. Title 615.89 Library of CongressCatalogingin Publication Data Ryce-Menuhin,Joel Jungiansandplay: the wonderful therapyI Joel Ryce-Menuhin. p. cm. Includesbibliographicalreferences. Includesindex. 1. Sandplay-Therapeuticuse. 2. Jung,c. G. (Carl Gustav), 1875-1961. I. Title. [DNLM: 1. Jung, c. G. (Carl Gustav),1875-1961. 2. Play Therapy. 3. PsychoanalyticTherapy-methods. WM 450 R991jl RC489.S25R93 1991 616.89'1653-dc20 DNLM/DLC for Library of Congress ISBN 0-415-04775-7 0-415-04776-5(pbk)

Dedicatedto my colleaguesof the InternationalSociety for SandplayTherapy(Founder:Dora Kalff) - in solidarity

Sand is the earth - it is at the borderline between the unseen, unconsciousdepths of the sea and the consciously protruding landscape.It marksthe footprints of time. It marksthe cosmictides, that motion between dynamic being and empty stillness. Sand castleshave capturedthe imagination of children and of adults as long as humanbeingshave soughtthe shore. Joel Ryce-Menuhin

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

ix

1 AT THE THRESHOLD

1

Theauthor'sexperiencewhenhe first approached a sandbox,leading to a brief explanatoryIlistory of this therapy. 2 THE ENTRANCE HALL Playing to live. The universalpsychologyof play and symboldescribed.The importanceof freedomfrom technicalrestraintsin sandplay.How unconscious projection readsout in sandplayinterpretation.

8

3 INTO THE RECEPTION ROOM

28

4 WORKING IN THE SANDPLA Y ROOM

38

Ritual in sandplaytherapy. Projection of selfas theory. Jungianapproaches.Descriptionof materialsand sandplayroom extended.Author'sconceptsof ritual vis-a-vis therapist'sholding presenceand transference! counter-transference.

Four casestudies,the heart of the work, illustrating rangeand effectiveness of sandplayin its humanclinical dimension. 1 The story of John: A man maturesin time to avoid a midlife crisis. 2 The story of Clive: A youngman is healedof traumatic childhoodego damage. 3 The story of Marie: A maturewomanin grief works through her mourningprocess. 4 The story of Agnes:A younggirl enterspuberty as her parentsdivorce. vii

39 45

66

77

CONTENTS

5 PASSING BY THE AUTHOR'S STUDY ROOM

Tile first mappingof sandplayforms - author'soriginal and controversialnewtlleory of tile psycheas it mapsinto tlte sand. Sandplayas diagnostic- diagnosticusefor cancer in a Milan cllildren's 1I0spital. Free-wheelingusesof sandplay- dialogue in sandplay (witll therapistand betweentile oneand the many); group sandplay;lung's psycltologyas tile parameter of sandplay. Tlte universalityof sandplayand its furtlter sllOres. Epilogue Basicsandplayequipment Guidelinesfor training to becomea SandplayTherapist The Lowenfeld-Kalffcorrespondence Note on Ryce-Menuhin'sBritish SandplayGroup References Nameindex Subjectindex

viii

91

91 97

102 105 107 109 110

112 116 117

120

122

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to expressmy debt of gratitudeto the FoundingMembersof the InternationalSocietyof SandplayTherapy(Founder:Dora Kalff) whoseprofessionalfriendlinessinspired me to want to write a book about sandplay. Without the two hundred sessionswith the late Dora Kalff, the Jungianworld pioneerand authority on sandplay as I use it, my psychologicalwork would be bereft of my experiential knowledgeand enthusiasmfor the therapeuticpower of sandplay.I want particularly to thank Jungian analysts,Dr Andreina Navone and Dr PaolaCarducciof Rome for sharingan English translationof the cancersandplay studiesof their professionallyqualified pupils of the ISST whosework I have referredto in Chapter5. Geoffrey Carton, the painter and graphic designer,has supplied the diagramsfor Chapters1 and 5 for which I am most grateful. Quotationsfrom my book, The Self in Early Clrildhood publishedby Free Association Books, London (1988), are in my copyright. The estate of Margaret Lowenfeld has kindly supplied me with the Lowenfeld-Kalff correspondence for referencein the Appendix. The manuscriptwas typed by Charlotte Keech, a most helpful ally in the battle of syntax. It is to my sandplaypatientsthat lowe heartfeltappreciationfor all they revealed so that I could understandhow to interpret sandplays over the twenty yearsit hasfascinatedme. I thank them, too, for wanting me to write this book so that more personsmight learn about this mediumof healing. To David Stonestreet,PsychologyEditor at Routledge,and, to my colleagueAndrew Samuels,the Jungiananalyst,my grateful thanks for their real interestin my subject.

ix

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1

AT THE THRESHOLD

The lake of Zurich was coveredin a fine morning mist as my first analystand I openedthe gate of a Swissfarmhouseat the edgeof a Zurich suburb. I rang the ancienthousebell. I recall noticing a date inscribed over the front door. It was 1485. In a depressionof my own even heavier than the weatherthat day, my analystDr Violet de Laszlo had brought me to the home of anotheranalystwho had an odd speciality. This lady, who openedthe door and led us into her lovely old Swissfarmhouse,actually had her adult patientsplay in sandboxes! With a kind of dread, I was eventually led down to a lower ground floor room that looked almost like a bam. In it were two sandboxes.Simple shelves,like bookcaseshelves,lined the walls. On theseshelveswere miniature toys and small objectsrepresenting the life objectsthat, in my depression,seemedheavy and grey. They were actually, of course, bright and attractive. I thought to myself, 'No. Never. These psychologistsmust be crazy. I don't want to makeconstructionsin a sandbox.How could that help me?' I felt my pride as a person shaken in my lowered mood of depressionand despair. I enjoyed meeting the analyst who used the sandplayhowever. Dora Kalff was her name;she was a sensible-looking,older, plump, quiet-spokenSwiss woman with eyes shining with enthusiasm. Using few words in making conversation, she succeededin acceptingme as I was - an exhausted,confused,depressedman who might be referred to her for treatmentas my presentanalyst was leaving Switzerland for many months. In the nature of the situationI becameKalff's analysandand eventually,after working in verbal analysis for a few weeks, the moment came when it was suggestedI try a sandplay. Struggling to overcomemy inner resist1

JUNCIAN SANDI'LAY

ances, I reluctantly enteredthe sandplayroom and made the first sandplaywith painstakingeffort. Much later, that sandplaywas interpretedto me by Mrs Kalff as showing a positive diagnosis and many aspectsof my possible future life path. I had projectedmy own future unwittingly during a state of midlife crisis and deep depressiondirectly and concretely into the sandplay. Twenty years on, I use sandplayas a part of my own Jungian analytic practice in London. My life has read out as my own sandplaysuggested.I use sandplaybecauseit doesnot let me down as a therapeutictool with my patients.Its non-verbalimagesact as a psychological guideline to me as therapist in working with the constructionsof patients; the sandplayexperiencefor them is as vivid and often as meaningfulover time as my own experiencewith Dora Kalff turnedout to be. What is the power of sandplay?Why is it suddenlyin use much more than twenty years ago, mushrooming into a whole new generation of sandplay therapists worldwide? These therapists come from differing analytic schools and different clinical backgrounds. They come from the East and from the West. What are they embracingas therapistswhen they offer personsfrom every conceivablelife situation an opportunity to make sandplays? To begin to unravel the wonder of its therapy, I decidedto write about my experiencein using sandplayafter the first decadeof my professionalpractice.We are only at the dawn of an understanding of sandplay's therapeutic potentials. Two figures helped many others to witness that dawn of its use: Margaret Lowenfeld in her former London practiceand Dora Kalff in her Zurich practice who, in addition, has travelled the world for thirty-five years to reveal sandplay's power to appreciative large public audiencesand to professionalcolleagues. Tile World Technique (Lowenfeld, reprinted 1979) was the basis from which Kalff departedto createa study of the processwithin a Jungian theoretical framework with adult patients as well as with children. Kalff had worked with CG. Jung and with EmmaJung in her analytical training. An analyst pupil of Kalff, Estelle Weinrib of New York, has proposed several premises concerning sandplay therapy and its delayed,non-directionalinterpretation,in her book entitled Imagesof tile Self(Weinrib 1983). She differentiatesbetween psychological healing and the expansionof consciousnessin the following ways in sandplaytherapy: healing implies that there has 2

AT THE THRESHOLD

been a wounding and possible impairment of natural organic functioning which has been remedied and restored. Expanded consciousness implies awarenessof what one feels, thinks and does with a capacity to make choices in one's actions and communications that are relatively free of control by complexes.Healing in the context of sandplay therapy is a non-rational phenomenon taking place in what Kalff refers to as the 'preverbal level'. Two processesare occurring in the sandplay which can deepen and acceleratethe therapeutic endeavour. While the verbal psychotherapy of Jung progresses(working with complexes,dreamsand developmentalproblems),the addeduse of sandplayencouragesa creative regression that enables healing through its delayed interpretationand a deliberatediscouragementof rational thinking. The two processescomplementone another creating a positive synergisticeffect. Sandplay gives the therapist a non-verbal image which may representmeaningswithin the therapeuticsituation which are not known or not yet fully graspedby either the client or the therapist. Such imagesbring with them new psychologicalchanges,substitutions, improvements,delegations,repressionsand possiblelatent meaningsin the patient's material. Mary Watkins, writing in the 1981 issue of Spring comments: 'As image and experienceinterpenetrate,the image is not discardedbut becomesan eye through which one perceives and senses' (Watkins 1981, p. 117). The analyst'salertnessand sensitivity to the power of image can enable the patient to interact with the sandplayand its structure,in order to see the symbolic in the projected unconsciouscontent of the picture. ProfessorJung believed that only what is oneself has the power to heal Gung 1960, pp. 67-91). Sandplayhas evolved following H.C. Wells' book Floor Games, first publishedin 1911. Using piecesof wood, paper, plasticineand miniature people and animals, Wells and his two sons built cities and islands,and played protractedgamesin a room-sizedsandbox. In my own childhood, in the late 1930s,I played in a sandpit 8 feet by 8 feet into which I walked, as into a room. It becamemy play context for a time, as it has becomemy 'text' of therapeuticplay today. In 1925, Margaret Lowenfeld left paediatrics to begin the psychiatric treatment of children in London. She collected small objects, toys, coloured sticks and shapesof paper, metal and clay, and kept them in what her young patientscalled 'The WonderBox'. 3

JUNGIAN SANDI'LAY

Theseobjectswere movedlater into a cabinet,the contentsof which cameto be called 'The World' by the children attendingthe clinic. The children themselvescreatedthe spontaneousnew technique of making world pictures in small sand trays. Thus Lowenfeld found a medium which is attractive to children and adults, and which gives both therapistand sandplayera way to communicate and share interior experience interpretively. The elements of Lowenfeld's 'World Technique' have remained mostly unchanged since her early work in 1929. These elementsare an imaginative activity with sand, used with or without objects, within a circumscribedspace(the sandboxitself) in the presenceof a therapist. Dora Kalff studied these techniques with Dr Lowenfeld in London in 1956. She then returnedto Zurich to finish her training with Emma and Carl lung. The lungs sent their own children to do sandplay with Dora Kalff; lung's interest in sandplayis not well known. As early as 1937, lung interpretedone of Lowenfeld'ssandworlds at the Congressof Psychologyin Copenhagen.In the USA, Eric Erikson used sandplaywith young adults to develop his new empirical formulations about pre-adolescentplay and about the psychoanalysisof women (Erikson 1951, 1964). Dora Kalff found that mothers of the children working with her in sand therapy becameinterestedin sandplayfor themselves(Kalff 1980). Men are now also extensivelyusing sandplaytherapy(Ryce-Menuhin1984). The suitability of a patient for sandplay has very little to do with age or gender: two basic aspectsof the techniqueare that sandpicturescan amplify and intensify the material of analysisand relate it to personal experience. This implies that it is very importantto find out what the symbol in the sandplay may meanto the maker of the picture. In well-enough patients, sand-pictures have the effect of giving back a mirror-image to the patient and of enlarging his comprehensionof himself. Whatever is happening and, even if the patient is unwell, sandplayis a tool of expression that can enable the patient to reveal aspects and subtleties of thought and feeling, intuition and sensation which both their speechand gesturemay fail to present.The non-verbalfeedbackof just looking and intensely sharing the patient's sandplayhas, in itself, a great power to clarify the situation for the therapist. In the sand room itself, I provide two sandtrays:one with wet sand for modelling and one with dry sand to suit drier feeling moods. The sandtraysare half-filled with sand and have waterproof sea-bluelinings which can be used to representwater. The 4

AT THE THRESHOLD

boxes are designedto a size that can be seen without shifting the eye focus from side to side. The averagesize of sandtraysused by therapistsin a recent survey seemsto be about 18 inches deep, 23 inches acrossand 3112 inches high at the sides. I use a very slightly larger-sizedbox as the temenosor container;the size must act as a regulating and protecting factor for the patient's non-rational expression.This expressionmay touch a profound preverbal level of consciousness without any conscioususe of regression. As the world picture builds up - and most patientstake from 20 to 40 minutesto completea sandtray- there may be severalstages of construction,including altering, or even destroying,parts of the picture. I record these developmentsby sketching them in my casebook,sitting quietly at a distance, and discuss these aspects afterwards,if appropriateto the patient'swell-being. The sandplay is photographedafter the patient leaves,and I never dismantlethe sandplayin his presence. These photographsare not shared as a whole series with the patients until either I decide it would be helpful to do so, or the termination of therapy occurs or a brief break within the analysis comesalong when a review of the sand-workseemsappropriate.I give the sandplayer copies of his slides only when the therapy is completedfor whateverreason. Assumptionsabout object-meaningsis one of the controversial areasand the real dangersanalystsface when interpretingsandplay. Unverified assumptionsabout creative ordering or the meaningof objects can be quickly corrected,if not quelled by patients themselves, who interpret their own picture as they wish. As my approach to sand-work is non-directional in atmosphere, the patientremainsrelatively unconsciousabout the symbolic meanings I may inwardly interpret, which gives sandplayits superbprojective power. The patient continuesto use sandplayduring the therapyin a spontaneous,non-guardedway. Lowenfeld writes interestingly about the importance of not assumingto know the client's meanings: a world-maker, standing in front of an open drawer containinga numberof representationsof housesof different shapesand sizes - took up a medium-sizedhouseand put it on the flat sand in the world tray. To the individual who has taken up the house, it may represent"a house" but it may also, and with equal possibility, representnothing of the sort.

5

JUNGIAN SANDI'LAY

It may be the nearestobject he can find to standfor the idea of "safety", of "being under observation",of lithe restrictionsof urban life", of "family", or simply a conveniently sized and shapedrectangularobject he can use as a plinth on which to put a horsemanto form a statue. (Lowenfeld 1979, p. 255)

And as to not interpreting too much, Dr Lowenfeld writes, 'The mere fact of making a seriesof worlds, and having them recorded, in itself brings about amelioration in the disturbancesand discomfortsof somechildren'. And, I would add, 'of someadults'. The delimited spaceof the sandboxenablesthe player's fantasy both to be boundedand held within limits, and to go free. This free, but protected space is complementary to the protection and freedom offered by the latitude and the containmentof the therapeutic situation itself. Within this free, but protected space, the important ingredient is the experienceof the patient as he uses sandplay. The patient lives through the making of a world: the therapist experiences'being there' alongside. Qualitatively, this 'living through' is not unlike what occurs in verbal therapeutic hours, only here the processstandsby itself in objective form after the session.It is independent,within the patient, of any intellectual theory as to its nature, other than that it is a form of serious play involving creative imagination - with the holding presenceof the analystnearby. From a Jungian standpoint, sandplaymirrors the Eternal Child playing archetypalgames.Over time, this can bring into consciousness a new awarenessof the child within and of the child archetype. Jung writes about the child archetypeas an expressionof psychic wholeness: the IIchild" is all that is abandonedand exposedand at the same time divinely powerful; the insignificant, dubious beginning,and the triumphal end. The lIeternal child" in man is an indescribableexperience,an incongruity, a handicap, and a divine prerogative'. Gung 1959a, p. 179) After lung broke with Freud, he suffered a period of intense malaise:he decidedto attemptto recoverthe creativelife he had felt in his boyhood. His memoriesturned to playing with blocks in his tenth or eleventh year and he began a game of building houses, 6

AT THE THRESHOLD

castles and whole villages on the lakeshore near his home in Kiisnacht every noon and evening. So Jung and a form of sandplay have had a historical reality. Combining memories and dreams with childhood associations, Jung was led to the unfinished businessof his childhood and to his own personalmyth, which he felt he had lost to a certain extent, in following Freud even into sonship. The years when I was pursuing my inner images were the most important of my life ... the later detailsare only supplements and clarifications of the material that burst forth from the unconscious,and at first swampedme.was It was thethe prima materia for a lifetime's work. Gung 1961c, p. 199) Fantasy,as specific and autonomousactivity of the psyche, is, like every other vital processof the organism,perpetuallycreative.Jung writes about the four functions: There is no psychic function that, through fantasy, is not inextricably bound up with the other psychic functions ... [fantasy] is the mother of all possibilities where, like all psychologicalopposites,the inner and outer worlds are joined togetherin a living union. Fantasyit was and ever is which fashions the bridge between the irreconcilable claims of subject and object, introversion and extraversion.In fantasy alone both mechanismsunite. Gung 1971, p. 52) Through Jung's first building game in the sand, through active imagination, he set in motion an ongoing psychological process which he observedboth in himself and in his patients. Jungwrites: 'The creativeactivity of imaginationfrees man from his bondageto the "nothing-but" attitude and raiseshim to the statureof one who plays. As Schiller says,man is completelyhumanonly when heis at play' Gung 1954b, p. 46).

7

2

THE ENTRANCE HALL

In my earlier book I have describedplay psychologically. Before moving into the nature of its specific use in sandplay therapy I would like to quote this backgroundmaterial to the psychologyof play. It is important to grasp the idea of a wide-ranging, inherent field of play beforecoming onto its therapeuticuses. Play is a universalelementof childhood. Play is a concepton its own, not reducible to anyonesOciopsychologicalview of the universe or to anyone stage of civilization. The play elementhas existedin all culturesand in all known historical periods.It may be describedas a suprabiologicalform through which societyexpressesits interpretationof life and the world (Luria 1966). Why is play civilizing? The play element introduces into civilization certain rules and the concept of fair play. This enables civilization to presuppose limitation and some masteryof the self, which gives people the ability to understand that personal conduct within any civilization must remain within certainfreely acceptedbounds. A generalcharacteristicof play is tensionand uncertainty. 'Will we win? Will it come off?' are uncertainty conditions fulfilled in card gamesor football, in crosswordsor archery,in shakinga rattle or reachingfor one'stoes. In the play world, if the rules are transgressed,the whole world collapses.In the sameway, nations go to war if the currently acceptedlawful rights of national sovereigntyare overstepped. Play has been consideredboth as a physiologicalphenomenon and as a psychological response. These approaches overlook an aspect of 'at-playness' in play that imparts meaning to action. The fun of playing is rarely measured 8

THE ENTRANCE HALL

when experimentersview playasquantitative.In some types of play, biological functions may be seen. A biological approach assumes that play must serve somethingwhich is not play. Theoriesabout this mention the needfor abreaction, for outlets of harmful impulses,for wish-fulfilment, and for a means to bolster the feeling of personal value. This may involve the releaseof extra energy through imitation, experimentation,assimilation,and competition. The contrast betweenplay and seriousnessis a fluid one. Vygotsky (1962) thought that for the very young child serious play meant the child was not separating the imaginary situation from the real one. In this way aspectsof play are irrational. A gamecan representa contest,or it may becomea contest for the best representationof something. Both Luria (1966) and Piaget (1951) agree that play is the leading source of developmentduring preschoolyears. In viewing play it is important to note how useful it is to early ego-strengthening.The child both pretendsand tries to master adult situations through accommodationto external conditions and assimilation of experienceinto meaning. Play is an activity occurring before a behaviouris fully organized, suggesting that aspects of ego-development are underdeveloped.Play can be a preparationfor life via the realization of the environmentthat it can demonstrate,as a repetition of experienceand as the communication of symbolic fantasy. Symbolic play is assimilative in that it organizesthinking in terms of symbols and images already partIy mastered.The child's egocentricposition during symbolic play enableshim to make a transition, over time, to a more and more accurate representationof reality. As the child is more adapted,play becomesconstructiveand eventually the child very gradually plays less by himself after he enters the arena of school life (Millar 1968). The idea that play may be an antidote to understimulation or boredomsuggeststhat the building of more ego-experience is neededwithin an optimal amount of stimulation. But the conceptof optimal stimulation has a wide application, given the great variation in individual babies' metabolic and environmentalstimulation levels. Both in its inner and outer reality for the child, play constantly challenges the ego through its directedness,concentration,and releaseof another 9

JUNGIAN SANDI'LAY

form of play or non-play activity. Play is very much the child's own private ego-directed world and is therefore a strong conglomerate,integrated around the ego very early. As the child grows, he learns through play's zone of proximal development:the imaginary is often near to the memory of the real, and voluntary intentions may combine with the formation of real-life plans and volitional motives. In creating imaginary situations, abstract thought develops. These abstractions,when expressedas rules, lead to the understanding of rules and the later division between work and play at school age. Play is a preambleto work. In the young child there are many unrealizable tendenciesand desires. Under age three, the infant wants immediate gratification. Play can be said to be invented at the point when the unrealizabletendenciesappearin development.What interested the infant no longer intereststhe toddler. Piagetdescribesthe transitional nature of playas an intermediary between the situational constraintsof early childhood and play ideas free of an actual situation.In gamerules, the child can set the rules by himself free of the one-sided influence of an adult or making rules he jointly establisheswith his parents. Freely chosen game rules include both self-restraint and selfdetermination.The ego is being relativized and has a close developmentalrelationshipto play for this reason. (Ryce-Menuhin1988, pp. 224-6) Winnicott (1971), in describing an infant's first use of a favourite object such as a teddy bear as a transitional object, points out that the baby's first 'not-me' possessioninitiates the first deeply felt experienceof play. Before this transition, babiesuse toys as if they were mergedwith motherand not perceivedas separateobjects,not evenfrom the baby'sbody. When an infant first perceivesmotheras separate,then the transitional toy symbolizes the possibility of union betweenmother and child in their new stateof separateness. This brings a quality of loving into the play areaafter earlier stereotyping of toys that representedonly the body functioning of the baby or basicexperimentsto learn about the reality of environment. Now the infant is experiencingmore than instinct gratification. The child beginsto feel alive through the imaginativeuseof his separate experienceand to placethat into the psychologicalareaof play. As a child builds up this play experienceas a part of 'living' he or she is

10

THE ENTRANCE HALL

building up an area between 'me' extensions and 'not-me' extensionsof experience.The infant is now functioning consciously, building up ego experiencein relation to inner and outer contiguity with mother-father,family, and the generaldynamic of playmates or others who may observeplaying. Now the child begins to live creativelyand feels his being connectwith and into play objects. From the depth of this experience,the root of sandplaytherapy could be said to have been born. Patientscome into therapy who needto rebuild confidencebasedon experience.This processis just what their childhoodplay did for them. They needto re-examine(or discover) how separation and independencecould further help them. This needed separation from whatever psychological phenomenathat could be said to be persecutory, or partly so, remindsone of that early time when in playing, a child first breaks away from what caretakersinjected into the play area.Then a child finds an independentand free play activity. Where trust has been broken betweena patient (of any age) and his or her senseof life (both towardspersonalreality and the actual objective world) it is valuable to use the potential of a spaceof free play within a sandbox.This can bring into being a new transition towards individual creative living. The sandbox becomes the potential spacebetweenthe personaland the generalenvironment which originally was both joined to mother'slove and eventually separatedout from it, if trust and confidencefrom mother was good enoughto enablethis to be experienced. How like this is to the image of the sandy shore, rising up from the maternaloceanand leading - as a transitionalarea- to the firm land beyondthe shoreline.Sandand its useas the earth-mediumin sandplayis importantas nature'stransitional material at the depthsof the seabed,borderingonto the consciouslandscapeas it rises from the sea. A pathway of ego consciousness,basedon further selfdiscovery, is what sandplaybuilds through its imagesconstructed by the patient. Working with the sand,as if it is maternal-earth,has overtonesof an early experienceof the reliability of parentalcaring; where that did not occur, the therapistis usedby the sandplayeras a hoped-for reliable person.The therapist'sconcernfor the patient is not to make them dependent,but rather, the therapistmust show or be able to maintain a quality of just being there alongsidethe sandbox experience; this engendersthe feeling of being 'in the shoes' of the patient as well as accompanyinghis psychological journey for a certain time. 11

JUNGIAN SANDI'LAY

The therapist'sgiving of a security space,often in an unspoken way, can afford the sandplayer-patient an opportunityto move from therapeuticdependences toward autonomy.This can occur through the repeatedprocessof building a seriesof sandplayswhich then are interpretedand valuedboth by the patient and by the therapist. This joint interpretation brings both the 'me' and the 'not-me' into the work; the patient'sideasare 'me' and the therapist'sideas 'not-me' to the sandplayer;to the sandplay therapist, his or her ideasare 'me' and the patient'sideas'not-me'.This gives a powerful set of transferencesbetween therapist and patient at the time of interpretation(seeFigure 2.1).

Therapist

Therapist Therapist

Therapist

Therapist nconSCIOUS Therapist

Ue

Ue

Therapist

Not-me

Transference

area

Figure 2.1 Area of sharedinterpretativedynamic seenas central to the transferenceswithin sandplaytherapy. It is helpful, within the power of this sharedand transferredarea of interpretation,that the original sandplayconstructionhas been non-verbal. I remark on this becausea patient can only use an analyst'Sinterpretiveideas, if they are experiencedas coming from 'outside' the patient and his own subjective phenomena.Because the sandplayconstructionis availablein concrete,objectiveform for both the analyst and patient to see as image, words don't confuse (overlap, obscure,proceedtangentially,distort) the initial material the sand-imagestarts as non-verbal.This meansthat the ambiguities

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of language are only added after the sand-image has been completed and this fact helps to evade some of the misunderstandingsverbal therapy is always in dangerof at the onset of its dialogue. In sandplaytherapy, the eye plays with the image, and then the ear may play with spoken interpretive dialogue betweentherapist and patient afterwards.This separatesout the eye/earconfusionso inherent in image description in most persons. (It is known by professional musicians that the majority of a concert audience 'listen' with their eyes!) Another important play factor in sandplayis the inherent free feeling one has (in ego terms) when in the serious spirit of play. Adults in sandplayrecapturethe imaginative spirit of free playfulness with its underlying intent towards self-expression. In creatively building a sand construction, an image is set out in a step-by-stepfashion, without concern as to the 'maturity' level of its final appearance.This enablesthe dropping of many defences autonomouslywithout concern as to how defencesmight be overcome. (In the verbal world such a stateoften leads to spontaneous humour.) In the non-verbal world of sandplay,experimentationin building environmentsfor the objects used can be loose, easy, and free-wheeling.It is very simple to take out objects and substitute others. The relative quickness of building a scene in the sand enablesvery immediateuse of associativeideas and imagesas the image changesduring construction.The accelerationof achievinga desiredimage, however, still requiresrelative care in balancingthe infinite possibilities opened up within the sandplay space. This avoids instant gratification, and the earliestregressionsto the state of being a baby only very rarely occur. The regressionthat does occur occurs in the play area or transitional area of the creative urge, so that by the time a sandplayis finished, most of the regressedelementsmay be re-expressedinto the final form of the sandplay.This is itself a healingand integrating experienceof 'parts' flowing into a 'whole'. I believe it is the non-purposivestate within which these partregressionsoccur, that enablesa working-through of earlier, unresolvedpsychicconflict and anxiety. This more relaxed,playful but concentratedstate is not as quickly achieved as a rule in verbal therapies.Sandplaycan sometimeslead to an immediateexpression of problemsfreed from verbal defenceswhich can hold up progressif not expressedearly on in a therapy. 13

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Where purposeis J,eld onto very COil scioli sly by a patient, it builds tile very anxiety tllat therapy wallts to alleviate. Where lack of trust has been a potent negativeforce in a patient'slife experience,the free quality of preverbal expressionin sandplay- linking components without 'naming'them - can be restful comparedwith the challenge of trying to expressin words the early defence-conflictsituations. Often a sandplayermay unconsciouslylay down objective-subjective 'scenesof childhood' in the sandboximmediately.Thesemay reveal complex analytic material essentialto the analyst'sgrasp of the situationswithin the casematerial. Non-senseand even chaos (see Ryce-Menuhin 1988, chapter 7) can be entrusted to the sandbox,when it might never be verbally entrustedto the analyst, or at leastnot for a very long time. A therapistshouldneverimpose order on this creativechaosbut simply wait for further sandplaysto begin to reveal, quietly and unconsciously, viable psychological patternsfor possibleinterpretation. The physical and mental activity that play involves can 'throw together' ego conflicts, forming a new senseof a basis for the self. The physical senseof play is very important in sandplay. One's handsrelax into the feel and graspof wet or dry sandand onto each object used in building up a scene.One may be touching, lifting, putting, moving objectsof wood, clay, plaster, plastic, metal, stone, feather, rubber into sand and water which in itself can give a helpful, as opposedto an omnipotent,senseof masteryof a shortterm loosely held goal: this goal is simply to finish the sandplay within the hour'ssession.This unhurriedstatehelpsthe sandplayer into a quiet, relaxed play concentration, allowing borderline material to emergeand influence the construction.This releasingof defencethrough the physical easeof making sandplays,for which there is no techniqueneededas such, is of incomparableimportance in relaxing a patient into a creative mode of expression.Only the most literate and literary patientscould achieve a comparable verbal image with such free, unrestrainedeffort. The picture-imagebuilt by the patient reflects back - in nonverbal objectivity - what the sandplayercan expressin that one session. In this reflection can appear the summation of imagebuilding communication for that hour which the therapist will receive as the self-material, within the on-going sandplayprocess for that stage of the sandplay. Depending on the therapist's evaluationof what is neededat that moment in the therapy, he or she mayor may not bring words into the hour. A patient'screativity

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must never be impaired by the therapist's'knowing' too much too soon. Patienceis neededto allow the time and spacefor a patientto work onwardsthrough the sandplaypath, creatingmany sandplays on this journey. The fragility within the power of a sandplayer's expressionshould never be underestimatedby a therapist. The psyche- naked- may needto be only observedat first, neverinterpreted irrevocably. I will quote from my earlier publishedwork on archetypal theory. This discussionis difficult, but the reader will benefit from a comprehensionof how Jungiansthink about and interpret archetypal images. Without this dimension of symbolic interpretation,I do not believe sandplaycan be interpretedtherapeutically in its most effective manner.Thereforeit is of the greatest importancefor a therapist'stechniqueto include a very schooled and complete working knowledge of Jung's archetypal theory. In describing the nature of archetypal image it is important to rememberthat: As the subjectand object of cognition are of the samenature in the scienceof psychology- that is, both are interpretedby one and the samepsychein a psychologicalmannerand then also studied psychologically - it can be said that any or all psychologies must share this interpretive challenge. Jung cameto the conclusionthat beyondcausalrelationsand manifestations in time and space within consciousnessand the personalunconsciousthere must lie a transpsychicreality, or coJ1ective unconscious,where a relativization of time and spaceoccurs. Physics has investigatedthe discontinuitiesin subatomic processesand has also, within modem science, beenconfrontedwith the problemof the relativity of time and space. Analytical psychology, formed on Jung's contribution and widely extendedby othersboth before and since his death in 1961, is based principally on the study of the archetypes; Jungianpsychologyhas an object to study and a method by which to study it. The object is the 'object psyche',which Jung originally referred to as the collective unconscious.This part of the unconsciousis held to differ fundamentallyfrom more personalmaterial which has beenrepressedinto the 'personal unconscious'becauseof incompatibility in terms of its acceptability from the conscious standpoint. The personal unconscious is what Freud emphasizedin his model of the 15

JUNGIAN SANDPLAY

unconscious.In the objective psycheor collective unconscious there is a second kind of material, expressing primordial collective forms that influence the way consciousmaterial is experiencedand which lung comparedto a crystal: 'The form of thesearchetypesis perhapscomparableto the axial system of a crystal which predetermines... the crystalline formation in the saturatedsolution, without itself possessinga material existence.This existencefirst manifestsitself in the way that ions and then the moleculesarrangethemselves... The axial system determines... merely the stereometricstructure, not . . . the concreteform of the individual crystal ... and just so ... an invariablecore of meaningthat the archetypepossesses determinesits mannerof appearingalways only in principle, never concretely.' Oung 1939, p. 79) Jung views this unconsciousmaterial as fundamentally objective in the sense that its image in consciousness can be studied. When aspects of the collective unconsciousbecomeconscious,they can be discussedas elementsof the objective psyche.Jung seesthe psyche as just as suitable an object for scientific study as is the world of outer material fact. The archetypesor universal patterns of perception are contrastedin definition with the term "archetypal images which means symbolic manifestations and the pictorial expressionof the archetypes:'These belong to the knowable realm of consciousness and occur as analogous motifs in myths, fairy tales, dreams, delusions, etc., at all times and in all parts of the world.' Oaffe 1972, p.51) In 1936lung presenteda paperat Bedford College, London (later publishedin 1959), in which he elaboratedhis view of the collective unconscious. The archetype per se is an unknowablefactor in the collective unconsciouswhich underlies archetypal images and contentsand arrangesthem into typical images and groupings. Such a structuring element would be comparableto a 'pattern of behaviour' in biology which also underliesrecurrentlytypical life situationssuch as birth, change,illness, love, or death. The phenomenaof the collective unconsciousare, unlike repressedmaterial, transpersonal; unlike repressedcontents which have once been conscious,they have never beenconsciousbefore but emerge as new to consciousness from the collective unconsciousand are representedin images. 'The hypothesis of a collective H

,

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unconsciousis no more daring than to assume there are instincts.' Gung 1959, p. 44) Instinctsare likewise unconscious in functioning and transcendpersonalconsiderations. The theory of the collective unconsciousand its organs,the archetypes,is basedon an assumptionthat the fundamental structureof the psycheis uniform. If we could eliminate the conscious,Jungbelieved,there would be little or no difference betweenone human being and another (in the original unconscious psychic content). So Jung has postulated an unknown 'x', a psychoidarchetypein nature,unconsciousand having a hypothetical vital principle directing the behaviour of organisms out of which consciousnessgrows. When it appearsconsciouslyit is an archetypalimage which is seento be the mental representativeof instinct and which transposes the instinct into a consciousexperience. Mindful of the distinction between the personal and the collective unconscious,Jung criticized Freud'sexplanationof Leonardoda Vinci's picture St Anne with Mary and the Christ Child. This was based on the fact that Leonardo had two women who served as mother to him. Jung, in the paper entitled 'Dual mother' in Symbols of Transformation (1956), assertedthat the dual mother theme is widespread,having motifs of rebirth, the dual descentor twice-born, in which the culture hero has a double birth, one human and one divine. Jung'sexamplesin amplifying this idea include myths around Heracles,the Pharaohs,and Jesus:the rebirth ritual was used in medical healing at the dawn of civilization; it is found in mysticism and in infantile fantasy and is a central conceptin medieval occult philosophy. Jung concluded: 'It is absolutely out of the questionthat all the individuals who believe in the dual descenthave in reality always had (or experienced)two mothers ...' Qung 1959b, p. 45-6) He also argued, using a neurosiswhere a patient appearsto be deluded that he has two mothers, that the neurosisunder review is not personal but a collective manifestation. Jung began his formulation of archetypal theory in his work between 1908 and 1910 when he encounteredin his patient unconsciouscontentswhich resisted integration into consciousness.This material was made evident in their dreams, symptoms, and fantasies.Jung was accustomedto receive from patients a projection of archaic motives onto

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himself as physician. These took the form of a transfer onto the doctor of the figure of the medicine man or magician. These primordial images -a designationJung took from a letter (circa 1855) from Jacob Burckhardt to a student, Albert Brown, in which Faust and other 'genuine myths' were first describedas 'primordial images' - were seen to have four regularly appearing qualities which Jung thought to be: repetition as a universal across races, constancywithin the races, a fascinating effectiveness or numinosity setting archetypal images apart from other images, and regularity within eachindividual's life. In Latin, 'arche' is the beginning or primary cause and 'type' is imprint. 'The religious point of view understandsthe imprint as the working of an imprinter; the scientific point of view understands it as a symbol of an unknown and incomprehensiblecontent' (Jung 1969a, p. 17). Jung was not the first to be concerned with archetypal images. In the Symposium Plato described images, schemata,and inherited functional possibilities such as knowledge of universalsthat are supposedto be innate. In ethnology Adolf Bastian (1860) was the first to draw attention to the widespreadoccurrence of certain 'elementary'ideas. Hubert and Mauss (1898) called a priori thought-forms 'categories':'They exist ordinarily as posits which govern consciousness,but are themselves unconscious.' Jung thought it a mistake to supposethat the psycheof a newborn child is a tabula rasa or blank slate in the sensethat there is absolutely nothing in it: 'In so far as a child is born with a differentiatedbrain that is predeterminedby heredity and therefore not individualised, it meets sensory stimuli corning from outside itself not with general aptitudes, but with specific ones, and this necessarilyresults in a particular individual choice and pattern of appreciation,'(Jung 1959a, p. 60). Jung developedthis idea when speakingof the 'child archetype':'It is not the world as we know it that speaksout of his Ithe Australian aborigine's] unconscious, but the unknown world of the psyche, of which we know that it mirrors our empirical world in accordancewith its own psychicassumptions .... The archetypedoesnot proceedfrom physical facts, it describeshow the psyche experiencesthe physical fact .. .' (Jung 1959a,p. 154). 18

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Archetypes contain essentially mythological facts which have numerous centres, or nodal points. These essential groupings display themselvesover and over again with the same ideas and functions. Some of the archetypesare the 'shadow',the 'wise old man', the 'earth mother', and the 'puer aetemus'. They are best describedmetaphorically.The archetypes occur at ethnological level as myths, and their effect is is weakestand most restricted strongestwhere consciousness and where fantasy can overrun the facts of the outer world. ' ... this condition is undoubtedlypresentin the child ... the archetypalform of the divine syzygy (or conjunctionof male and female) first covers up and assimilatesthe image of the real parents until, with increasing consciousness,the real figures of the parents are perceived - often to the child's disappointment.'Qung 1959a,p. 67) The psyche is seen as a self-reflecting system, the unconscious having compensatorycapabilities to correct deficiencies in consciousness adaptation. The technique of analytical psychology has been to find means to raise contents of the collective unconscious to consciousness and to interpret their meaning.The techniques of free associationand dream analysisare too well-known to need amplification here. Active imagination, used by the Jungian school, needs more definition as it is not widely understood.If imagination runs free, a person may create a drama in which he plays a part, or a dance,or a vision. This can also be expressedthrough the media of clay modelling, sandplays, painting, carving, and drawing. Interpreting this material, which containssymbolic projections,necessitatesits amplification by analogicalmethod:Jung used the knowledge and viewpoint of antiquity to throw light upon the unconscious products of modem man. In a similar way the meanings of Egyptian manuscripts have been decoded by referring to archaeologicalfinds of antiquity which occur in the symbolizationof later language.Such insights and amplifications are used by Jungiansto interpret symbols produced in dreamsand fantasies.It is clear that Jung hasexpoundeda theory of the unconscious and its interpretation totally different from that of Freud, who conceived of the unconsciousas an infantile phenomenon.By infantile I mean that which belongsto a person'sinfant consciousnessand is 19

JUNGIAN SANDPLAY

developmentallylimited to this psychological material. In an interesting analogy, Fordham (1944) points out that in physiology nobody would assumethat becauseboth man and child have a heart, it is an infantile organ. In tracing back adult fantasiesto childlike roots, would the Freudiansdiscard theseexperiencesas merely infantile deposits? It is here, with fantasy, that Freud and Jung and their 'schools'part company.Jungassertsthat the whole of fantasy life is not infantile; parts of it are an attribute of man in generalin the mannerof Fordham'sanalogy: that the heart is an organ common to the human race at all ages. 'The unconsciousbasesof dreamsand fantasiesare only apparently infantile reminiscences.In reality we are concerned with primitive or archaic thought-forms,basedon instinct, which naturally emergemore clearly in childhood than they do later.' (Jung 1956, pp. 28-9) These archaic thought-forms may contain personal factors, but impersonal motives may have great significance as well (McGuire 1974: see Jung's letter to Freudof 15 November1909; 10 January1910; 30 January1910). Jung argued that there are agelessmotives in myths, fairy tales and folklore, including ever-repeatingthemes which point to the existenceof symbols common to all humanity. This led him to assumethat there were impersonal nuclear processesin the unconsciouspsyche - he confirmed this on the basisof collective archaicpatterns,the archetypes. (Ryce-Menuhin1988, pp. 25-8) We need an 'as-if quality to work with symbols; this enablesan 'as-if processto begin so that the symbolic attitude may build up on a person'ssandplays.This symbolic attitude refers to a contact betweenthe ego and inner psychic contentsthat in sandplaycan lead to a healing process.This transformationcan be broughtby the ego towards the self in an approachwhich has the 'as-if symbolic quality. The 'transcendentfunction', a term coinedby Jung, developsthis contact between consciousnessand unconsciousnessthrough symbols;thesesymbolsimply both contentand function, both noun and verb, both actor and acted-upon.The analyst'sjob, accordingto Jung, is to mediatethe symbolic function for the patientparticularly through dream analysis and through the 'waking dreams' of sandplay analysis. The term 'transcendentfunction' here only 20

THE ENTRANCE HALL

means that this function helps a person 'transcend' or move through and acrossexisting attitudesor a state in which they may be stuck (Bradway 1985). There is always the dangerthat symbolic material may be around in psyche,like a dusty unreadbook on the shelf, or that it may get actedout in a delusory,false, or exhibitionistic manner.This happenswhen the 'as-if quality isn't utilized by a person. It is only when the big psychic systemswithin, such as shadowparts of the the self, the ego, and the less-than-conscious psyche,are more fully consolidatedand presentthat the symbolic attitudecan emergeand grow in the patient. Where do we begin to learn to symbolize?lung did not study early developmentat length and so it is appropriateto review the contribution of Winnicott here. You will rememberI mentionedhis theory of the 'transitional object' earlier in this chapter. Most chi1dren develop a strong attachmentto a doll, a teddy bear, a certain blanket or object of clothing, etc. This is the first 'not-me and not-mother' creation. The favourite object becomesa way for the child to reconcile (or attempt to reconcile) reality and fantasy, the outer world and the inner world. The child works through the act of separatinghimself from othersand, particularly, from mother. He or she gives up both omnipotenceand mother/child unity and clings to the 'transitionalobject' for support.This is an imaginative support in which, for the first time, a child can allow 'illusion' to enter his or her psycheas a third area- neither the purely external world nor the purely internal one, but a third space.In this psychic space,play, inspiration, symbolization,and creativity can enter into consciousdevelopment.Later on the symbolic within man'scollective expressionin art, philosophy, mathematics,ethics, aesthetics, religion, cultural ceremonies,etc., can becomemore fully realized through the earlier developmentof imagination. Feeling for other people,in the senseof concern,developsas the ego becomesstrong enough to bear separateness, self-reliance,and the boundariesof one'sown being and of others'own beings.The self and the not-self must becomeunconfusedbefore the true symbol-makingcan begin. Identification needs to give way to an 'as-if' representationof others: samenessand differenceare then equally tolerable. What we subjectivelyperceiveand experience,or the archetypal content in consciousness,is different from that which subsistsin itself. As the archetypeper se is so deeply buried in the collective unconsciousat its very bedrock level, we can never perceiveit as such. It can be known only through its images in consciousness,

21

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e.g. as portrayedin sandplays.Our empirical knowledgeis already caughtand limited by this a priori structureof cognition. When physicists researched into subatomic processes they learned that these processesdefy (being both particles and wave forms) all set location in time and space. This means that the behaviourof an atomic particle cannot be observedindependently of the processof observationitself. Observationalters the behaviour of the particles. In the samewayan archetypeis changedby becomingconsciousand being perceivedin its image as it takes its colour, atmosphere,or partial form from the individual consciousnessin which it happensto appear.(No two sandtrayscould ever have beenexactly the samein history!) Betweenthe consciousand the unconsciousthere is an uncertainty relations/lip. This occurs becausethe observeris inseparablefrom the observed.We cling to the psychic image as 'knowledge' but what the transcendental reality is, both inside and outside, is unknowable- yet it feels as psychologicallycertain as our own existence. In discussingsymbols we have to keep in mind theserecurring subjectiveimagesthat pervadethe psyche.Whateverthe objective reality behind appearancesmay be needsa deep reflection upon experienceto imagine. This differentiationbetweenappearanceand reality is what the symbol may hold in balancewithin its essence.In symbology both the known or 'felt' essenceand that part of its reality that is still unknownassumea part within a therapist'sinterpretation. Jung often remarked that he was quite conscious of moving in a world of imagesand that none of his reflections upon archetypalimagescould touch the essenceof the unknowable. We tend to think of symbolic imagesas meaningful when interpreting sandplay.It is important to rememberthat theseimagesare also partly intangibleto us, just as in languagethereis also the ever present duality of the symbolic containing a movement towards meaning; but linguistic intangibleslinger on which remain beyond consciousmeaning. The symbol acts as a bridge; the bridging of what is familiar to that which is strange.It relates the consciousto the unconscious, the literal to the more abstract,the part to the whole. Symbolscan relate reasonto passion,the past to the present,the presentto the future. It is important to sandplaythat the symbolic material be understood in a Jungianmannerrather than in a Freudiancontext. Thisis becauseFreud regardedsymbols as only the unconsciousdefence.

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He thought that symbols aredeployed by the ego to disguise the threatening aspect of memories, fantasies, or impulses. Freud thought symbolsalways representthe forbidden and that a symbol merely facilitates the displacementof a forbidden goal of egoenergy. Freud always seemedto be staggeringguiltily out of the Gardenof Eden having just tastedthe apple. Jungfound theseideasmuch too limiting and much too negative. Jung always seemed to be enjoying the eating of the apple of consciousness.He argued that Freud was only discussing'signs', not symbols,becausethe symbol was merely being consideredas a substitutefor a repressedobject. a natural Jung saw the symbol, as howeve~ as a natural languageof the unconsciousand he wrote that symbols arethought to be the best possible expressionwith which to describe a relatively unknown and complexfact. Although the symbol is experiencedas existing, it is not yet fully graspedby consciousness.The symbol is relatively unknown but this doesnot mean it is forever 'unknowable'.Rather it meansthat right now the facts, relationshipsand feeling experiences which the symbol conveys cannot yet be carried by less complex intellectual formulations. In symbolization the form is connectedto content: the physical configuration, the composition, the patterns, shapes,balancesall connect to meaning. What is expressedcannot be graspedseparately from the sensuousform that expressesthe symbol. The contentand the mediumare indivisible. I would now like to developsomeideasof the symbologyof one object that might be found in a sandplaycollection as an example. This will illustrate the kind of elaborativeknowledgeof symbolsa therapist must have in sandplay work. Several years ago, Dora KaHf, the founder of the InternationalSocietyfor SandplayTherapy, lecturedin London for the Analytical PsychologyClub at the Royal Societyof Medicine. I had the pleasureof chairing that occasionand of having Mrs Kalff stay at our London flat. On that occasionshe gave me a presentfor the sandplay;it was a white, double-headed snakein plasterof Pariswith its coils painteda deeppure gold. The symbologyof this universaloriental snakeas 'meaning'can be built up mentally as follows: in general a snakeof any kind belongs to the cold, moist element of water (as in the wet sandbox)broadly symbolizedas the ocean,or, within Christianity as the Jordanriver (the place of baptism). Snakes can refer to the instincts as prehuman, impersonal, and collective in aspect, symbolizing the

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lower soul of man. Snakesrepresentthe feminine principle, hence they are said to be creative. They appearas the companionsof the Earth Mother (such as Dora Kalff is to the InternationalSociety!). In Greek mythology Hecate, Persephoneand Demeter are seen with snakesin their hands as companionsand in Gnosticism snakes representthe initial, psycho-spiritualmaterial (especiallythe brain stem and spinal cord as reflexive) which needstransformationfrom the primitive and cold-bloodedreflex responseto the differentiation of higher brain levels. As masculine,the snakeis a phallic symbol, so in its masculinel feminine androgynyit becomesa symbol for the unconsciousitself. In de Vries's (1984) brilliant Dictionary of Symbolsand Imager!J he mentionshow the snakeexpressesthe suddenmanifestationof the unconsciouswith its 'painful and dangerousintervention in our affairs thus being a manifestationof the unconsciousmother-image'. As archetypalimage, the snakerelatesto deeply-rootedsomatic and psychologicalprocesses;it relates to the involuntary nervous systemwhich kicks up when a psychologicalproblem has slipped out from the normal range of voluntary control. The resulting tremors and tics can be associated with multiple sclerosis, Parkinson'sdiseaseand cancer in humans. The snake'sbiological propertieslead to mythical projections of three levels of being; it lives in water, trees or on land, hence the water is seen as the unconscious,the tree can symbolize the archetypes,and the land may refer to consciousnesswhere the archetypal image can be experienced. The venom of snakes containsboth poison and an anti-poison which counteractsthe poison's lethal effects. Hence on the old apothecary shop signs in Europe one sees two snakes coiling upwards. The snake'svibratory motion gives it pulse; its annual changeof skin gives it a periodic nature. Continuingits physiologicalassociations,Kundalini is the 'coiled one' (shushuma)at the base of the spine which when 'awakened' through concentration and meditation, creates difficult physical symptoms like the shivers, shakes, and spasmodic vibrations connectedto snakes'movement.The human spinal column has a serpentinebendin it. Snakesalso symbolize measuresand boundariesor borders of the unconscious.Thor, the thunder god, wrestledwith the serpent. The 'Serpentof Midgard' encircledthe world. Both Kronos, as the Greek god of time, and Aion, as death, are often pictured as

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serpents.Symbolically snakessuggesta looseningof rigidity; they are the vibration within vegetative states as well. In Egypt, the snakecoils up when it is to watch over graves. Now I would like to 'zero-in' on the two-headedwhite snake with gold on its coiled parts that Dora Kalff gave me as a gift. First, the double aspectrefers to two aspectsof one archetypesuch as the poison/anti-poisonand the in-time/out-of-time qualities all archetypes possess.In Persia two snakes symbolized linear time and Eternal time. The Indian subtle body has two snake-likeconduits for the Kundalini to rise within. One conduit is for the Moon; it is white and refers to quiet energy and the involuntary nervous c~nduiat natural is for the Sun; it is red and refers to system. The other as passionateenergy and'the voluntary nervous system. It is interesting that my white double-headedsnakehas four big red eyes! I have mentionedthat two snakeswind about a staff or a tree in the symbolic logos of the old Europeanapothecaryshops.The staff is Mercury's staff, the caduceus,related to the staff of Asklepios who was tutored by a snakeand given healing potions by it. Mercury's staff harmonizesthe two nervous systemsand the right and left brain hemispheres(as the corpuscallosum) or connecting'pipe' of fibres connectingthe two sidesof the brain. The ergodynamic system of sexual, creative and working instincts is harmonized and balanced with the endophylactictropic system of the restorationand maintenanceof body organs. Snakes symbolize the tension between the autonomic and the voluntary nervous system. In breathing out one expressesautonomic or a sleepingstate. If symbolically there is a battle between the two snakes,it would psychosomaticallymanifest in shallow or irregular breathing with problems in the voice of breath coordination (seeCase2 in Chapter4). In this duality, one sensesthe symbolic gates to the personal unconsciousand also the gates to autonomic mindlessness,e.g. aspectsof schizophrenia.The duality has an Eastern/Westernreference in that the Eastern quieting of the mind through meditative techniquesand control of the consciousmind which altersattitudes is not enough. The Western need, within its depth psychology, to 'cut the snake'at instinctive levels is even mentionedin an ancient Dhao text: 'The stillness in stillness is not the real stillness. Only when there is stillnessin movementcan the spiritual rhythm appear which pervadesheavenand earth.' Being is more than what is left when you cut down the first snake.

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Now for the whitenessof my gift-symbol given to me by Mrs Kalff: whitenessis a stateof lowered consciousness, a quiet sleepiness in winter. In the Germanic pre-Christianlegends, the white snakesgave kings knowledge and their near-white relatives were used by common soothsayersin the market place. Gopi Krishna (1972) has written that the meaning for the search for the white snake within the body (other than the white conduit in Indian belief, mentionedabove) is related to a steady, cool and detached stateof mind; hencein China the white snakesymbolizeswisdom. Mircea Eliade (1958) claims that in final advancedYogic practices, the white snake-effect, in its extreme limit, leads to a onepointedness,a stasis in concentration. If Samadlli occurs, one experiencesself as a spirit located only partly in body when one 'knows the cries of all creatures'.This is not a dream-likestatebut one of full consciousness. Did Dora Kalff know what her gift could symbolize?Yes, for the Jungian sandplay therapistsmove about the world of symbols in their sandplayrooms as others move about the outer world seeing its objects. In Chapter 4 my caseswill illustrate how symbology works within sandplayinterpretationto bring a salutorytherapeutic effect to patients. In this chapter,I have indicated that symbolsare imbuedwith real life. They hold a dynamic force containing values that are conceptual and emotional. Symbols are not just analogies or 'correspondences'to something else. Symbols offer the only possibleway of acceptinga reality of the world beyondthat which history, science, or technology now offer. Symbols suggest the world is wide open and rich in meaning. They tend to grasp an overall organic pattern, a multiplicity of unity. (The double-headed white snake is coiled up in gold, a symbol of oneness,of Unus Mundus, of individuation within the multitudinous possibilities of personality- like Mercurius.) Becauseof the greatdepthat the level of the hidden roots of all systems of meanings, Eastern and Western, symbols seem to spring 'as-if' from one source - our collective unconscious.Symbolic activity in a whole people seems to be a myth, a kind of dream that contains this whole collective dream within it. The universal themesin the archetypesof Jung's analytical psychology, as expressedin the images of folklore, legend, superstition,cultural anthropology,astrology, comparative religion and the histories of art and civilization, all contain this quality of essentialoneness.The unconsciousof humansseemsto 26

THE ENTRANCE HALL

move towards a constructive longing (as in sandplay) to 'make' symbols.The consciousmind moveswith this tendencyto imitating primary ideasof the forms of life, of its sacrifices,and its thoughts, making symbolic formulations of greatcultural power - such as the image of the Christian cross. The natural and the cultural duality (anothertwo-headedsnake) suggeststhat symbols transcendboth aspects.Symbolsbilld togetller tlte material and spiritual ill tile awarenessof man until the Earth itself can be seenas a symbolic object within God's universal'sandplay'!

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INTO THE RECEPTION ROOM

We have now seenhow the inner non-materialworld can be transposed by sandplay into a concreteouter picture of psyche. This transpositionsymbolically objectifies the inner archetypalcontent through allowing it to have an outer material form. The intuition of patients, which is related to an inward and non-rational impulse involving the unconscious,may go free and self material can flow into the sandplayunreservedly. The process requires a sustaining ritual within the way the sandplay room is used by patient and therapist. I want now to discusswhat seemsto me to be importantabout this ritual. First, let me define ritual as I mean it to be understoodhere. I want to give ritual an anthropological emphasisof meaning. In sandplay we are searching for an elucidation of the self of the sandplayer,a gaining of self-knowledge.This can be thought of as an initiation to a further self-realization. In searchingfor a word, other than self, to expressthe wholenessof what sandplayritual might contain for a person, I found the word ewekein the Lifou languageof Melanesia.Ewekemeans thesymbolic in man including his thoughts,acts, actions, and discourseas they relate to his own myth, his own being, his own selfhood. In Maurice Leenhardt'sbook on the Melanesianshe describes eweke: all that belongsto man is eweke, his eloquence,the object he fashions,what he creates,what he possesses in his own right, his work, his speech, his goods, his garden, his wife, his psychic health, his sex. All this is symbolic ... the manifestation of the human ... This is an indication of the little differentiation establishedbetweenbeing and thing ...' (Leenhardt1947, pp. 172-3)

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When one is initiated to a new relationshipto self, one needsritual to contain the powerful transformationof understandinginvolved. Olle's beingbecomessalldplaysfor a certaill ritual time of experiencillg.For this reason,sandplayneedsa containingritual which J want now to describe,which holds the eweke(the totality) of one'sexperienceof making sandplays. For the atmosphericquality of ritual happeningsto occur and recur in a progression,a special place of initiation is required. A sandplayroom, separatefrom a verbal analytic consulting room is absolutely essential. The two mediums, non-verbal and verbal, deserveand need to have separatephysical spacefor their ritual enactment. Entering a sandplayroom includes the colourful impressionof the many usableobjects on the shelvesrepresentingthe world of psyche in material form. Curiously enough these stimulants to memory and imagination do not over-excite (except in very young children under five) even at first sight, becausethey representa familiarity (visually) to the known world. J haveoften beenaskedif so many objectsdon't confusethe patient or make interpretationof sandplaystoo difficult. To the contrary, J am absolutelyconvinced that in all patients, except in the physically brain-damaged,the relatednessto a rich and varied material world of objects has normally been built up by age three-and-a-halfso that the further stimulation of the unknown objects,which may also be includedon the shelves, is a longed-for and needed completion of selfexpression.This is as true for adultsas it is true for children. The choice of many objects is like a kaleidoscopeof possibilities when we come to use material objects to construct psychological pictures. I completelydisagreewith those analystswho use only a few objectsin play therapy. The arid, vapid and unnaturallyempty atmospherein representingthe varied and rich inner world by only a few objectsin play therapyis an anal, over-retentiveillness on the part of these analysts. I believe it to be both ungenerousand sadisticallywithholding in atmosphereon the part of the reductive analytic schools who are so frightened of the self, itself, as the ultimate carrier of our self-expression.One can!1ot deny the self's role in the healing of traumatically wounded psyche. The self, through its a priori archetypal richness, is universally a multitudinous psychologicalentity even within the imaginative play of the most underprivileged,understimulatedand damagedchildren including the autistic child - who also welcomea varied and inter-

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esting world of sandplay objects with which to search for selfexpression.You cannot 'reduce' an a priori archetypal heritage to only a handful of objects, even if in pathology a patient, at first, may not yet be able to make a completeor more 'knowing' use of the possibilities within a world of objects. Even in the regressive sense,the known changesin intrauterinelife, which a baby experiencesbefore birth, have so many differing qualities that to present less than a full panoply of symbolic play objects toa sandplayer is spiritually profoundly insulting to the nature of psyche. It is also inherently insulting to a patient. I repudiate completely the restrictedenvironmentof reductionismusedby someFreudianand Kleinian play therapists offering only three to seven toys as a blasphemous,manipulative and sick representationof the given world in psyche.The psychologicalworld of an Ethiopianchild who is dying of starvation is fuller and richer by God-given outer and inner imaginative environment- in archetypalimage alone - than that. As a sandplayerof any age or backgroundquietly perusesthe shelvesof objects(I use 1000 small objects)the objects'speakback' to his or her psyche and are taken for use in building up the sandplay.I only loosely organize the general categoriesof objects and do not put them back in exactly the sameplace, but allow the shelvesa free, slightly untidy look. This is a deliberatediscouragement of the anal tendencyto 'wipe everythingclean', to forbid a free and mixed look to the shelves.So much in our averagesuper-ego development, the ruling introjects of the authoritarian ego-layer within our psyche, needs the relief of the less than perfectly organizedsituation. However, I do keep objects, broadly speaking, in the same general location: 'humans' together, trees together, animals together, dwe11ingstogether, etc. This facilitates, but does not restrict, the patients'imaginative flow within the concentrated time of the actual sandplaycreation. I believe the ricltesseof the psychedemandsthesemany objects as partial representationsof our sharedpsychologicalworld; they shouldbe availablefor useif a patientwishesto usethem. After all, a depressedpatient will only see what he or she can, during the dark time when little energyis availableto deal with the inner/outer world. During a clinical depression,a patientwill sleepa greatdeal, to avoid the energy demandsof the outer world which cannot be met by a depressedpsyche.Once again, the sandplayroom mirrors the real world and the depressedpatient can mirror his or her inner 30

INTO THE RECEPTION ROOM

situation by choosing no objects at all, if to do so would misrepresentpsycheat that momentin time. Twenty years ago when I worked through a depressionof my own using sandplay, I made a dry sandtrayduring a series done with Dora Kalff. J could only smooth the sand until nothing ruffled the desert-likesurface.Then my limited psychic energy was gone. Nothing was put into the tray. Mrs Kalff said this sandplaycould have beenmadeby a Tibetan lama who was staying in her houseat the time. After making that sandplay, J returned to using objects again; in a few weeks'time, a two-yeardepressionbeganto lift. The stasis-point,the moment of cessationin psychic energy had been revealedin the still sandplayand then it was o'ergrown. Sandplay reveals the hidden tempo, the pace of psyche's development,whether in healing pathologyor in following natural organic development.It is the mirror of psychepar excellence.What a pity to remain bound to words when such a powerful wordless medium can be a balancing factor in the reparative work of psychotherapy. There is a sensein which this wordlessritual of the sandplayis a way, whether for men or women, to the feminine principle. In the universal sense of the feminine, sandplay sharesthe activity of accepting a conception and carrying knowledge to assimilate it while allowing a ripening to occur. This takes time and needsan allowance for submitting to something which is an unforced happening.No effort of will is required as the masculinetends to feel it a necessityto habitually draw from psyche. The feminine quality is an admixture of contemplation with attentiveness,a circumambulationinvolving the whole personality,the resonanceof self, not just ego desiresfor comprehensionas to more information or intellection. Sandplayexperiencesharesmuch with this feminine mode; however, when the masculine is expressedin sandplay, it sharpensits definition precisely becauseit is seen against this feminine, unforced 'earthy' background. Masculinity can have a very full range of expression;its battlegrounds,its hero'sjourneys, its phallic pride, its colourful and creative mastery of space, its forceful power, its childlike omnipotence,its search for love, its demonic aggression, its genius and its love of God. All these aspectsand many more emergeas men and boys delve into the feminine non-rational world of Eros and temporarily abandonin sandplaythat Logos-filled, over-rationalworld of achievementmen are so pushedinto by most societies.

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It is important that the therapistenhancethe ritual of non-verbal therapy by a special form of 'concentrated'silence. I aid this by quietly sketchingthe sandplay'sdevelopment,but never anticipating or unconsciouslyleading the patient, only following the sandplay with a sketch and a few notes to remember for eventual discussion.This 'holding' presenceis different from verbal therapeutic presence.It is more detached,less free-floating in concentration, as the therapistis not immediately screeningthe image for meanings,as one screensverbal material, but is just being there patiently awaiting developments.A silent observingcompanion,by projection, may seem to be a 'knowing' one. Sandplaytherapists still have much to learn and to know, however,becausethe stateof the art and the scienceof sandplayinterpretationis yet in its first sixty years. Patient and therapist discover together. This ritual reminds one that both priest (or minister) and lay person take communion within the same ritual in Christian communion -a as a natural sharedattempt at revelation. This ritual sharingand being present together in only partly differing roles brings a democraticatmosphere to sandplaytherapy that more reductive therapiesdeny. In the Freudianworld, the analystis in dangerof playing 'God' much too much by constantuseof regressivetechniquesin relation to the patientwhich lose the naturalnessof the healingatmosphere. The ritual of sandplayis of a place, a time, a world of real and symbolic objects which a person uses to make concrete visual representationsof psyche while a trained therapist assists in holding the boundariesof this ritual by an experienced,witnessing presence.Joint interpretationof what happensis then sharedin an interdependenceby therapist and sandplayerwhen it is felt to be the right time. This may be experiencedas session-by-session dialogue or delayed interpretive discussionmay be deferred until the slides taken of a series of sandplaysare shown all together revealingthe developingline within the work. There is usually a delayed emotional impact with which the sandplayermust contend during and after the sandplayhours. In adults the preverbal level requires deep energy to be brought forward and the stimulation of intuition and feeling is often exhaustingto patientswho rarely use thesefunctions. The spacing of sandplay hours must be tailored to each individual patient's condition. This needsto be constantly reassessed as the series of sandplaysgrows. Patientsof mine have worked from a rhythm of one sandplay per day to one sandplay at three-month intervals

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during a verbal analysis.The variation of effect is enormous. My own preferenceis to use sandplay in conjunction with a long, deep verbal Jungian analysis of many years. However, J am deliberately presenting a clinical case in the next chapter of a mature French woman where sandplay was used without other deepanalysis.In this example,I concur with Kalff that resultsfrom sandplay method alone can be deeply impressive. Of course in teachingand preparing sandplaytherapists,J use the sandplayin its own right, as these clinicians have usually had extensive personal analysis before training with me in London. Often, too, analysts refer personswhile analysing them who they feel could benefit from doing sandplaywork as a parallel adjunct to their total analytic efforts. I have developed special personal techniquesto avoid giving such a patient transferenceconflicts between the sandplaytherapistand the verbal therapist.J welcomethesevaried methods of enabling psyche to heal itself, to unify its opposites within an effort to overcomethe tendencyof personsto have too one-sided a psychological development and attitude. All these different analytic methodsneed the world images of sandplayfor their re-balancinganalytic effects. As symbolic play is an analogueto spontaneousactive imagination of an ancient prehumanorigin, its primordial quality (that of archetypal heritage shared by all persons) gives it a power to stimulate the regulatory function and hence the healing transcendent function of the psyche. Sandplay encouragesa collaboration between consciousand unconsciousfantasy images and the ego. Jung refers to this processas active imagination,and this is how he describedit in adults: [AI dark impulse is the ultimate arbiter of the pattern, an unconsciousa priori precipitatesitself into plastic form, and one has no inkling that another person's consciousnessis being guidedby thesesameprinciplesat the very point where one feels utterly exposedto the boundlesssubjectivevagaries of chance.Over the whole procedurethere seemsto reign a dim foreknowledgenot only of the patternbut of its meaning. Image and meaningare identical; and as the first takesshape, so the latter becomesclear. Actually, the pattern needs no interpretation: it portrays its own meaning. There are cases where I can let interpretationgo as a therapeuticrequirement. Gung 1972, p. 402)

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Any witness to the experiential happeningsof sandplay might agree, but here I feel we need, as therapists, to exercise great caution. To let a patient go into life, after experiencingsandplaybut not interpretingit, is rather like seeingthat someone'sbroken ankle is mended(technically) but that when the cast is taken away, the wounded person is not helped to learn to walk again. In other words, I believe combining verbal interpretation and ongoing intimate work on remaining problemsthat one may have after the regulating self-work of sandplayis finished, can be important to a further therapyfor the individual. The parametersof the self being infinite, it seemsto me important that after a sandplayprocessis complete,a first deepspiral into and through self material (hencea discovery)hasbeenlived through but that the stimulationthis gives to further developmentcan be something so enormous that we need to stay with patients further on in a continuing analytic endeavour. In my view, this has to be a Jungian analysis to correspondto the empirical facts of the structureand meaningof psycheas it actually is. Who shouldcome into sandplaytherapy?This is a more difficult questionthan it may appear.I would not say that exactly the same persons suitable for verbal analysis should do sandplay therapy necessarily;however, many of my colleagueswould disagreewith a distinction of choice. As sandplaydiscouragesthe rational Logosstyle mentality for its operativeprocess,it potentially can help the highly specializedtype, e.g. the Ph.D. graduatewho is trained to doubt the non-rational. The irony is, of course, that most of these personswould reject sandplayas 'too infantile' or 'too unscientific', whateverstrongempirical claims sandplaytherapistsnow make for the healing propertiesof sandplay. The borderline psychotic is rarely recommendedfor sandplay. Already in-built safeguardsto warn a therapistof latent psychosis are containedin the insect and the whole reptilian world of play objects where a patient will discover a toy spider or an anaconda snake and 'flip' at once into the psychosis with very definite clinical, phobic featuresin a way that is not helpful to therapeutic process. The control of words chosenby an analyst enablesverbal treatment to be more clinically helpful over time to psychotics than sandplay usually is in my estimation; that is, in selectedcases,I acceptthe latent psychoticfor analytical work, but not for sandplay, at leastas a beginningapproach.

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It is important for an adult patient that a certain degree of curiosity is arousedby sandplayif it is to be the suitable medium. In the caseof patientsover twenty, I prefer it if they themselvesask about sandplay,even including an expressionof negativeresistance, before suggestingit be tried. With patientsunder twenty, sandplay is usually a natural outflow of need, without much resistance appearing,as the natureof play is usually still presentas a certain part of adolescentand earlier childhood. When ritual is compulsiveas in the obsessional,sandplay may be tried but it will rarely prove to be more than an added'cul-desac' for the pathologically obsessive.It usually becomesanother defensiveritual, to be added to the patient'srepertoire of rituals, and although sandplay might reveal some projection from obsessionalpsychethat escapeswords, this happensmore often with children (including the autistic) than it does with adult obsessionals.They just tend to repeat their rituals, recycled into a sandplaymode of expression. With adult hysteria,I havehad somereal successusing sandplay. Usually the hysteric will have boundaryproblemspsychological1y; their behaviour will veer in several directions at once, in and through a broad spectrumof unrelated, various intensive behaviours, i.e. they may often be active sado-masochists, bisexuals,and exhibit 'Jekyll and Hyde' qualities. The holding quality of the sandbox,the sandplayspaceand the therapist'spresenceas ritual can help to radically challengethe hysteric into a focus of psychological acuity, usually after a series of chaotic sandplays with objects 'marching'out of the sandboxonto the surroundingtables, shelves, floor, walls or onto the body of the patient. There is a quieteningof unboundariedimpulse in sandplay,over time, which begins a curative process for hysterics that needs very careful tending by the therapist. Often hysterics are best treated in intensiveshort periodsof sandplayfollowed by a cessationof three months, then again an intensive seriesof sandplays.This enables the gradual shut-down of unboundaried living-out behaviour during the periodsaway from therapy,as its cessationwill require, like youth itself, to be grieved about and gradually let go. It is traumatic for hysterics to suddenlydrop their behaviour patterns. This needsweaningboth throughsandplayand throughits periodic absence.Verbal therapiststend to hang on too fiercely to hysterical patients. These patients need breathing space from any kind of analyticalwork and then its return in an on/off sequence. 35

JUNGIAN SANDPLAY

Depressives can utilize sandplay most effectively if it is combined with deep verbal analysis over a long period. The intensity of wounding that lies behind a reactive and/or an endogenousdepressionshould never be underestimatedby therapists. The cessationof psychic energy available to behaviour has been pulled down into a depressive's unconscious and great patience (almost superhuman) is required by both patient and therapistduring the 'dark night of the sou1.'I usually suggestthat a severely depressedpatient make a sandplayonly when they feel enoughpsychic energy may be available: this is usually in one out of four to six sessions,not more. The seriesof sandplayswill carry the sameoverlappingcharacteristicsof a seriesmade one after the other within a shorter time, such as repeatsof favourite objects used with new meaningsand a progressivelay-out of self material; however, the depressivewill need verbal orientation sessionsin betweenthe sandplays,to gain sufficient re-balancingto continue on within the black core of clinical depression. In children the manic defence is usually so present that a depressedchild can do a series of sandplays, at once-a-week intervals,and not run the risk of this becomingcounter-productive, as can happenwhen adult depressivesare 'pushed'too fast. Psyche has its cosmic, natural, inalienable rhythm; this needs careful respectingat all times in sandplayritual. The ebband flow of tidal psyche is cyclic in certain pathologiesas, in nature, it follows the moon's periodic waxing and waning in appearance.Sandplayhas a certain 'pull of gravity' that an experiencedtherapistcan sensein eachsessionwith eachpatient. Sandplayis not a panaceaor a cureall. It is a sensitiveprojection screen,based onearth itself and the concrete three-dimensionalperceived, objective world. From this objective, wholistic base a subjective expressionis createdby the patient, from conscious and less-than-consciouslevels that may, when ritual proceedsto its higher levels, prove to be healing. The sandplaytherapistis not a priest/priestessor a guru. Rather, I would feel that a 'good-enough'sandplaytherapist is a trained, professionalpsychological companionon an explorative journey of sand-imageconstruction which the therapist witnessesin shared experientialbeing with the sandplayer.The therapistbrings interpretation (where suitable) of the symbolic meaning, both onepointed and in amplification where useful. This is given back to the patient, who, in being a sandplayer,may be re-connectedto the child archetypeand the archaic existential wisdom of other arche-

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typal images which self choosesto let flow freely into sandplay. This experiencemay contain elementsof awe and wonder associated with rebirth experiencesin whatevermedium. In this sense,it may sometimesbe a wonder-filled or wonder-full therapy.Whatever self is discovered,the numinous is presentas a gift of God. This numinosity must be containedby a professionalsandplaytherapist providing a ritual spacein which the power of the sandplayexperience can be safely protected at the very moment of its living enactment.

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WORKING IN THE SANDPLAY ROOM

The heartof the matter of sandplay is its demonstrationclinically. In this chapterI've selectedfour contrastingcasesshowing different applicationsof sandplaytherapyto very varied personalities. The first caseconcernsan upper-middle-classman who camefor therapy during his courtship and marriage to his wife. His integration of his batchelor-style earlier life towards the fuller responSibility of marriageand the changingrelationshiptowards a stepdaughterand an expectedchild of his own was the main theme of the sandplaywork. The secondcasecontrastssharply with the first. Here a lowermiddle-class batchelor struggles to free himself from a negative anima possessionand through dreamanalysisand sandplaysorts out some of his problemsbefore breaking off the work, believing Jung to be an infidel. This case has wide ramifications for male disturbancesjust prior to the midlife crisis of transition and has been treatedat length for its pathology. Sandplayis an important releasefor the patientwithin this casematerial. The third caseis that of an upper-classFrenchwomen who came to sandplayfor one reason: to work through grief and mourning upon the deathof her only sibling, an older sister. Commutingfrom Paris to London weekly, her work showshigh concentrationand an aestheticnature being used to therapeuticadvantagein sandplay. This sandplay has unique esoteric imagery within a successful psychologicalhealing. The fourth case is that of a 14-year-old girl awaiting her first menstrualperiod at the time her parentswere divorcing. Using the syntheticmethodof interpretationof the symbolsin her sandplays, a developmentalinterface was establishedwith symbology illustrating the power of amplification and free expression in her gradualextraversionand entry into young womanhood. 38

WORKING IN THE SANDI'LAY ROOM

1. THE STORY OF JOHN: A MAN MATURES IN

TIME TO AVOID A MIDLIFE CRISIS In describingthe caseof a 29-year-oldman who cameinto therapy for a year, I am initially remindedof a Sufi aphorism which says: 'Fishes,asking what water was, went to a wise fish. He told them that it was all aroundthem yet they still thought they were thirsty.' My patient, whom I shall call 'John', had youth, wealth, a happy new marriage, a top job, a fine stepdaughterand a wanted pregnancyin his young wife and yet the patientseemed'thirsty' for life knowledge, emotionally insecure and unaware of his good fortune. He was of Scottish and Irish descent,a former amateur sportsmanwho hadbecomea successfulbusinessexecutive.Johnhad beeneducatedprivately from the ageof eight outsideof Europeand then,from theageof twelve,at anEnglishpublic school.He hadstudied businessadministrationand took his collegedegreein that subject. There was a Celtic archetypalatmospherearound the patient's presence.He was overweight,tall and powerfully built but slightly sad in appearance.John had tried many therapiesand tended to apply them immediately to group workshops he conducted for businessexecutives.His motivesin wanting a Jungiantherapywere cloudy at first and his ego-defencewas very high. This masked John's partly enfeebledself which was hidden behind an appearanceof strengthand determination. Throughoutthis case,I had the feeling that I was working with a damagedbut developed,almost heroic child in the man. Childhood traumatawere worked through during the therapy but the feeling of the vulnerability of the 'hero' was always present.John tried to compensatefor this inner, impotent child, by miraculousdeedsin the businessworld. The distinction betweenreality and the patient'sinner world was blurred with Celtic boundarylessness. There was inability to make use of his frustrations and little tolerance for them himself. He showed evidence of reaction formation, almost exhibitionistic defencesand repression.The very effective use he made of the sand, while positive to the therapy,also had an elementin it of the concealmentof his pain and the traumatic experience that lay behind it at first. Ouring the work, the beginning of a maturing drive of the Self towardsindividuation could be seeninitiated partly by the verbal and sand therapy and partly by a positive environmental influence in the patient'spersonaland working life.

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Jung's four stagesof psychotherapyand the sonata form The processin the sand, in this particular case,can be describedas allied to Jung'sfour stepsof psychotherapy.The first of thesefour stagesJungdesignatedas the Confession,the greatoutpouringof the mind and heart which can release hidden forces. It includes a catharsisof purification of the emotions through fear and compassionand was consideredby Aristotle to be an effect of tragedy. The secondstage is the Elucidation. The patient begins to need to removelibido from the therapistand re-investit in his own personality structure.The third stageJung called the Education, by which he meant that the basic values of both patient and therapist are more to the forefront in a dialectical confrontation.The transference and counter-transference must adjust to a greaterdegreeof equality and direct interplay during this stage. The fourth stage is the Transformation. Here the integration of the anima and the shadow can set libido free to be more at the disposalof consciousness. This brings with it a dangerto the patient of a mana possessionand an effect of inflation. Amplifications from the analyst becomeappropriate as a holding elementduring this stage. It is worthwhile to note that these four stagesare paralleledin the four stagesof the classical musical sonata form in the first movement-a fact which Jung overlooked. The exposition of the main themesin the sonatamovementis a confessionor a catharsis of the dominant musical thematic material. The eludication is representedby other following musical thematicideasin following complementarystatementshinting at a fuller working-out to come. The free developmentsectionof the sonatamovementis paralleled by the educationphaseof the analysiswhere questionand answer and discussionis extremely direct, and the final recapitulationof the musical themes in a more individual form, including new material and leading to a final cadence,is like the transformation with its individuating potential leading to the termination of analysis.

The sandplays In the eight sandplaysto be discussed,the pictures can be clearly grouped within Jung's four stagesof therapy as they reveal the developmentprocessof the analysis(seePlates1-8).

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Plate 1 2,3,4 5 6,7,8

TlterapeuticStage Confession Elucidation Education Transformation Sandplay1

The first sandplaywas made in the third month of analysisduring the Confessionstage. It shows the wedding ceremony(see Plate 1) six weeksin advanceof the actual weddingof the patient.John said that the centre spire representsa religious place with a priest officiating in front, then the bride and groom, behind whom stands the mother of the groom. The patient'sfather, who died ten years earlier, standsalone as a white figure towardsthe lower right-hand comer of the sandbox. The patient thought the two great phallic sand towers to be like two hills in a mesain Arizona, but due to their reappearance in severalsandplaysto comeI believethem to be two phallic breast-nipples:the right one the animus symbol of the mother, the left one the animussymbol of the wife-to-be. John was putty in the handsof theseanimus-dominatedwomen. The nuclear family, consistingof the mother, a younger brother and a younger sister, are shown on the right, accordingto John, as a black figure and two small trees amongreptiles, with both the threateningand transforming possibilities that implies. John said, as he completed this picture, 'That feels fairly complete'.On the lower left, John and his wife-to-be are approachingfrom the deepunconsciousin a boat representingJohn's dynamic self potentially with the inner hi eros gamosas a possibility

Sandplay2 Later that month John entered the period of Elucidation. On the principal central spire, like the wall of a fortress, sleepsa golden child, as John's puer aeternus,which sits high on an animus-breast (seePlate 2). John said that the orangemock outer-spacefigure was himself and the purple mock outer-spacefigure was his wife. The Virgin Mary and Joseph, as well as a primitive ape and various trickster figures, represent a parade of positive and negative shadowfigures the patient wishes to reveal and talk about. On the lower right the nuclear family area reveals a collective warring

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group which the patient thought referred to the Iranian revolution and to divinely inspired cruelty between men. In the therapy, we continued to work through trauma concerning family memories which were dominated by the alcoholic problem John's father sustaineduntil he died.

Sandplay3 After John'sweddingduring the fifth month of analysis,we find his anima child (puer aeturnus) fused to his new wife's phallic breast (see Plate 3) and a frog of transformationon his mother's breast (right) which showed progress in separating out his mother complex on which work proceeded.The upper right-hand corner, the ego position, is empty. A great bear, the patient'sshadow,stiU deniesthe ego a more consciousrepresentation.The Virgin is now surroundedby children-as-angels.The patient's wife is pregnant and a stepdaughterhas comewith the patient'smarriage. The path-of coloured marbles (lower left side) leads to the new fruit of his unconsciousdevelopment.The frog can live above on the peak or below in the red trees of the lower right and left. The patientrelatedto the frog with hope.

Sandplay4 At the sixth month, John identified with his wife's pregnancyby building a path up to his Self-shrine, placed on a 'pregnant' mountain, no longer a phaUic breast-nipple (see Plate 4). The patientremarked,'1 alwaysmiss the start of a path', so the Ego/Self is not weB-integratedinto consciousness yet. The ego breaksthrough in the upper right with the supportof the Wise Old Man and a very high, risky, jet-plane libido which is sharply phaBic. On the lower left, the four horses may be the companionsof dying and creating.We had been working on John's unlived grief for his father, who, in dying an alcoholic, had caused John shame. The multi-colouredstonein the upperleft cornerJohn thought to be representativeof his spiritual guest, which I relatedto his anima development. The nuclear family in the lower right, expressedas trees, are according to John - himself, his wife and his stepdaughter.They becomeimportant dynamicfigures within the next sandplay. 42

WORKING IN THE SANDPLAY ROOM

Sandplay5 At sevenmonthsthe full-blown dialectical transferencebrought the Educationstageof therapy,which I name,following the sonataform, the Development. Here the three family members (see Plate 5) enter the wife's womb to visit the unborn child. The womb is similar to the 'mating' boat in Plate1. The swansat the entrancesuggestthe elusivenessof the anima which hampersJohn'srelationshipswhich are still partly unconscious.The lower left brings transformative figures in the seahorse,the crocodile, the gorilla and the frog. The ego, as a peace-keepingKnight, attempts to control the unconsciousforces. This is the 'stiff upperlip' personaof the British patient. The patient saw himself in his child, by actually going into the womb in projection, and we worked through his fears abouthis wife's physical risk in pregnancyand about his own new responsibility both to his stepdaughterand to his unbornchild. In the upper left-hand corner, the family totem pole and a flame of fire enhance this deepprojection of the womb of the world, or of John'sworld.

Sandplay6 In the eighth month the Trans/ormation stage began. The shadow ape as John'sshadow,is seenlooking into a mirror which startsthe transformationof the anima and the shadow within the analysis (see Plate 6). On the upper right, the house of marriage with the two space figures representingthe primal scene, is upright. But threeother housesare standingon end. This representsthe difficult marriagesin the family background. John is enteringa manainflation. He seesthe world as a 'manybreastedthing' and all of the nourishmentcan be his. The alternative elements,the white egg as his potential and his unbornchild or the golden pueraeturnuscan both be visited by the helicoptersitting on one of the breasts.The patientis inflated into a kind of would-be royal figure who drops in by helicopterto visit any projectedpart of his Self-Kingdom upon command. We worked through John's defensiveegocentricitywith only partial successat this stage.

Sandplay7 Here a new ego emerges,the child of the Self, which is protectedby consciousforces of libido, family and warring machinesall on the 43

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right side (see Plate 7). The Shadow-EgoKnight in yellow defends the birth of the true Self. The baby representsthe resolution of oppositesbeing fought over and shows the ego developmentas positive but as having been achievedat great cost. The opposing forces are formidable but they are backed by a coiled snake of Kundalini in the upper left comer. This suggestsa powerful transformation is in action with a growth pattern.

Sandplay8 At one year, this final picture was made (see Plate 8). John moved away from London for his work and the analysis was temporarily curtailed for this reason. John said that his own Self was representedby the robin redbreaston the boat and he felt full of feeling as he approachedthe shore of the 'Land of the Self'. Peacocks,representingthe developmentof personality, greet the arrival together with an Oriental wise man and the anima as a Chinesesitting women in the ego-comerof the sandbox. But the great sea-urchinshell with its five-sided sea-urchininside suggests that a partly faulted Self is being shown that still needsanalytical help towards a further ego integration. This could help the Self to becomea powerful fourfold, rather than a fivefold, structureand to secureits balancein a solid quaternity.The forces of transformation are powerfully shown in Plates6,7 and 8. The four comersof the sandboxhave revealedthe four 'Devils' of this analytical case. The Chinese, when digging shafts in California gold-mines, never made four sharp comers but, with great effort, built roundedcomersto the tunnels.This was because 'Devils come in at the comers'.The four comers,as representedin this study, are: Ego

Anima

Real family

Archetypes

Thesefour aspectsremain the problematicof the caseshouldthis patient continuehis analysislater on. The patient is at presentstill in the mood of the ego-demandingsubject and plays mother to 44

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himself so as not to abandonthe Self. He is generousbecausehe wants to show how he ought to be treated with generosity.The therapeutic work managed to defuse and deflate the mana possession during the Transformation, but the work of building a strongerego needsto continue. The true Self can only be mediated by a strongand developedego. The ego should never be relativized back towardsthe Self until it hasattaineda maximal integrativeand interpretive development within a patient's personality. This developmentmay continue well into midlife and after until the ego may begin its individual relativization back towards and into the Self. In the caseI have presentedit was not always possiblefor the patient to fully reach the symbolically presented development stages hinted at within the sandplays. Where a new order of energieswas achievedby the patient, however,one can speakof his changewithin personalrelationshipsas transformativegrowth. 2 THE STORY OF CLIVE: A YOUNG MAN IS HEALED OF TRAUMATIC CHILDHOOD EGO DAMAGE Analysts often work with men from the upper classes.As I work with men of every backgroundit seemsvaluable to presenta case from my archivesof a working-classman who had a difficult and inconclusive experience in analysis. However, he experienceda progressivesenseof gradualself-discoveringthrough the analytical process. In my recent book, Tlte Self in Early Cltildltood (RyceMenuhin 1988), I have dealt at greaterlength with the introduction to ego development than I intend to do here. Now I want to introduce, for the layman and laywoman, the problem of ego damagein men during the first half of life to preparethe readerfor the casestudy to follow. This section is in three parts. It looks at ego damagein the first half of life starting with the birth of the ego in infancy. The clinical caserevealshow ego damagecan continueinfluencingdevelopment throughoutthe first half of life. In summing up I will considerthe relationshipof psychotherapyand religion within the damagedego problematic.

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The ego in theory

Most Jungianstoday would postulatea primary whole or integrated state at birth which is the unconsciousself in its initial but undifferentiatedtotality. Consciousness can only arise if it is perceived through an ego-centre.'Deintegration'is the term Michael Fordham proposed for a spontaneousqivision of self which enables the building up of the ego to occur. As a bit of the self 'deintegrates'out to the external world of objects, it tries to match to archetypal imagesprojectedfrom inside the self. Later the ego comparesthese imageswith its memory storesas they develop.Our memory recognizes, differentiatesand recalls the internalized archetypalobjects and ego-fragmentsas they reintegrateback into self and its egocentre. This processreminds one of the spacewalks of the astronauts who leave the total life-system of their spaceships,or their selfenvironment,and go out to collect any recognizableor useful bits of the outer environment.They then bring back this information into their ego-laboratoryfor investigationand possibleassimilation.The astronautsdeintegratethemselves,so to speak,from the self-space of their ship and go into the unknown outer spacebringing back anything that matchessufficiently to their existing consciousness. This is measuredby their technical ego-machinesas, at the same time, their inner stateis also being monitored. This material builds up into a knowledgecentreabout spacein which their ego can pivot about weightlessly in ascertaining what has been discovered. Perceptionis not seenas just a passiveact but as an object-seeking activity moving aboutin psychologicalspace. Deintegrationby a baby, at first, is the statewhere he must find an object that exactly, or almostexactly, fits the inner image already archetypallypresent.The baby projectsthis imageoutwardsto find a matching object. Only when this match is reintegratedback into the new and growing ego can perceptionoccur in the first weeksof life. There is rough agreementbetween Piaget and Jung on this point. Piaget postulatesan inherited schemaalreadypresentin the child's psycheto which outer objects must relate for perceptionto happen. Jung goes further and says this global schemeof primal inner requirementsin the baby is the archetypalworld of the collective unconscious. This is like a many-faceted kaleidoscope of psychologicaltraits collectedfrom man'sentire history. As it develops, the ego becomes a great processing centre 46

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running twenty-four hours a day at differing intensities. It must handle all of the impinging input to consciousnesswhether from outside the body or from inside it. Freud discovereda repression systemwhich can make incoming contentsinoperative,and which can be resortedto when the input threatensthe new and weak ego of the baby. The ego adapts to the reception or the exclusion of stimuli dependingupon the considerationsof self-preservationof the ego as maintained by the repression system. According to Freud, 'repressionis not a defence mechanismpresent from the very beginning... it cannotoccur until a sharpdistinction hasbeen establishedbetween what is consciousand what is unconscious' (Freud1925). The immature ego of the child is particularly vulnerableto both internal and external dangers. It defends itself against overwhelming demands of the internal input such as threatening instinctual contentsfrom the collective unconscious.The child's ego is vulnerableto externaldangersbecause,althoughthe parentsmay ideally createa security for their baby'sego, the baby pays for this securityby fearing he may lose the love of his caretakers.This could renderhim helplessto many dangersof the outer world. Repression of these security fears as well as internalization of the primitive threats from parents influence the repression sequence.Every culture moulds parents'opinions as to what behaviourin the child shouldbe punished.Punishableideas,or memoriesrelating to ideas that are punished, would be what Freud consideredunpleasant contentthat might be repressed. Another example of the ways in which parents influence ego developmentboth positively and negatively can be found in the concept of the ego-ideal. The infant's identification with its long period of helplessness and dependenceupon the parentscreatesan internalization of this influence as an ego-ideal. Normally this begins with the mother and her nutritive role but the masculine side of early influence is further developednow that many fathers are tendingto take a more active role with babiesfrom their birth. It is fair to caution fathers, however,that their nurturanceof the baby may not be good enoughfor the initial needswithin the caretaking as experiencedby the baby and that men'sdesire to undertakethis task may involve their own paternalpsychopathology.Whateverthe parentingcontains,Freud has remindedus that the ego-idealgives a 'permanentexpressionof the influence of the parents'onto the child (Freud 1927). This absorption of influence by the ego-ideal

47

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spreadsto include siblings, relativesand close friends of the household. Jung maintained that the real mother evokes the mother archetypein the psychic structure of the child and that this can function independentlyof the mother's reality, as a compensating pyschic fact. The samewould be true of the instigation of the father type. lung writes: The danger is just this unconsciousidentity with the archetype: not only doesit exert a dominatinginfluence in the child by suggestion,it also causesthe sameunconsciousness in the child, so that it succumbsto the influencesfrom outsideand at the same time cannot oppose it from within. The more a father identifies with the archetype, the more unconscious and irresponsible,indeedpsychotic,both he and his child will be. (Jung1961b, p. 316) To preventthis, both parentsneeda strong identification with their child so that the frustrationsof reality will only be experiencedby the baby in a strength, and, at the time his developing ego can actually manageto cope. Whatever the parenting, the ego-ideal is inferred from the mother and father or their substitutesand influencesthe development betweenthe infant and other individuals. This influence hasa hierarchical, conservativeand authoritative tendency within the ego. It is experiencedwithin the ego. It is experiencedby the infant throughoutthe discipline and learnedstricturesof behaviourfrom the parentsor caretakers.This influence of the ego-idealcontinues to operate,with modification, throughoutlife. lung comments: Generally speaking,all the life which the parentscould have lived but of which they thwarted themselvesfor artificial motivesis passedon to the children in substituteform. That is to say, the children are driven unconsciouslyin a direction that is intended to compensatefor everything that was unfulfilled in the lives of their parents. (Jung1954a,p. 191) As the original unity of the self gets split up into growing islandsof ego-consciousness, the child begins to say 'I' and the early egopersonalitybeginsto ask 'Why?'. With this question'Why?', the ego beginsanotherstageof adaptationto new and unknown conditions which is the purely cognitive quest - the wanting to know. This is 48

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not just knowing the biologic condition of the self and its defencesabout which Anna Freud, Michael Fordham,Otto Kernberg, Heinz Kohut, and Leopold Stein have told us much - but the start of a discriminationwithin the ego'spossibilitiesto separateand sort out and classify its cultural environment,as Winnicott has brought to our attention.The child beginsto use the ego to wonderboth about the causeand the effect of eventsand what their purposemight be. This leads on eventually to the concernwith possiblemeaningsin our life and our relation to the creatingenergyof the universeas a whole or to God as the supremelife-force. Jungiansbelieve that this developing ego-consciousness has its depthof psychologicalbeing in the mythical imagesof the collective unconscious.GerhardAdler writes: The great collective images of the past are still so near and powerful in the case of a child that his first task is to free himself from the fascination of their super-personalpower, and in conflict with theseforces he must forge his own small personality,thus extricatingand developinghis still very fragmentaryindividual ego. This decisivedevelopmentaway from a stateof identification with collective psychic contentsinto a sharply individual ego which has to experienceand recreate the inner and outer realities, the whole of the world, psychologically speaking,would be non-existent. (Adler 1966) There is thus a tremendoustension betweenour original natural condition and that of a matureego-consciousness. The ego is broughtinto dangerduring its developmentin several ways. First, ego damagemay occur if the parentalarchetypeswhich are projectedon the real parentshave to be withdrawn becauseof the ego'srealizationthat the imperfectionsand failures of the actual parentsdon't match the archetypalimage. Second, splitting may occur if the ego-ideal operatesonto the total ego with undiminishedprimal force. The more the existentially relatedego-centregraspsthat the establishedimagesof the parents were not the reality, the more it tries to withdraw and split off from the ego-ideal'spressures.Often the ego regresseswhen it needsan earlier level of integration to escapethis split and to start again from an ego-unitor its initial infantile wholenessof self. Third, where the parents were largely unavailableas mothers and fathers, the ego may needa narcissisticmirror-imageto hold it

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from disintegration. For such children, a father's anger may make the child believe in a vengeful and punitive God, Yahweh, casting them into the wilderness.Where the mother'scapacity to respond to her infant by being a mirror to him is not good enough,the child may fail to develop a healthy experienceof himself so that 'J' can become'me'. Pathologicallevels of damageto the parents'image in the child's psychelead to an intensealienation and enfeebledself. This includes the resultant sense of envy and hatred of others whom he considersmore fortunatethan himself. Fourth, the ego's problems are by no means over when it succeedsin starting to integratethe unconsciouscontentsinto the existing ego-personality.This processcan lead to various psychopathologies:neurotic dissociations,schizophrenicfragmentationor, in the extreme,ego dissolutionwith a blind take-overof contagious preconsciousideas. If the ego structure is strong enough to withstand the pressure of the assimilation of unconsciouscontents, someonewho has an overly ego-centricwill may feel paralysedby the new vitalization of the self's personality. This can act as a compensatoryfunction to ego-consciousness itself. Inflation and a manapersonalitymay result. When the damagedor weak ego is not psychologicallyrepaired, the ongoing result is well illustrated by the clinical caseI want to share.This casehistory speaksfor itself as an exampleof how ego damagecan thwart normal developmentthroughoutthe first half of life. It will be helpful to considerdream material, sexual facts and the role of religion in psychotherapywithin this real-life sampleof ego damage. We are ready to consider the question: 'Whateverhappenedto this analysand'sego?'

Ego in a clinical case The facts, but not the ideation, have beentotally alteredin this case presentationso that any resemblanceto personsliving or dead is purely coincidental.The analysand,whom I shall refer to in alias as 'Clive', hasgiven me permissionto publish this casein this form for which I am grateful. Clive presented a narcissistic character disorder involving unconsciousbitternessover his origins and early life experience,a compulsive and unhappy sexual pattern and great ambivalence towards his birthplace, Cornwall. Clive began therapy with me in

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his early thirties. He describedhimself asan out-of-work actor and was employedas a clerk in a factory. Upon enteringanalysis,Clive wanted help in understandinghis dreams.He had recently had a recurrentdreamwhich made himfearful of being self-destructive. Clive was the firstborn of severalchildren. His father had mostly worked abroad and had been away throughout Clive's early boyhood. Traumatic experiencesduring World War II causedthe father repeatedillnesses when he returned home. Shortly before Clive was born his mother contractedseverepneumoniaand was hospitalizedand put on the critical list. Mother and child were in labour three days and Clive was born only half-consciousand choking. He contractedwhoopingcough during his secondweek in the special-careunit and was separatedfrom his mother for several weeks. He was nursedby a Cornish wet-nurse.Still today Clive is always afraid of lung diseaseand his voice is a problem to him in acting. He tendsto feel panic in his vocal chordsand oppressionin his chest. In the yearsfollowing his birth, severalchildren were born to the family. As Clive's father was chronically ill, his mother commuted daily to a nearbytown for work. For a decadeCHve was principally raised by a severe, animus-riddencousin. She inflicted regular punishmentupon Clive by making him dressin girls' clothing for a day and endure the chides of his younger sibHngs and the neighbours.Clive describeshis cousinas 'tough, devouring,brazen, evil, matriarchal and monstrous'.Dressingin women's clothing in no way shook the boy's heterosexualfuture in general, but, in particular, it madeClive wary of a woman'sauthoritativetendencies be they controlling or influencing. He used his imagination recklessly and his fantasiesand visions were powerful. He wanted to becomean actor to escapehis household,especiallyas his father kept insisting he shouldbecomean accountantor a solicitor. He was unsuitedfor thesetasks.I quotefrom D.H. Lawrence(1922): 'Let us bewareand bewareand bewareof having a high ideal for ourselves. But particularly let us beware of having a high ideal for our children. So doing, we damn them.' Clive did not finish collegeor acting schoolbut he did manageto join a small theatrecompanyand play in the provinces.He eventually drifted to the Easternbloc and had a passingaffair with the daughterof a friend. He returned to a city in the Midlands and made a local girl pregnantwhom he then married, a marriagethat lastedeighteenmonths.Clive convertedto the girl's religion at that 51

JUNGIAN SANDI'LAY

time, having tried several faiths. A healthy son was born to the couple but Clive's wife had radical political connections which frightened Clive away. Coming to the south of England, he found clerical work, which he hatedand which didn't pay enoughfor him to keep up with alimony payments or his son's partial support. Neither before nor after his eventual divorce would Clive fully acknowledgeresponsibility towards his son. He defaulted on his upkeeppaymentswith minimal apparentconcern. The therapy began with my awarenessthat Clive had never known the feeling of experiencinga relationship.He presentedas a neurotic, narcissistic personality, an intuitive feeling type with moderatedepression.This depressionwas held back in the sessions behind a bright, if false, persona.His personahad some wit and charm and theatricalsophistication. With his mother and father so sadly absent as good-enough parents during Clive's infancy, I was confronted with a severely damagedego trying to defend against a mostly absent mother, a negative father and a fear of the witch-bitch cousin. This ego damageled to severalprimitive agoniesthat developwhen parents or caretakershave not supplied an auxiliary ego-function during the time of a baby's absolute dependence.Winnicott (1974) lists samplesof theseagonies,the following of which Clive exhibited: A B C

Falling for ever. (Defence:self-holding.) Loss of psychosomatic collusion, failure of indwelling. (Defence:depersonalization.) Loss of sense of real. (Defence: exploitation of primary narcissism.)

At comprehensiveschool Clive had been kicked out at sixteen because of sexual exhibitionism. Behind this, I learned of a relationship to his penis that made one think he used his sexual organ as a transitional object, or a part-self object, in an effort to gain the autonomy which was missing in his weak and damaged ego. His penis representedan early 'not-mother' object but later, unfortunately,also seemedto be a 'not-me' object as well. This led to separatingthe penile erection from the whole person in sexual image (e.g. masturbatory).Normally an orgasmcan 'throw together' and reconsolidateboundariesin the self, but for Clive compulsive masturbationkept him in a boundary-lessphallic fantasy, robbing him of those very qualities of an erect, virile and creative personality that less compulsive sexuality might enhance.Clive became

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promiscuouswith women in his middle twenties and found he could delay or even refrain from orgasm during very prolonged intercourse. I see this as his inability to feel relationship and to commit or even sharehis orgasmpsychosomatically. It can be seen in this case that self-holding and the loss of psychosomaticcollusion (using Winnicott's language)leads to the defenceof depersonalizationin sexual life. At the extreme,Clive's sexual detachmentbecamesadistic. He could pick up women he found very ugly deliberately to seducethem once and never see them again. He usually chosewomen for sex, however, who were attractive and who had money which he could 'borrow' to pay debts and to loan to a favourite mistress of the moment. His personathrough all of this was always basically the same: bright, pleasant,humour-filled, off-hand and almost innocent.His persona was split off from his actual actions, but it held up from his own point of view as many peopletook him at face value. With thesenarcissisticsexualproblemsin mind I want to look at specific dream material which illustrates developmentsupon other themes in the analysis. The dreams, in order of appearance,will include: 1 2 3 4

Inflation of the anima The depressive,weak ego The birth traumareparation The shadow.

The dreamswere vital to interpretationas little changedexternally in Clive's life during the first year of therapeuticwork. He moved house once, moved mistressestwice and never moved sessions,always arriving on time. For the first ten months he continuedto work as a clerk.

Dream number 1 The first dreamClive brought in was describedas follows: A leading womanTV newscasterfrom BBC 1 was standingin a deserted television soundstage.She began climbing the laddersup above the stage until she was near the roof. She called out, 'It's all too high, it's dangerous'.A man appeared who was her TV producerand, dripping with malice, said, 'It's all right, love'. The woman fell off to her death.

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We may say that Clive's anima, as an actor, is representedby the female star of newscasting.In popular terms, TV setsare known as 'the box'. The box is a feminine symbol which can refer to the unconsciousness anima. TV is rather like Pandora'sbox in the sense of its unexpected, excessive and destructive potentialities. The anima climbs the high ladderof TV successin a kind of imaginative exultation. The producer, representingauthoritativeexploitation in general, sadistically leads the anima on to its death fall. Clive associatedto his hatred of theatrical producers,his longing for TV work and his jealousy of successful TV personalities from an attitude revealing an anima inflation. We can liken the fall in the dream to man's Fall: 'Man died ... becausehis inner desires bursting out from the inner fiery centre... tendedtowardsexternal and temporarybirth' O. Boehme1682). Clive never worked at his acting; he did not perfect his voice, learn roles off-stageor try to direct. He wanted cheapand vaulted successon television as a reflection of an inflated anima. The TV woman, personallyunknown but collectively known as a celebrity, becomesthe beloved siren, who leads Clive's anima away from reality by enchantmentand enticement. Clive's reaction to the dream was revealing. He neither coldly detached himself from its horror, in the manner of borderline narcissisticcases(of which he was not one), nor did he react with much feeling to the woman'sdeathfall in the dreams.Diagnostically this suggestedhis negativenarcissismwas not at pathologicallevel. Insteadit had to do with a defensiveand highly neuroticizedset of complexes involving his early family history. This led him to problems in connectingwith the issues the unconsciousbrought forward in his dreams.

Dream number 2 At the sametime Clive was moderatelydepressiveand a dreamset upon Bodmin Moor suggeststhe beginning of understandingand growth basedon a knowledgeof the opposites.The dream reveals Clive's weak ego but it also hints theremay be a possibility to grasp some self-knowledge potentially. Clive described this dream in session20 as follows: I am standing upon a wintry Bodmin Moor. I am peering ahead to determine if it is snowing. Yes, it is; the hills are 54

Plair "I

Plate 2

Plaid

Plale 4

Plat/' 5

Plat/'6

PIQIt' 7

Plate 8

Plale9

Plate 10

Plate 11

PialI' 12

Plule 13

Plale 14

Plate 15

Plate 16

PialI' 1

7

Pla/(' 18

Pla/e 19

Pla/f20

Plate 21

Platell

Platell

Pla/e 24

Pla/e 25

Plale26

Plale 27

PIRIt! 28

Plale29

P/a/e30

Plal(' 31

Plalc32

P/ah' JJ

WORKING IN THE SANDI'LAY ROOM

whitening. The Duke of Edinburgh appears.I greet him and we speaktogether, I tell him that I want to write. The Duke answers,'Writing allows you to enter the inside of life'. The Duke walks aheadand scalesa high hill. We discussChrist and Moral Rearmamenttogether. The Duke asks, 'What do you have against Moral Rearmament?'I answer, 'I feel it's wrong but I don't know why'. Here we see two men at opposite ends of a social spectrum: a working-classCornish actor and the father of the Duke of Cornwall. To offset this difference, Clive claims he can write and the Duke admits Clive might get inside of life that way. Royals, to a certain extent, are always partly held outside normal life in the countries they represent,exceptin their ceremonialcapacitywhen they carry all of society symbolically. The discussionabout Christ and Moral Rearmamentsuggests the self and how to place the self into spiritual movementsas an ongoing problem. This may not be only one of Clive's problems but a collective problem that men everywhere might talk about. Bodmin Moor, for Clive, is coveredwith a chill; the white snow hides the green tundra symbolizing Clive's alienation from his beginnings.He has searchedin other countries to find identity. He has nothing to say to the Duke of Edinburgh about Cornwall. The whitening of the hills also suggestsalbedo,or the first transmutation to quicksilver, in the alchemical process. There is some sense,too, to conjunction betweenthe male principle, representedby the Duke, and the unconsciousfeminine, representedby the motherland of Cornwall and the Muses of writing. TheseMuses,suchas Calliope, Erato and Thalia frequented Mount Olympus and hence could lead to an inflated anima. The symbolic inner union of male and female principles, representedin myth by the union betweenApollo and certain of the Muses,would be one of the goals for the entire analysis. The easewith which the Duke scalesa high hill may refer to an inner loftiness of spirit, and, in alchemy, it would suggesta hollow mountain in which the 'philosopher'soven' is contained.The white mountainmay also refer to the fixed position of the pole star linked to the polar mountainwhich bearsthe symbolismof the world-axis. When I asked Clive why he didn't like Moral Rearmament,he replied, 'Oh, they are all from the upper class'. Clive's depression hoveredabout his frustrationsconcerninghis classbackgroundand his inability to securean adequatefoothold in general society. His

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narcissism,of course,constantlyworked againstthis as well. This was only the third month of analysisand I did not interpret very much to Clive. Clive was able to talk about his ambivalenceto growing up in Cornwall which was a relieving element to his catharsisat the time. With care, it also seemedsuitableto confirm to Clive that he did have some depressionbehind his quite cheerful persona.It was a free-floating depressionwhich often blocked his memoryof real life .

Dream number3 The next dream was valuable becauseit helped the repair and reparationof Clive's severebirth trauma.Clive describedthis dream in the 34th sessionin a painedand hushedvoice: There is a huge stone vagina. It has scorch marks on its internal sides and I hear animal sound of suffering. I am feeling terrible pain. A tiny infant is born burnt to charcoal. An angel appears,saying, 'I am light.' She holds and bathes the child with oils. There is an anacondasnake just waiting nearby,a blessedsnakethat is praying. As the snakeopensits mouth waters gush out. The waters are silken and healing watersand they are washedback up through the vagina. The horrors of Clive's three days in labour are contrastedhere with the healing powers of the unconscious.The anacondais a snake that likes both water and land. It is a symbolic unifier of conscious and unconsciousand has the power to transform the birth canal into a placeof silken moisture. This is also a referenceto the penis and its power to influence vaginal fluids. The angel may representthe unknown wet-nurse who bathed and fed Clive for the first weeks of his life. If so, it suggeststhat Clive managedto contain massiveanxietieswhen his mother was separatedfrom him by 'worshipping' the healing manifestationof the unknown woman from anotherdimension,the wet-nurse'angel'. The waters gushing from the anacondasuggest the maternal,the preserverof life circulating in rain, sap, milk and blood. Water symbolism concerns the struggle of the psyche to formulate a clear messagefor the consciousmind. The struggle of Clive's actual birth was reconstellatedin the dream and partly healed through the symbolic waters from the anaconda.This aids the solutio and distil/atio in the alchemicalprocess. 56

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There was a sensein which Clive's transferenceto me deepened at this time: he had never trustedanyoneor finished any project he undertookand the next period of the analysiswas developmental. He was more present and seemedpartly changed. His personal characterdid not changebut his grasp of verbal associationswas clearerand freer. He was more relaxedand brought more of himself into the sessions.

Dream number4 In a dream from session37 Clive's alter-egoappears:in the dream Clive is followed by a man who looks like him onto a tube train. Clive tries to escapehis look-alike by saying he is going 'in the wrong direction'. The next station is the end of the line. Clive walks into an area of tenementflats and into nearby countryside. The other man hasa housein which Clive's motheralso lives. Clive goes into the houseand meetshis mother, who, unlike her actual appearance,is tall and blond. She wearsa pricelessdiamondchoker. (This reminds one of how Clive's faulty ambition chokeshim. His empty hopes and daydreamswere never based on a solid ground of preparationand experience.) In the dreamit developsthat his mother is a widow and that her late husband had been Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi war criminal. Clive transmutes into Eichmann himself and three jet-black brothers wait to attack him. Although Clive has two white bodyguards,Clive-alias-Eichmannhas his headslashedwith a razor. He escapesfurther attacksand will recover. Clive can no longer escapehis shadow entirely. His alter-ego shows him his mother as a beguiling and bejewelledlady. When a mother who has been unobtainableor unmothering becomesan exciting object, the ego is damaged,needing a more dependable relationship. This may lead in adult life to over-dependency, compulsivesexualityand a needfor constantappreciation.Clive fell into this category. The presenceof the sadistic Eichmann as both father and son, like an anti-Christ shadow, confirms the darker aspectsof Clive's behaviourpatterns.The three black brothersare the alter-egosof Clive and his two body-guards.They all seemto be colluding in shadow opposition against their unsupportive and unwell father, except for Clive alone. In reality, Clive sometimes took his father'spart at the risk of falling into his father'sshadowto do so. 57

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A synchronicity with the I Ching

At session42, a synchronicity had occurred which causedme to reflect about the case. Clive consulted the I CJlillg and threw Hexagram42 named the 'I/Increase'.I noticed that he brought in Hexagram 42 to our session number 42. The odds against this numerical synchronicityare great. This alerted me and I calculated changinglines from his throws which moved to Hexagram58, the 'Joyous/Lake'.Clive's questionwas to ask the I Ching if he should go abroad permanently or remain in London. This obviously indirectly referred to whether or not to continue the analysis. Therefore I was involved and I took a closer look at the Chinese oracle. I noticed that the lower trigram of Hexagram42 concernsthe first son which fits Clive, but not me, as I am a secondson. The changingHnes tried to correctan unfavourablerelation to the upper trigram which concernsspirit, or anima, and the way it can help the world. If what was needed in session 42 of the therapy was a changeto Hexagram58, then perhapsmy counter-transference was involved with the changing lines. These lines concernedthe need for a firmness in the middle way, a resolve over doubts and the danger.I saw the doubt and the dangerfor my task as being Clive's generalnarcissisticarrest.The I Ching reportedthat the dangerwas strongly enough underpinned. Although that encouraged me concerningmy counter-transference at the time, Clive's Hexagram 42 suggestedthat his unfavourableanima was a problem in his transferenceto the situation (which included his transferenceto me). I tried to further incorporate this fact into my countertransferenceand I madean effort to defusethis negativity in Clive through a more consciousposition in my analytical stance.Not only did the I Ching help me to analysethe transferencebut it gave me advice for my counter-transference. This was achievedby studying both the Hexagrams and perusing how the situation moved between them and relating that to the transference/countertransferencesituationas it movedbetweenus in the therapy. The archetypal intervention of the sandplay

J have turned to occasional use of the sandplay in this analysis becausethe absenceof the maternal temenos had given Clive's psychethe menaceof an open space.His ego didn't have a protective

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temenosaround it. Although he was not agoraphobic,his environment always seemedto operatelike a threateningvoid. The sandbox is a free but protectedspace, with its four sides acting like clear boundaries.As the unconsciousarchetypal union of the parents had been frustrated by early eventsin Clive's infancy, I wanted to use the sandplayto help constellatea more holding temenossince Clive's verbalizationwas'all over the place' and eminently vagueif volatile. Gerhard Adler writes on the negative mother problem and quote: The actual mother has proved insufficient, and has thus constellatedthe negativegreat mother. Then the infant finds it too difficult to identify with mother and suffers from lack of primal containment.In the end the infant has not succeeded in producinga secureenoughego, and the ego is, as it were, left without its proper skin, without its own protective temenos. (Adler 1979) The sandplaysClive made during his therapy representeda generalimage of the situation at the exact point in time when each was made. When he began the analysis, his father and mother archetypeshad not been projectedin image, through the ego, onto the real parents.Neumann,in his book The Child (1973), calls such an ego situation the 'distress-ego'.This distress-ego,which is what Clive brought into analysis, compensatesfor its weak position by wanting instant gratification and by having a low thresholdto the toleranceof frustration. Clive walked out of jobs more than once simply through frustration. That he needed money for alimony paymentsnever botheredhim. Meier-Seethaler(1982) has written that when a mother (and in this casea cousin) has rejecteda child, they convey to it a 'basic feeling that the world is unlovable... also the conviction that the child is not deservingof love'. The reinforcement of narcissisticself-consciousness representsa defenceagainst the Terrible Mother. Guilt feelings accompanythis and a vicious circle developswhich Neumann (1973) describesin this way: ' ... ego-rigidity, aggressionand negativism alternate with feelings of forsakenness, inferiority and unlovedness,each set of feelings ot~er'. Forsakennessexacerbatesthe ego to egointensifying the Platell centricity and narcissisticfunctioning. 59

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The sandplays I want to describebriefly the four sandplaysClive made.This work indicatesthe way a Jungiananalyst can combine the use of verbal therapy and sandplaymaterial. What is achievedhere shows how separateand yet how concurrentand important the sum of both techniquescan be to the analytical work. If the dreamscentredon the healing of childhood wounding, the sandplayssort out archetypal images in symbolic statementsof basic importance to the interpretationof the 'distress-ego'so apparentin this case.

Sandplay1 We seein the first sandplaymadeduring the third week of analysis a great movementdiagonally acrossthe box from the lower lefthand corner to the upper right-hand corner (see Plate 9). From the depths of the archetypal left corner a red stone with the Great Mother's face looking at the bridge is before the three stacked stones.Two woodenceremonialanimalsguardthe GreatMother; an Indian horseand elephantsuggestinggreatsustainingpower in this archetypalimage. We have seenthe patient'smotherrelationshipto be negativeso we can assumethat the child beingborn in the centre needs to be the symbolic child, the historical child and the child needingrestorationwithin the analytic and sandplayprocess. Animals and fighters move from the direction of the negative archetypalmother to struggle in order to free consciousnessfrom the grip of the unconscious.There is great libido within the figures in the lower right corner moving up towards the distressedand battle-tornego areaof the upper right corner. On the left the golden turtle suggeststhe slow natural evolution of archetypalimagesthat are making a slow marchacrossthe space to the ego-centre.The turtle has the roundedtop of heavenand the squarebottom of the earth; this suggeststhe lubricity of the female vulva which in alchemyrepresentsthe massaconfusa! The salamanderon the bridge is a lizard inhabiting the element of fire. It gives a paroxismof the indulged imaginationthat created the picture. Around the distressedego-areaare the stag and the brown horse,both mediatorsof energiesbetweenheavenand earth. The stag representsthe cyclic regenerationof life with the cycle of the antlersthat come and go. The monstersshow the dangerof destructionby women upon

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the patient. They are base powers seething in anger with high libido. The ego-corneris one step from chaosand the fascinationof evil per se within the patient. The bright orange flame is an eruption of panic in the ego. Behind it is the tree of life, an inexhaustible(generic) force of the life of the cosmosin an upward trend. The tree of life was guarded by monstersat the East Gate of the BabylonianHeaven(i.e., this is the east side of the sandbox).This life-tree was thought to contain the knowledge of both good and evil. As such, the tree can be considereda crossof redemption. In many ways the first picture is prognostic. It shows the problem of the negative mother and other forces of inner conflict and rage. It suggeststhat only a new symbolic birth can preventthe fiery distress of forces from impinging upon a distressedand confusedego. Sandplay 2

The arresting study of the anima condition was made after three monthsof therapy. At the far left of the uppercomera lion, demure with a purple necklace, rests by the stone like the solar lion guarding the Ark in Egypt (see Plate 10). He marks the death/ rebirth place of anima in the patient's psyche. As forces of great libido pour out from the crypt, there is dangerif the monsterswere to turn around.But they spew forth into the free psychic space. The hippopotamusrepresentsthe mother principle becoming reborn within psyche.The bear and the ape-mansuggestperilous aspectsof the instincts of the unconscious,which remain cruel, crude and destructivewithin the anima'sdynamic force-field. Hopefully this incredibly strong catharsisof anima elementswill enable the mother hippo to start a more positive anima development within the personalitystructureof the client. Until now the sado-masochistictendenciesin the patient have tendedto overrule less neurotic possibilities and the tendenciesrepresentedby the solar lion. This is a very clear evocation of the male negative anima in image- the clearestpicture in my entire archivesrevealinga mostly negativeanima.

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Sandplay 3

After six months the patient constructedthis sandplay which he entitled 'The land of the archetypes'(seePlate11). The patient crossesa bridge to the temenosor central core of a place where he conceptualizesseveralarchetypalimages.A carved golden gate marks the entrance.To the upper left, the standingslab of greenstone'representsmy mother and the dark grey hat-stone representsmy father'. Behind the dry screenof the honeycombis a beautiful multi-colouredglass piece; it is the 'sourceof all I would like to do and be. It is placedon a golden tray', said Clive. The dried-out honeycombcertainly suggeststhat the cruel and extremely difficult personal circumstancesof the patient need 'a tasteof honey' - if ever a patientdid, Clive did. The multi-coloured stonemay representthe anima in its potentialflowering and transformation. This had not happenedat the time of the sandplaybut projectivematerial of this kind often presagesdevelopmentalpossibility by many monthsand indicatesthe patient'saspiration as well. The man in the sandplayis free to move in any direction he may wish in this reunification of an archetypalgroundwithin the client. This sandplayis a temenosof Self. Sandplay4

At ten months a mandalaconstructionis dominatedby the urchin shell (seePlate 12). Urchin shells are consideredto bring good luck to a journey. They are thought to have a mystic centre whichrises upwards like a new generation rising out of the death of the precedingone. In its interior the urchin shell contains a five-sided starfish. This five-sidednessdoes not yet point to the spiritual solidarity of quaternity symbols but the five-sided figure is believed to rise up towards the point of origin. I believe that is what religious feeling does dynamically. The starfish is a fertility source and clearly relatedto the aspectsof the moon. Thesecentralsymbolicalideasfit the patientvery well. To the right of the centre is a working man (the patient), a woman and a lion. The lion is tame and moving on the left side of the patient. Thesefigures are flanked from behindby the dried-out honeycomband the dark stonehat of the father from the previous sandplay.Red Indians are threateningthem from acrossthe water. 62

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Stonesand a crystalline the left side of the box. The lion is reminiscentof the one in the secondsandplay.I see him as a masculineenergy relating to the integration of the client's negative anima problem. This sandplay suggeststhat repair and restorationhas actually begunof the childhood and later traumasin the patient'spsyche.

The ongoing situation The presentstate of therapy is in a hiatus. Clive went on holiday after leaving his job and did not return for many months due to family complicationsand his needto continuesearchingfor a path. He went abroadto a remote religious centrewhich may be a test of his religious beliefs. On the other hand, away-nesskeepshim from being suedfor back alimony payments,from his analysis,and from looking for further development.These negative attempts to free the individuality are neverbetter describedthan by lung in Volume VII. He mentionshow one can turn the superhumanresponsibility of the prophet one worships into the unworthinessof the humble disciple. lung describes mentallazinessas a virtuous baskingin the sun of a divine master. As to religious centres, the disciples may stick togetherthere, as lung writes, 'not out of love but for the very understandable purpose of effortlessly confirming their own convictions by engenderingthe air of collective agreement'Gung 1961app. 170-1). Before Clive went away he told me he could no longer maintain sexual promiscuity spiritually. This indicatesa first break-through towards the possible seeking of real relationship. In his letters, Clive spontaneouslyacknowledgesa shadow problem and a sense of a long individuation ahead.If this is real in him, and only time will test that, it would seemthat in spite of the enormousobstacle of a negative infantile narcissism,which was untreatedfor thirty years,there is a slow and quiet processof ego-strengthening in the therapeuticsituation. Clive has expressedgratitude for this. Clive eventually returnedfrom abroadand arrangedfor regular sessions to resume. At the secondsessionhe suddenlyannouncedhe was leaving for yet anotherreligious centreabroad.We partedcordially. Orthodox priests had told Clive that lung was an 'infidel'. He was not well enoughto realize that this allegationwas untrue.

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The ego in psychotherapythat includesthe religious instinct as such Each person must make his own experiments,his own mistakes and successesupon the path of life. There is error in each man's vision of life as no one has found the final truth. In the Western tradition, theology has been dominated either by tenets of belief (dogmaand doctrine) or by the 'imitatio Christi' relating more to the pieties of everydaylife and to the warmth between'I and Thou'. In doctrinal theology religion's imagescome under the control of the mind; in pietist theology, the meaningsof religion are felt to be very personal.In both these views the ego's perspectivesdominate the matter of interpretation. Personshaving ego damagewill use an ego-theologyas a defencemechanismto monopolizethe imaginal in religion and pull it away from the psychic individuation of soul. Both Freud and Jung believed, in their separateideations,that a scienceof the soul (in its theological aspect)could only be realized upon one'sown self. But such a way would be different ... from the approachof various pietisms, since it is not a matter of linking religious contentto ego'sbiographyor to personalexperience.Rather,it is a likening of the images of religion to the autonomous pathologiesof soul over which ego has little will-control and about which ego can make very little sense. (Miller 1980) Religious imagescan be used to further understandthe self. Jung's contribution in Psychologyand Religion (1969b) leaves one in no doubt about this. The heart/mind split can be healed when one sensesimaginally, combining both aspects,and religious image can help a healthy ego to achieve transpersonalideation. There is a strong case to support the idea that religious meaning is not so much located'in the historical past nor in the eschatologicalfuture, but hereand now, not in ego, but just whereego is wounded,where its perspectivesare deepenedsoul-wise'(Miller 1980). The dangerin Clive's spiritual searchwithin dogmaand possibly within piety is that a damagedego often settled for a religious compulsive neurosis. Psychic compulsion in Clive's travels may overcomethe naturalconsciousness of inner obligation to a spiritual life. All neurosispoints to a loss of reality. When Clive gave up the responsibilityto help his young son, he sidestepped a part of reality

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that should have been sufferedthrough. Insteadit was pushedback into the unconscious.Thus a developmentalphaseis avoided and psychic functions are correspondinglyunderdeveloped.This situation leads to a disassociationbetweenconsciousand unconscious which Clive neededto act out by leaving his analytical work as well as other relationshipsand which may result in 'psychic fragmentation, contradictory behaviour, even incomprehensibleinverse experienceand attitudes' (Rudin 1968, p. 161) In Clive's conscious strivings to love God and be united to Him, he may one day be able to offer God what his narcissisticego damageas yet preventshim offering Man. The neurosis of prolonged ego damage, where it remains consistentthroughoutthe first half of life, is a productof an underdevelopment of the authentic image of man. It can delay the connectionto consciousnessof the archetypalGod-imagelying in the groundof being in the collective unconscious.Thus the groundwork for the second half of life is in jeopardy. 'Among all my patientsin the secondhalf of life ... there has not beenone whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life' Oung 1933). In Jungiananalysis,the areaof religious image and its development approachesthe task of spiritual guidance whether analysts care to carry such a burden or not. It would behovethe religious practitionerto be awareof and use the unique relationship of psychotherapyand religion as much as it would behovecontemporaryJungiananalyststo reawaketo the fullness of their task -a task that can bond the religious outlook to a groundof psycl1010gicaibecomingboth in themselvesand in their patients. In this analytical case I have tried to indicate one way of working: my main emphasiswas on symbolic transformationand integration of dream material with child developmentseen as the unfolding of the archetypes which, in this case, was severely impededby the analysand'sego position. My client was, however, able to achieve a partial resolution of infantile fixations and complexeswithin an analysis which focused on the deepestand most genuineexperienceof the symbolic contentsof dreamsand of the archetypalimagesreleasedin the sandplays.

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3. THE STORY OF MARIE: A MATURE WOMAN IN GRIEF WORKS THROUGH HER MOURNING PROCESS

This is a caseinvolving a maturewoman who came to sandplayfor a specific reason:to work through grief, separationand mourning. A French woman of fifty years whom I shall name 'Marie' commutedto London to do a seriesof sandplays.It was after the death of her older sister 'Edith' that Marie wished to expressher deep grief and mourning within sandplaytherapy. Edith had died six monthsearlier from cancerafter a long illness. The two sisters were born of aristocratic parentsand grew up outside Versailles in an upper-bourgeoishouseholdand spenttheir young summers with their parents and friends on an ancestral wine-growing estatein the Ardeche. There Marie who had studied painting from an early age spent her days painting the southern French landscape. Edith was very extroverted and fun-loving althoughan excellentstudent,while Marie was artistic, seriousand thoughtful. Their quietly upper-classlife protectedtheir inseparable relationship which continued even after both married. Edith married an heir to a large country estatein lower Normandy and her husbandplayed the French stock exchangeand managedthe estate. Marie married a quiet medical student who rose up to become a leading eye surgeon in Paris connected to several hospitals.They lived in the ancestralhousein Versailleswhile Edith and her husbandlived in a triplex in the Quai d'Orsay in Paris. Each was the mother of two children and both retainedtheir childhood charactersand special closenesswith one another over the years.When Edith died, Marie was overwhelmedby grief. When Marie arrived I met a well-dressed,calm and sad woman. Her ChaneI suit was black. We spokeat length of the last monthsof her sister'ssuffering and of her last agony at her sister'sdeath. Her husbandand children had been sensitive to Marie's grief but she wanted to expressher feelings in a therapeuticsetting outside her own superb painting which had grown over the years to a professionallevel and thereforewas not the psychologicalmedium she needed to use in therapy. She began her sandplays at weekly intervals.

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Salldplay1 In this balancedand rich landscapewe get a diagnosticpreview of a positive prognosticresult to the sandplayprocess(seePlate13). Six ponds announcea deep link in the patient to the unconscious symbolizedby water and the invisible underwatercurrents. The relationshipof sisterto sisteris everywhereechoedin dyadic pairs: two storks, two swans, two gods at the centre top and two Chinesewomen in the upper centre. 'I am the lavenderChinesewoman in the centre,'said Marie. A devout Roman Catholic, Marie expressedher religious and philosophic awarenessby placing three Oriental goddessesacross the landscape:one is playing the mandolin, one is spinning and one is, like Kuang Lin, in repose.Thesefeminine aspectsof a meditative characterwill comeagain many times. Severalmale gods as ancientscribesand wise men line both the right and left edgesof the sandplay.Two male gods overlook the scenefrom the top. Marie's energiesare spiritualizedin her grief as evidencedby the white horseand the golden horse.The many birds are messengers betweenheavenand earth and the ten wise men are witnessesto the coming ritual expressionof grief. In the lower left an Indian chief with a full panoply of white feathersnext to a golden horsesuggestsenoughanimusstrengthin the patient to undertake the sandplay process to a positive conclusion. Animus is the psychic image in woman from her unconscious archetypal structure which underlies woman's 'masculine' aspects. The animus has great value as linking to Marie's creative potential and her individuation through the mourningprocess.Jungbelievedthe animusto be closelyassociated to the archetypeof meaningso that its projectedimagescontain a strongpsychicreality for the individual. Marie's use of the Indian chieftain suggeststhat her ego is leading and deciding, like a chieftain, what is best expressedin the sandplayand that the serieswill be basedon experience.I say this because traditionally the initiatory experiences of the Indian chieftains were believed to be difficult and required both achievement and wisdom. Near the turquoiseChineselions, a symbol of high defenceand guardedness, is an open sp~ce Platellor burial ground.This is the temenos of the separationand death experience.It representsboth this fact of the sister'sdeath and the sandplayspacein which the deepest 67

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healing needs to take place. On the lower left, a Chinese man is followed by a spirited Chinesewoman dancing. It is prognostically important that a stag is nearby, a symbol for a messengerof the gods often representingthe pure soul searchingfor re-baptism,the Grail, or the Way of Ascent. Rejuvenationis indicated by the stag's annually-newantlers.In Britain and sometimesin Franceantlersare placedon gravesto indicate that the deceasedwill have eternallife. A kangaroo with a baby in its pouch reaffirms the need in the patient for a rebirth experiencearising like a Phoenix out of the ashesof her grief-stricken psyche.

Sandplay2 A Chinesewoman who is the patient standsnext to her husband near the goldenhorseand a golden lamb (seePlate14). 'I want to lie down with the lamb,' said Marie. The lamb symbolizesgentleness, meeknessand purity. The theme of mystic rebirth surroundsthe unblemishedinnocenceof the lamb. Christ is suffering the passion and in the triumph of resurrection is 'living within' the golden lamb. Thereis also an importantChinesemeaningherefor the lamb indicates filial piety in the Far East. Both Edith and Marie had strongfamily piety in their love for one anotherand in their love of family. Here the Holy Family - Joseph,Mary and the Christ Child serveas a spiritual basisfor grappling with the pyramid tombstone of her sister. This is the eternalburial place, fit for a Pharaoh,and the white and gold animals nearby symbolize the spiritualized energiessurroundingthe atmosphere. On the left side is a well indicating the importanceof human bodily nourishmentduring the mourning process,and the camels approachit eagerly.They have survived the desert(or an experience of separationfrom life sourceor water) and they come also as the traditional mascotsof my sandplayroom becauseof their knowledgeof the sand!

Sandp/ay3 In the upper left-hand corner a golden screen and to its right, a golden obelisk form the backgroundfor seven male gods and in front of them, Marie's primal family: her mother, sister, and father (see Plate 15). To the lower left the three Chinese goddesses 68

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symbolizing the numberthree as the solution of a conflict posedby dualism, life or death. This echoesthe upturnedtriangle around the Christ Child, here on a crystal, archetypal plinth as the Eternal Child. Joseph and Mary have a family totem between them suggestingthe primal family of Marie is now three in number, not four. Three represents the growth of unity within but a problem stiII remains.The lion, or energic process, is leaving the tomb and walking away (upper right). Had the lion stayed with the Lamb (Christ Child) a paradoxical state would be indicated. But Marie is feeling a powerful problematic. The solar energy of the lion as masculine,hence her own animus,is leaving her psychicenergysystem.She is depressed and witnessing the end of the golden time when her family was whole and complete. The Indian chieftain is presentagain with a swan behindhim. A swan is solar and announcesthe dawn of day; its whitenessis sincerity, breadth,spirit, and it representsthe Virgin Mary. Someof the animusstrengthremainspresentin the swan and in the Indian chieftain. The supremeswan, the paramal1amrais the Self. As the female principle (it is hermaphroditicin essence)the swan is sacred to the goddessof death.

Sandplay4 The 'Grim Reaper'dominatesthe sandplay(see Plate 16). With a thrust of his arm holding the sword, mere mortals are cut down in death. Marie said, 'On the sevenplinth stonesis the story of what I must do'. Here the patient has a break-throughto self-knowledge and sensesthe task aheadin the therapy. Taking the objectson the plinths from left to right, first is the golden horse sitting on a blue egg. The cosmic egg of spiritual rebirth needsthe energiesof the golden horseto be born. Next is a red flowering cherry-treeand on the third plinth a white flowering apple-tree.Growth and flowering within the mourning processwill be neededto contendwith Edith's death. Next is the sereneQuang Lin statue,essenceof a complete and serenefemininity. On the fifth plinth a sageowl with red eyes sits. The owl representsdeath and wisdom as a night-bird gazing into the darknessof lonelinessand despair. Next comesthe peacock,'its glorious tail featherssymbolizingthe developmentand further flowering of the personalitywith distinctivenessand, as well, the immortality of a soul in Paradise.Moving

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backwardsto the right we have a stone with multi-coloured glass on top. I have found over the yearsthat women patientsmost often use this as a flowering of the animus, its baseor archetypalstone being topped with refracting coloured glass. A white cow and the goddess playing the mandolin are the feminine witnesses to a return of animus strengthas Marie faced the Grim Reaperwith her own stagesof developmentalindividuation. The empty shells suggesta path of austerelonelinessstill to be borne but three blue horsesoffer energiesof thinking and spiritual energy that lead up to the peacock with its green feathers of sensationfunction and its blue feathers resonatingwith thinking, healingand the sky of heavenas well as the deepblue sea. Sandplay 5

In the upper left-hand corner is a white Oriental fisherman representingthe age of Pisces,or of Christ in the West, and an echo of the Grim Reaperof the last sandplay(see Plate 17). The golden coffin of Edith is at his feet. A golden screenbacks a silver tree of life in the upper centre, in front of which two immortal glass love birds sit on a crystal representingeternal love which lives beyond the grave. Marie said, 'In front are seven problems again representedas animals. I don't know what they mean'. Starting with the white elephantin the centre, this is the animal that appearedto Queen Maya to announcethe birth of the Buddha. Compassion,love and kindnessare indicatedby the elephant,who is central to the other animals. The white elephant is solar, hence masculine, and here shows Marie's animus to be intact and a part of the processionof energiesrepresented. Starting with the left three animals, from lower to upper, the squirrel is a bringer of rain, water and snow. The nourishmentof the feminine through her sister is here denotedby Marie as now bereft and in need of replenishmentfrom other sources.Squirrels mean fertility in Japan,the very quality that grief makesone forget and become unaware of fertility's existence.The empty, freezing flatnessof grief needsan augury of watering. Next upwardsis the frog with greeneyes.The frog is both lunar and a rain-bringer. Marie needsthesetwo qualities restoredto her psyche.As a frog rises from the water to the land it is a renewalof life. Marie needs psychic resurrection. This frog's green eyes 70

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symbolize the reproductivepower of nature and may commenton Marie's longevity comparedto her sister. Above the frog is the rabbit, another lunar animal suggesting Marie's deep wound from the loss of feminine contact with Edith. The rabbit can live on the moon mythically and also with the Earth Mother. However, the rabbit is the trickster of the American Indians, so it can trick Marie's animus as she has twice used the Indian chieftain for her unconsciousmasculine spirit in earlier sandplays.As all the animalsare directed towards the right side of the box we can hope theseforces are becomingmore consciousto Marie. To the right of the elephant,from lower to higher, comesa black and white cow with a full udder. The cow suggeststhe Great Mother in her positive and negative characteristics.She is the maternal instinct nourishing all the moon goddessesin her lunar aspect.The cow is both celestial (moon) and chthonic (earth). Marie is the mother of two. Her maternal instincts reappearbut she too needsthe milk and rain of the Great Mother cow. In Egypt, Isis had a gilt-image of a cow at the mourning rites for Osiris. Above the cow is the blue horse. This is Marie's body with the spirit as site wilD would ride Iter. The horse pulls the sun chariot by day and is linked to Helios. In its magical element,the horsefigured in rain-making ceremoniesand in chthonic cults associatedwith burial rites. There is a senseof readinessfor action quite new to Marie in the mourning period, but remaining unconsciousas to what action to take, hence the sitting horse. The horse is also the tree of death,relating to the silver tree of life in the top centreof the sandplay. The modem Persian word for coffin means 'wooden horse'. The blue colour relates to the sea-blueas the unconscious and to qualities of rich, healing blue. The last animal is the resting lioness. Here the Magna-Mater,the Black Virgin, the All-Mother, Rhea,or Astarte symbolizeprotection and quiet nobility. Marie is protectedby a noble family heritageand this is supportiveto her belief in a future after the fierce sufferingof presentgrief. The lioness is her libido and is identical metaphorically with the flow of her total psychic energy. Six Western animals contrast sharply with the sacred white elephant from whose ear the Buddha was born. We see in this sandplaythe beginningof movementin those psychic forces which will be healing to the stasis of despair and loss which Marie has borne. 71

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Sandplay6 Now the patient begins to work through her problem using many figures from past sandplays(seePlate18). There is a senseof otherworldliness about this sandplay as all the figures are statuesor angelsexcept for five Chinesedolls that representMarie's relatives gatheredat Edith's grave in the lower left-hand comer. The love birds commandthe bottom centreof the picturewith three Chinese wise men standingbehind like a guard of honour. The centreof the sandplayis dominatedby a dark spire. 'This is the spire of deathin the land of death,'said Marie. Threepairs of birds surroundthe baseof the spire as messengers betweenearth and the land of death. Gatheredbehind theseis an unusualsemi-circleof male figures. Josephis the only recognizable one. The Virgin Mary has so honouredthis male group as to stand behind them, indicating as Queen of Heaven a deferenceto their specialtask in the land of death. Who are thesefigures? There is an important link here to the richesseof Egyptian belief about externalparts or figures that meet a man or woman in death. Thesefigures I believeto be projectedby Marie's psycheas a part of her psychic economy in dealing with other-worldly aspects of imagining her deadsister'spassage.I believe thesemale figures are the Sahu,the Ka, the Ba, the Khaibit, the Khu and the Sekhem. We know that the Egyptians believed in a future life. In all periods of researchinto the ancient pyramid texts, external existence is postulated. Immortality is the oldest Egyptian belief. To renew life in the Other World and exist for millions of yearswas the wish of everyone.The preservationof the corruptible body in the tomb was connectedto life in the world to come.This physicalbody was called khat. This body neitherleavesthe tomb nor reappearson earth. In the sandplay, the relatives and seven angels beside Edith's tomb, through the force of their prayerschangethe physical body to a spiritual body called sahu.The sahubody can conversewith the soul. It can ascendinto heavenand conversewith the Gods. In close connection to the physical and spiritual bodies was an abstract personality with an independentexistencewhich could unite or separatefrom the bodies at will; it was namedthe Ka. It was the movementand power which guidedthe fortunesof an individual in the hereafter.The tombsalwayshad specialchamberswherethe Ka

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was honoured.The Ka could eat food and drink. The Ba on the other hand was the 'heart-soul'of the deceased,a refined and etherealeternalbeing taking up any shapein heavenor earth it pleased. It could revisit the body in the grave or dwell amongperfectedsouls in heaven. The KIJaibit was the shadowof the dead person. It usually was thought to be the shade of the Ba and to accompanyit on its journeys. Prayerswere offered by mournersthat the Khaibit should neverbe fetteredbut always free to roam near to the soul. The KIIU was anothereternalaspectof the deadperson'sbeing in Eternity. It is a translucentspirit-soul, more shining and glorious than the Ba. The Khus of the gods lived in heavenand a person's Khu could join them immediatelyafter death. The Sekhemis vital power and exists amongthe Khus in heaven. It is associatedwith purity. Sir E.H. Wallis Budge (1960), late keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum, points out that there are no English expressions to convey adequatelywhat Sekhemmeansin its Egyptian conceptionexcept that the god Re was called the 'Great Sekhem', suggestingthe powerful elementwithin its meaning. Marie's six men may indicate thesesix parts of Edith's immortal nature. Put together they would resemble Edith's animus quite exactly in Egyptian belief. The fact that the Virgin standsbehind and aside from the male figures suggeststhese representationsare healing for Marie. The Virgin is the greatesthealerof these2,000 years togetherwith the Christ Himself, who is obliquely referred to in the pure white fisherman,the man of Piscesor the Christian era. It is by no means rare that a practising Christian will revive from the collective unconsciousthe sophisticatedpaganbeliefs of the Egyptian Arabs, a culture of supremeinsight and deepreligious fervour. The 'three Graces' look on from the top suggestinga multicultural Oriental trinity as an overview to the memorablesandplay. The sacredwhite elephantpresagingBuddha'sbirth movesmajestically towards the centre. Here, then, is a sandplayof Spirit and Hereafter. Sandplay 7

In the foregroundnine angelsfall down and are laid out on a bargelike ferry (see Plate 19). Are they dead?Can angelsdie? Marie just 73

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doesn'tknow. Above them are three preciousblue stones:the centre one rests by itself as the Philosopher'sStone, the stone beyond price of individuation within development.To the right the Virgin standson the stone,witnessingthe passageof the 'fallen' angels.To the left is the Chinesegoddesswith her mandolin. Just above and behind thesefeminine personageslies Joseph,seeminglyasleepand resting from his 'participation mystique' in so many of Marie's sandplays! Behind him is a brown plinth marking his place and then a high statue,at the top centre, of a Buddha headfrom Java. Now Buddha is given a human face in a shrine backed by the golden screen and two impressiveOriental blue columns. At the upper right-hand comer a white horse restsbeneatha small spire, an echo of the spire of death in the last sandplayand the spiritual energiesthat scenerequired from Marie's psyche. Sleep, tiredness, and a resting spirit pervadethis desert-likeatmosphere.Around the sleeping Josephthere are five green marbles, a colour of natural harmony,hope and of a returning sensationtowardslife to come. Sandplay8

Here the Egyptian boat holding Edith's body in heaven travels towards an egg-timer as a gravestonewith one of the male spirit figures from Sandplay6 standingover it (seePlate 20). In the upper right-hand comer Marie's ego is representedas a Chinese lion statue, frozen into a stasis of movementas she contemplatesher sister'spassageto the land of the unconsciouswhere Marie hopes Edith can be conscious.This boat was built by Marie in Franceto bring to London to show this memorableand evocative passage. The sandsof time in the egg-timer used as a gravestonesuggest sand as the arbiter of the bereavementand separationexperience that Marie is now beginningto contain. Sandplay 9

Marie said that the great high purple gate was 'the Gate of the Beyond to the Divine Mother's court' (see Plate 21). She brings a varied landscapeof rivers and lakes surroundedby many figures she consciouslyhas used in earlier sandplays.There is an atmosphere of joy in the reappearanceof many birds lining the sacred path to the Gate of the Beyond. In the lower right, two Chinese women personify Edith and Marie's bond. Josephand the Indian

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chieftain with his tepeeflanked by giraffes bring the masculineas witness.Two Chinesegoddessesin the lower left bring the feminine as witness. Beyond the gate where Edith must go is the Divine Mother with one of the male statues just before her. She is flanked by two peacocksshowingher royal status. In Indian mythology the Divine Mother (Mal1asakti) has three modes of being: (1) as the supremesakti who links the supreme creation to still unmanifestedmystery; (2) as She who createsall beingsand directs all of the millions of processesand forces; (3) as the living presencewho makes this alive and interposesbetween humanpersonalityand divine nature. So for Marie's part she is projecting a vision of judgementfor Edith from a Divine Mother and representsher in the Indian form rather than as the Virgin Mary, Queenof Heaven. Often sandplaypatientswill use Oriental figures to orient their own psychological processeswithin the sandplay. The Divine Mother of India is thought to be fully incarnatein every human mother and in the kundalini at the base of every human being's vertebralcolumn. Marie may well herself needthe graceof the Divine Mother and wish herself to go through the Gate of the Beyond. In the vivid energyand balanceso evident in this sandplay,one sensesMarie's depressionis lifting and her mourning beginning to give creative force to her sandplayexpression.

Sandplay10 In a sandplayof great power and beauty, Marie places the great solar disc overseeingthe grave of Edith (seePlate 22). Edith is seen as alabastersurroundedby white lights. Josephand six male gods look on as the exotic funeral processionleavesthe gravesidemoving across to the right side. Two Chinese goddessesstand near the grave as Josephprays. The sacredwhite elephantis near the five blue horsesand a five-level pagodademarksthe area above. The symbolism of five representsman who forms a pentagon with outstretchedarms and legs. The pentaclemeansthe whole. It is the Godheadas the central creator of the four great forces. The hieros gamosis the marriageof two (feminine) and three (masculine).Five also symbolizesthose forces coming alive in Marie as she is able to· begin to leave the burial site: meditative expression, religious

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feeling, and versatility in the sandplays,the quintessenceof which she hasexpressedhere. The upperleft-hand corner has the golden screenonce more, the Chinese lion and the pyramid with the green stone inside. The stone sharpensits essenceas does anything else enclosedwithin a pyramid.

Sandplay11 Here is an apotheosis.Marie resurrectsEdith and meetsher in the centreof the grave which is now elaboratedfurther as a final statement of transcendentreincarnation(seePlate 23). The use of trees, lights, gods and goddessesgives the grave a mystical quality of numinosity. The two peacockslook on from the realm of the Divine Mother (Sandplay9) and the five blue horsesfrolic near the silver tree of life. Sevenangelsflank the areawherefrom abovethe two sistersare seen again walking away from an Oriental village. In the lower right-hand corner a rickshaw and a green dancing lady with a golden turtle move slowly off the stageof Marie's imagination.This is farewell and reunion, death as continued life and a final statement of releaseand recollectionon Marie's part. Marie's work might be summed up in the words of Meister Eckhart: 'the soul is capableof knowing all things in her highest power', namely 'as a clear mirror one seesall things in one image', and so 'not until she knows all there is to be known doesshe cross over to the Unknown Good' (Evans1924, p. 419). This patient, a matureand balancedwoman of fifty, achievedher goal of release,recollectionand renewalas sandplayaddedpeaceof mind to her grief and mourning. Without words and away from all family influence, she found the meditative spacein the sandboxto express and discover her pent-up feelings and philosophy. A Roman Catholic, Marie found Oriental imagery which centredher aestheticand emotional use of the materials, a new experience. Marie expresseddeep gratitude for the sandplay therapy and returnedto Pariswith renewedego-strengthto go on living through her mourning. She had succeededin expressingessencein terms of her psychologicalexistenceand she affirmed in her constructionsa senseof the Platonic mortal and immortal status. Coomaraswamyreminds us, 'Our whole tradition everywhere affirms that there are two in us'; the Hebrew nefeshand ruah and 76

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the Islamic nafa and ruil, Philo's 'soul', Egyptian Pharaohand his Ka, Chinese outer and inner Sage, Psyche and Pneuma, and Vedantic atmall and 'self's Immortal Self'. The ultimate question accordingto Coomaraswamyis 'In whom, when I go hence,shall I be going forth? In my self, or its Immortal Self?' (Coomaraswamy 1977, p. 428).

In the words of Jalalu'd-DinRumi is one answer;'Die before you die'. All scriptures insist on freedom from self as spiritually essentialat the last. Marie's mourning for Edith was Marie's dying before she dies, and the sandplaygives a three-dimensionalrecord of that pilgrimage throughdarknessand heartbreak. 4. THE STORY OF AGNES: A YOUNG GIRL ENTERS PUBERTY AS HER PARENTS DIVORCE

Since we are all in a state of continual change,we normally mark adolescenceas a period of more rapid transition betweena stateof being a child and the state of gradually becoming an adult. Adolescentsfind themselvesin a marginal position between the former statusof the child and the future statusof the adult: they are neither. They are seen as so rapidly changing that their status is vague,ambiguousand sometimesdisorientatedfrom the viewpoint of generalsociety. A girl of fourteen was referred to me just as she awaited the inception of her menstruation.Her transitionalanxiety was greatly increasedas her parentshad announcedthey were divorcing just at that time. Although each of the girl's parentswas in analysis,with different Jungiananalysts,they inevitably burdenedmy patientand her youngersister of nine with a seriesof incidentsrelated to their separation,which added to their daughters'anxieties concerning changein the family unit. The older daughterasked if she could see a therapist and the mother'sanalyst made a referral to me for sandplaytherapy early one summer. Not only was my young patient, whom I shall call 'Agnes', madeanxiousby the adolescentcrisis of developmentwith its concomitantchallengeof menstruation,but the status she had enjoyedwithin her primal family was now in severeflux. Her father had a mistressand soon the two daughterswere to take a holiday with this couple, leaving their real and very depressedmother behind. 77

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Agnes fought thesechallengeswith a high degreeof striving. At home she cooked the evening meal each day after a long day at school because her mother was often unable to function and remainedin her bedroomin a depressedstatefor daysat a time. At school, Agnesmanagedher work but was not yet moving socially in the more extrovertedgroup shelongedto join. Sheactedin a young drama group every weekendand there seemedto find new friends and a more independentbehaviour, more outgoing than her usual introverted self-consciousness.Her special interests were the Frenchand Italian languagecoursesat school and her dreamwas to gain her independenceone day by becominga simultaneoustranslator. Her father was employed by governmentand she identified with his busy activity and earningpower, his independenceand his professionalsense.She also containedand comprehendeda part of her mother'ssuffering, to quite a remarkabledegree:this concerned me becauseher mother had been raped during the Germanarmy's occupationof her continental country of origin and was working through a difficult regressiveand withdrawn period in her own analysis. It was this that alerted her analyst to contactme about a possibledangerto Agnesof introjection of her mother'spersecutory anxieties, just when the threshold of adolescencegave Agnes an initiatory challangeand a potential sexualdevelopmentoperatingin its own time as her rightful development. Our working mode together was as follows: initial1y Agnes broughther dreambook and we looked at the dreammaterial, using at first associationsfrom Agnes which tended to remain focused upon her feelings of jealousy of other adolescentgirls. They were either more popular at school, or had stablehomes,or both. Agnes got up each morning at six o'clock to deliver newspapersto earn holiday money and she told me her impressionsof the pleasant, middle-classdistrict where shelived outsideof centralLondon. She had been given jurisdiction over her younger sister on weekday evenings, since her mother was heavily medicatedand her father often away, and this gave Agnes a truly heavy load of real responsibility. She presentedherself to me, in the first session,with considerable control and self-possession in what shedescribedabouther life and askedboth for sandplayand for talks abouther dreammaterial. Her stability was an ongoing reality; becauseso much was unintentionally denied her at home in this crisis situation, I did not deny her the mode of working in the sessionsshe askedfor which, 78

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theoretically, seemedto me too heavy-goingfor her at first. I am restricting my description of the case to her sandplaysbecauseI carefully phasedout someof the verbal therapy gradually over the summerand useda delayed-interpretationin sandplay(seeWeinrib 1983). In the beginning she needed dream work as well and I contained that using the holding and mirroring aspect of my working personalityprincipally. Here is her first sandplaydescription, madein the first session, which her father attendedfor the first ten minutes of joint discussion,after which he waited for Agnes in my waiting room. He did not attend the sessionsagain but brought Agnes by car (a onehour journey) once a week to my consulting rooms in central London. Sandplay 1

Agnes said that the green Chinesedancinglady crossingthe lower bridge in the upper left-hand comer was herself (seePlate 24). She was approachingher mother who neededa rickshaw to carry her 'as she is extremely tired and depressed'.The Oriental buildings behind Agnes are 'a village in which my houseis the smallestone along to the right'. Agnes said the walrus with tusks to the right at the top 'is my friend'. He can comeup out of the water and 'visit me at my house'.This indicatesthat an energythat can live in the water (or the unconscious)can be usedmore consciouslyand can move up onto the sandybeachand beyond. On the fishing boat Agnes said the fishermanwas her father. The home situation is indicated here. The father was supporting his family but a date had been set when he would move out and live with his mistress whom he intended to marry. This woman had been the best friend of his wife so Agnes was presentedwith the anxiety of continuing on in the family home with her mother and younger sisterwithout her father's daily presence.Thus an archetypal situationof primal family unity and securitywas to be broken and basic changewas imminent. It is interestingthat a large crystal is placedin an orchardof trees in the lower left-hand comer. lung believedthat in man'scollective unconsciousthere are primordial collective forms that influence the way consciousmaterial is experienced.Jung comparedthis to a crystal, which Agnes has used to indicate the depth of her archetypal image projectionof impendingprimal family change. 79

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The form of these archetypesis perhapscomparableto the axial systemof a crystal which predetermines... the crystalline formation in the saturated solution, without itself possessinga material existence.This existencefirst manifests itself in the way that ions and then the molecules arrange themselves... the axial system determines ... merely the stereometricstructures,not ... the concreteform of the individual crystal ... and just so the archetypepossesses... an invariable core of meaning that determines its manner of appearingalways only in principle, neverconcretely. (Jung 1939, p. 79) On the upper right above the boat we seean octopus.The octopus often heraldsthe spiral, a senseof ascentand descentin a patient's psyche as one begins sandplay for the first time. Related to the mystic centre,the octopusindicatesAgnes' potential fertility. She is waiting for and expectingher first menstrualperiod soon,but as yet she is pre-pubertalwith an intensely virginal quality of 'waiting'. Nature's fertility rituals are usually 'veiled' and a death sacrifice required. In Agnes' family, her mother is bedriddenby severeblack depression.Wailing and weeping as at a fertility rite are sounds Agnesknows well. In the sandplayshe greets her ailing mother on a bridge. This transitional bridge suggestsa passageduring the coming sandplay process that will bring Agnes both closer to her mother in her suffering but also closer to womanhoodthrough the expectedstart of menstruation. Underneath the friendly walrus are several cockle shells, It is said feminine symbols of Aphrodite and other sea-goddesses. that poetic imaginationcan 'sail' in cockle-shellboats.Here we have an indication of Agnes' expressiveuse of sandplayto come in a first sandplay containing a dynamic presaging of the new and more mature relationship she must reach with her mother and father placed so far apart on the left and right sidesof the sandplay. This first sandplay hints at the feminine pilgrimage Agnes will discover in the sandplayprocess.She will need to don a cockle-shell hat, metaphorically,as did the Galician pilgrims walking to Compostela in Spain to honour St James.It seemedto me her 'patron saint' would have to be the sandplaytherapy itself if not her therapist, too!

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Sandplay 2

Here Agnes descendsto a preverbal level and indicates how the family energies(as five blue horses)are now constellated(seePlate 25). The horsesare eacha family memberplus the father'smistress. This woman is cautiouslyacceptedor liked by Agnes, but more in a spirit of riding out the family storm with fondnesstowardsall than with total conviction at this stage. Of the three archaicstonecircles, the one to the right showsthe problemuppermostat subliminal level of projectionfor Agnes- her mother'S loss of her marriage. One blue horse standson a grave facing a plinth stone to timeless serenity marking the death of the mother'smarried relationshipto the father. This blue horse (as the mother'senergy) just managesto stand in desolationat the loss of the husband'slove and commitmentto the original family life and home. In the upper centre Agnes felt that possibly she and her sister were dealing also with somedepressionindicatedby the two dark grey half-buried stones.The blue horsewith its front legs on one of the dark stonesis a representationof Agnes' energyand overview of her younger sister'senergy. Agnes was in full chargeof cooking eveningmealsafter a long day at schooland shecommandeered her sister'shelp when possible. She preparedmeals on a tray for her bedriddenmother at this time and was showing a fine discipline, flexibility and energyto copewith theseextra and responsibledaily tasks. In the lower left-hand comer in a varied circle of stonesare two blue horseswhich Agnes thought might representher father and his new sexual partner. The horsesgo around on the stonesin a circle. There is an archaicarchetypalconfigurationand feel to these three primordial groupings;the grieving abandonedwife in middle age, the bond of kinship betweentwo young sistersand the eternal coniunctio of male and female as the primal base of human procreation,pastor present,prefiguring Agnes' entry to puberty. Agnes had dived deeply into her personal awarenessof the situation but her use of the stonesand the atmosphereof profound symbolism suggeststhat the collective unconsciousis projectedas well as the personal unconsciousin this powerful but desolate sandplay.A senseof dying to be reborn through depressiveexperienceis suggested. Agnes had to choosebetweena holiday with her father and his 81

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friend near the tors on Dartmoor or to stay with her ill mother. The beginningof splitting in her emotionallife was upon her. Sandplay 3

This sandplayhas the frozen quality of virginal waiting for the first pain of menstruationnot yet arrived for Agnes (see Plate 26). The Oriental image suggeststhat Agnes is orientating to her coming adulthoodin a kind of incubation. Agnes said that she is the central upper green lady walking towards the village. Her mother is representedboth on the horizon behind her in a rickshaw and ahead of her resting under a sun umbrella in a red dress. Agnes is here a water-carrier,a bringer of the sustenanceof the new feminine attitudes of her adolescent generation.She deeply respectedand comprehendedher mother's suffering at this time. She also knew that her ongoing relationship with her father dependedon her acceptinghis friend as a kind of 'other' relative. She went on holiday with her father as an act of security-seekingwith somemisgivings. On the frozen lake dominatedby a Chineselion statue,indicating a guardedspiritual island in the middle of the reflective water, two fishing-boats quietly float side by side. Agnes said this was herself and her sister waiting for an uncertainoutcome.High up in the upper left-hand comer a silver tree suggestsspiritual growth in the temenos-likevillage area in front where Agnes as carrier of the new feminine spirit must enter soon as a menstruatingfertile being. In 'The Landscape of Virginity' Robert Sardello (1982) has written, quoting John Layard, that 'virginity refers to the transformation of a basic instinct for union with the mother into a desire for spiritual union with the soul; virginity is a primary telos of the individual soul'. Within virginal consciousnessthere is a senseof spiritual purity here representedby the placid beauty of this sandplay.Its frozen quality may impedepsychologicaldevelopment until the instincts break through to new energiesof the life force. This sandplayis a stasiswhere movementbarely exists. Menstruation seemspendingnow like the calm before a storm. Sandplay4

Eventswere moving rapidly. Agnes was depressedas her father had moved to London with his new partnerand spentonly two nightsa 82

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week at home. Soon he would move out altogether.Each week on her way to my consulting rooms in central London, Agnes would ride by a high hill which she associatedonly with the joumey to therapy. She picturesit in this sandplay as a symbol of her positive transferenceto sandplaytherapyand to me (seePlate 27). She put four white horseson it as the last image or vestige of the primal family. With her father's departure soon there would be three women at homeand no man. On the upper right is a bridge to this analytical work and below and downwards, two young white swans indicate, according to Agnes, 'my sisterand myself in the river of life'. The family-to-be at home is representedon the lower left by three white birds: the two swansagain as the sisters,and their motheras an affectionateduck on land, too tired to swim. On the upper left a yellow car enters the urban London area symbolizing Agnes' intuitive ego as she rides to her sandplay session.On the upperright the bridge nearthe yellow-roofedhouse has sand deliberately sprinkled on it to indicate that the sandplay, too, is a joumey within. The white animalsalso suggestthe virginal quality just before a young woman is initiated to the blood of menstruation. The mountain on which the spiritual white horsesrest is swollen and almost pregnantwith the sensationof the mensesto come. Agnes has begun her real joumey into a budding maturity. The entire sandplayhas a mandalaimage of the circular hill within the sandbox.A greencar passesbehind the horses,the symbolic colour of the sensationfunction. SandplayS

At this session Agnes came in with a new self-made dress of sophisticatedstyle. Her hair-stylewas also more carefully wrought. Her father had spoken to me telling me she had reachedher first menstrualperiod. Her own relief that her cycle had startedseemed to irradiate her being. The woman in the child had rapidly appeared.Tellingly enough,three young men had shown interestin her at school in a more personalway than she had before attracted and there was a senseof excitementin her new enthusiasmand energyfor school-life. In the upper right-hand comer, Agnes representedthese three boyfriends as three stags overlooking a North American Indian 83

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family (father, mother and papoose)before their tepee (see Plate 28). Two white horsesgraze nearbynear the water'sedgein which a walrus and hippopotamusstand near the shore. On the small island near the lower left-hand corner, a crocodile is hidden among the trees. Let us start by interpreting the animal energies.The crocodile reflects Agnes' new fecundity. It rests on an island, not yet requiring to move to any action. The hippopotamusrepresents health and vigour in a possibleheir (as in Egyptian hieroglyphics) and echoes motherhood as a new possibility; Trueret was the goddessof maternity in Egypt and is sometimesindicated as a hippo, the mother of Osiris. The hippopotamuscan also suggest repressedanger in Agnes towards her father who has now left the householdforever. Hippos kill their own fathers to copulate'with their mothers.In this case,Agnes' animus, or spiritually masculine principle in archetypal image (also representedby the stags) is lurking by her friendly walrus from her first sandplay. The two horsessuggestsexualinstinctsas man plus horseequals man plus his animal instincts. Horsefleshwas sacramentallyeaten by the king (or one'sego) after his symbolic rebirth from the Mareheaded mountain goddess (suggestedin Sandplay 4 as well). Horses also represent the cyclic phenomena of nature, hence menstruation. The general characteristics of all horses reflect Agnes' new potential: as fertility, as mother symbol, as love and lasciviousness,fidelity and sensitivity. A strong and useful animal, the horse can also indicate Agnes' strength and extra tasks in adaptingto her mother'shousehold. In the new baby of the Indian couple, we see the potential of Agnes' child-bearing capacity now become reality. The stark simplicity of this primal level of energy representationshows Agnes' increasedgrounding into her instinctual base as primal, fecund young woman. I

Sandplay6

Here the brown horse on the bridge at the top representsAgnes' new ego energies,blossoming into dyadic pairs across the landscape of the sandplay (see Plate 29). A very feminine quality pervadesthe composition.At the middle of the left-hand side-edge of the sandbox,a golden urn - the containerof the feminine spirit is guardedby a white Chinesegod and goddess.Two birds, two fish 84

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and two flying ducks bring the themeof duplication forward; like a reflection in a mirror, it echoesreality, a symbol of consciousness. Agnes is growing fast in her awarenessof herself. She has suddenlybecomepopular at school, voted into a class honour by her classmatesand she spreadsthroughout this sandplaypositive symbols of personality: the owl of wisdom, a woman's golden mirror (her new feminine narcissism and use of cosmetics and perfume), varied small shells of hidden feminine qualities still emerging, a ripe tomato plant, a jewelled box (the vagina as potentialreceptacle),and other elementsof value to the feminine. A circle of mauve-colouredstonesin the lower right comer indicatea nucleusor the egg of cyclic ovum. Circles of stoneswere thoughtby primitive peoplesto be a fertility manifestationof the divine. A coiled snakerestsbefore the silver tree on the right-handside of the sandbox- the resting potential sexuality at the foot of a tree of life. In the top right-hand comer is a touchstone which is symbolic of increasedego-awareness of the body. It is 'fixed' in the consciousness,and opposed to wandering thoughts, spirits and desires. Agnes' new concentrationat school is bringing her much higher marks than earlier. Her confidence is increased as she approachesher fifteenth birthday. There is a sensein this sandplay of the reintegrationof personalityelementsthat is initiated at this time. Sheis discoveringher potentialand a new successfulimageat school. Sandplay 7

Createddirectly after Agnes' fifteenth birthday party, this sandplay representsthe problematics of her late adolescenceto the same extent that the previous sandplay representedthe more fulfilled aspects. Now grotesqueand lesser known living figures challenge the psyche(seePlate30). At the top centretwo clowns and two 'goons', purple and orange, look on 'foolishly'. To the upper right, shell figures dance a joyous dance while two spacemenjoin in. These men representthe male mystery to Agnes. In asbestossuits, their bodiesremain indistinct. Agnes as yet has no carnal knowledgeof men's genitalia. Beneaththe spacemena hovercraft comesinto the sandboxwith passengers on boardto join the party. Agnes is extroverting very markedly. She is acting in a young drama group and experimentingwith her persona. 85

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A golden ball has three colourful insectsbuzzing about nearby. In early Roman times a conception could be attributed to swallowing an insect; it equatedto semen.Here Agnes' more conscious sexuality is hinted at again. A golden rose, or self-image,is at the bottom centre screenedby two shells. Agnes was of Continental and British heritage, so the golden rose, the symbol of ancient Europeanheritage,is very apt here. Her gifts in learningItalian and French suggest the Continental background of her mother as a valued potential. Above the rose is a golden turtle slowly ambling towardsthe dancingshells. Turtles combinea female round shell with a phallic male head. Its lubricity in general suggestsa similarity to the female sexualorgans.As the turtle carriesits own armour in its shell-housethere is a suggestionthat Agnes' selfdefenceis now better establishedwithin her psychologicallife: selfconfidencehas strengthenedher senseof poise and self-worth. She was now less shy, more outgoing,and determined.Becomingaccustomed to her outstandingself-reliancegave her a firmer senseof who she was. But the silver tree of life is overturning with 'high winds' from the left side of the sandbox.A yellow chick emergesfrom a manycoloured mystery stone (ovulation) and blue coloured shells and glassline the area.A quirky rabbit appearswith a red bow-tie at the upper left hand comer, a caricatureof the boys making awkward advancesto her new-found senseof containedsexuality. Younger men are immature; oldermen are a mysteryto Agnesnow. The sand topographyis roughenedby the winds of change.The buffoonsand the golden rose have not yet copulatedwithin Agnes' psyche.

Sandplay8 Combiningmany elementsseenin earlier sandplays,the central hill (like the one in Sandplay4) has a containedseedof wheat within a clear phallic tower (see Plate 31). A mirror is reflecting the silver tree of life upon which rests the dove, symbol of innocenceand purity betweenthe sky-heavenand the hill-earth. Two blue horses from Sandplay2 go up towards the hilltop. The ring of dancing shells lies quietly at the baseof the hill. To the lower right a stone within a pyramid suggestssharpeningpowers of awarenessand incubation.Across the top, pagodasand flowering treessuggestthe stagesof growth and developmentthe feminine must passthrough and attain. At the upper left, a Chinesegoddessserenelysurveys 86

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the whole scenewhile near her feet two small dragons'play' near the golden rose within its screen of two upstanding shells. A butterfly rests at the bottom left-hand comer representingtransformation out of the cocoon into a resurrectionfrom the egg and chrysalis to life's flight. Shakespearehas written, 'for men, like butterflies, sow not their wings but to the summer' (Troilus and Cressida,III, 3). It was late summerwhen this sandplaywas made. Robert Gravesconsideredthe butterfly able to fly crookedly but still to reach its goal. This may refer to Agnes' divorced household in which life flies 'crookedly' without a father living at home, but Agnes is reachingher goals of achievementat school and at home much more consistentlynow. There is a sense at the top of the hill of impending growth mirrored back to Agnes' soul to prepareher for the powerful birth to come in her next sandplay.

Sandplay9 The phallic sheathof wheat is lain down as the plinth on which the great white bull standsfacing consciousness (seePlate32). The bull, a solar and lunar animal, representsa powerful constellation of Agnes' animus,the contra-genderspiritual masculineforce guarded by the Chinesewise man to its left and the Chinesewise woman to its right. The wheat is said to grow from the body of the bull in Mithraic cults - the bearer of the invisible god in Babylonia, Phoenicia,Egypt, and Palestine. As lunar, the bull is sacrificedin Greek myth to Demeter,Venus, Urania, Athena and Hera. The white bull relatesto the story of the moon goddessPasiphae,who fell in love with a bull in her husband Minos' flock and seducedhim with Daedalus'help by imitating a cow lying backwards.When the Minotaur was born of this union Minos hid him in the labyrinth for shame. In Egypt, whenevera new bull was installed in a temple, women exposedtheir genitalsto him as a fertility rite. In cosmogony,the white bull meanschastity, patienceand peace, which were qualities Agnes needed to handle her new vaginal power. Mithraic ritual usedthe bull to expressthe penetrationof the feminine principle by the masculine. To the upper right we have Kali who is always presagedin dreamsand imagesby the white bull in Indian literature. Kali is the black mother, symbol here of the depressedmotherto whom Agnes

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is devoted. Before Kali sits an Indian woman, symbol of the mistress of the father, always the 'personage'behind depression and loss for Agnes' mother psychologically.A mystical purple gate of the beyondstandshigh above thesefigures. In front of this pair, a small black girl and two white children look on like a distant memoryof nursery,kindergarten,imagesof the child archetypeand the real former childhood memories.Across on the lower left-hand comeris anothermanifestationof Agnesas a bejewelledIndian lady in blue, combing her very long hair. At the top left, an Indian man representsAgnes' father. He watchesher protectivelywhile playing the flute but she is faced away from him, away from her dark mother, and away from her father's lover. Her independenceis flourishing. Cows graze beneaththe bull of animus, awaiting penetration and fecundation.Phallic towers mark the placeof the bull. Fully imaged, Agnes now has a powerful animus projection available to her psychologicaldevelopment.She takesher first trip abroad with a schoolfriend, not with her family. A ring of trees symbolizeher growth and maturing stature.

Sandplay10 In a moving final sandplay Agnes, as the central blue-dressed Indian lady, plays the drumsacrossfrom her sisterwho joins in (see Plate 33). To the left her mother stands alone behind the seated lower couple, father and his second wife, playing instrumentsto inauguratethe extendedfamily'S danceof life. To the top right, Siva standsas Nataraja,the lord of the dance,with Parvati, 'daughterof the Himalayas' who is his wife, on the left. When Parvati dances the cosmic danceshe becomesKali and her dance,depictedin this sandplay,unfolds on the plane of the human soul. She dancesin this manifestationof Kali to the music of Agnes' family as Indians, to remove sin, weaknessand attachmentfrom all who are present. Then true identity may be formed again by all concerned. In the lower right-hand comer, three vessels of containment stand, representingAgnes, her mother and sister as the family of threewomen.In Agnes'clay pot sandis put, a symbol of the healing transformation Agnes has experienced in sandplay. Her rite de passageto young womanhoodis one of the telling examplesof how sandplaycan help a young personto reachtowardsmaturity under the stressof first menstruationat thevery time of her parents'divorce. 88

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At the top, two water-buffalo, symbols of strength and mutuality-as-painstandnear sive and Parvati, the beautiful couple onto whom Agnes projectsher hope for union one day to her very own 'god-man'. Sandplay heals where stressand developmentis most pointed. Its non-verbal power enabledan originally focusedbut shy young woman to experiencebefore her very eyesand in the presenceof a sustaining male therapist, the very essenceof entering womanhood. Sandplay excludesembarrassment,apology or dissembling. Its images to those initiated to its synthetic interpretation help Ilature itself to exploreitself Where sandplayinterpretationis 'adultomorphic'it is so deliberately as it inspires and stretchesthe imagination of those schooled only to rationality, discipline and hard work. Its free but firm grounding to transitory anxietiesgive it a holding power enabling nature itself to better take its course.I am indebted to Agnes and her parents for the releaseof this case as a tool for educational psychologyin the Jungiantradition. THE 5 YNTHETIC METHOD OF INTERPRETATION

In concludingthesefour clinical cases,I would like to defendJung's theory of syntheticinterpretationwhich I haveusedthroughout. Unlike reductive methodswhich try to trace everythingback to primitive instincts, in the interpretation of Jungian sandplay the syntheticmethoddevelopsthe material into a processfor differentiating the material. Thus the syntheticmethodelaboratessymbolic fantasy within sandplay. This entails an introversion of libido, sacrificing a former attitude towards a new one when image interpretationrevealswhat this new attitude can be. The transition to a new attitude was termedby Jungas the 'transcendentfunction'. Concepts become metaphorical in symbology when we shed light on their possible meanings.sandplayin its creativity neither knows nor possessesthese meanings absolutely; what symbolic interpretationdoesis raise possibilitiesthat strengthenthe patient's ego and raise its differentiation further from unconsciousness. Ideas, in sandplay construction, emerge as acts of conscious differentiation from an unconscioussource.The ego then considers the interpretation revealed and can reunite with the self, as did primitive man in his participation mystiquewith nature. 89

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Where psycheis a living experiencein sandplay,the idea does not petrify but gets visible three-dimensionalexpressionby the sandplayer quite literally in front of their eyes.This producesa new potential: after identifying with sandplays that may return to archaic collective material of regressto the psychic conditions of prehistory, the retrograde process is renewed by here-and-now consciousness of its relative meaningsfor the self of the sandplayer. This impressiveexperienceseemsto renew the psyche'Songoing dynamic state. Where a submersionto instinct occurs,resistanceto its dynamic chaos is compensatedby a need for form and order. Sandplay enables a fast and flexible shift between the chaos-order dimension. The psyche of the sandplayercreatesthe symbol that expressesthis dynamic spectrumwhich frees libido bound into the unconscious.A releasefrom the bondageof trapped energiesis what the symbol alwaystries to point to and partially elucidate.The imagesof childhood fantasiesand the later projection of the child archetypein its consciousimages strive for fulfilment and integration in the adult when using sandplay.Fantasyoften foretells of eventsforeshadowedin the unconscious. Jung remarkedmore than once that a redeemingsymbolcomesfrom the placewhereno oneexpectsit. Lack of prior assumptionsis the most important attitude when building a sandplay. Symbolic play is a middle way in which oppositescan flow togetherin a new movement. Functionsthat were inert tend to come to life; the repressed and undervaluedelementscome into sandplay through the least valued function of consciouslife. A restriction of the total potential of the sandplayer is what is stimulated through sandplay. The blocked psycheflows again away from the lure of a maternalabyss. New blossominglife overgrowsthe aridity as in Isaiah: Then shall the eyesof the blind beopened,and the earsof the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap up as an hart, and the tongueof the dumb sing: for in the wildernessshall waters break out, and streamsin the desert. (Isaiah 35:5)

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THE FIRST MAPPING OF SANDPLAY FORMS There has tended to be a tacit agreementamong most of my sandplay colleagues not to 'map' the areas of the sandtrays pertaining to areasof psyche being projected. This is a too easy refusal to discuss the difficulties of observing tendencieswhich occur over great numbersof sandplays.Becauseof the number of variables involved it is not an easy matter to envisagestatistical proof. I took 1000 sandplaysat randomand got 95 per cent or more showing the following tendenciesin design which the diagramsto follow capture pictorially. I believe they are a helpful guide as to what probably will happenin most sandplayprocesses.There will remain many unique exceptions,of course,which is why sandplay is so endlesslyfascinating. There are three principal levels of psyche being projected into sandplays: the conscious level, the level of the personal unconsciousand the level of the collective (archetypal)unconscious. This gives sevenbasic combinationsof level, some or all of which may be possibleto anyonediagram.I shall numbereachone as set out below and then indicate in discussing each diagram which levels could be presentwithin it.

Levels of projection in sandplay Levell. Level 2. Level 3. Level 4. Level 5.

Consciousonly. Personalunconsciousonly. Collective unconsciousonly. Consciousplus personalunconscious. Consciousplus collective unconscious.

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Level 6. Personalunconsciousplus collective unconscious. Level 7. Consciousplus both personaland collective unconscious. (Level 7 very often describesthe levels presentin an adult's first sandplay.) In presentingthe diagramsbelow I am attemptingto indicate the tendency which the psyche takes in creating original and spontaneoussandplays.There is no sensein which thesediagramstake any formal order, rule or theory. In my searchfor the hidden forms the psyche utilizes in sandplay, these diagrams express a form present950 times out of 1000 in a random samplingfrom my adult patients'archivesof sandplayphotographs.

8

8

c Figure 5.1

Figure 5.1 shows the most usual order in which sandplayers chooseto build a topography.Of coursethere are sandplayswhere the surfaceof the sandis not changed.Here we are only interested in those sandplayswhere the sand is modelled or moved about. Generally a sandplayerwill build or changethe central area (A), then move on to the upperright (B) and then the lower left (C). The majority way of moulding the sand I have come to name the 'Classical'approach.Levels 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7 as defined above may be presentin projectionof psychehere. In Figure 5.2 we have an approximation of areas when ego material is most likely to be expressedand where archetypal

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EGO

co

ur

se

,w

he

re

Figure 5.2

material most often occurs. There are sandplays,of course, where all of the box is ego-level or all is archetypalas I have indicatedin the Levels list. When it was broken up, however, this was the patternthat emerged95 per centof the time in adult patients.Levels 5 or 7 apply to this diagram. Figure 5.3 refers to the placementof objects only in relation to body movement,decisionto havethe object so placedand the sense of deliberatenessin so doing. The upper half of the sandbox received a more deliberateattitude from sandplayers than did the lower half of the sandbox.Here Levels 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 apply.

More

deliberate

Less deliberate Figure 5.3

93

Personal

unconscious

JUNGIAN SANDPLAY

Conscious

Personal unconscious

Collective

unconscious

Figure 5.4

In sandplaysusing Levels 4, 5 or 7 we get this intriguing interplay of the interfaces between conscious material, personal unconsciousprojection and the images of the collective unconscious (Figure 5.4). This designwhen theseLevels are presentis one of the most powerfully presentof my different categoriesshowing often occurring tendencies.

Figure 5.5

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Figure 5.5 relatesto relativities in the sandplayers'material. The arrows can refer to relations of direction, complementarity,direct opposites,complementaryopposites,colour balancesin the objects chosenor lines of dynamic movementin 'active' objects indicating action. Levels 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7 apply to this schema.

Figure 5.6

Relating only to Levels 2, 3 or 6 the 'doublesas defence'(Figure 5.6) show designsin topographyor use of objectswhere two lines are usedlike battlementsor defendpsychic material. The defensive mandalahasbeenwidely discussedin Jungianliteratureand would apply here. There tends to be a more angular design in the right side comersthan in the left very often. It is a mistake to assumea double-designmandalais necessarilya manifestationof the self: it may only indicatea besiegedand troubledego problematic. In Levels 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7 we often see that the anima and sometimesthe animus will take images in the upper left-hand comer of the sandplay (Figure 5.7). Family constellationsoften occur in the lower right-handcomer,along with masculineor anima constellationsmore rarely. I tend in a full processalways to get anima and animus material in developmental images of great 95

JUNGIAN SANDPLAY

Anima -Animus

Family or Masculine or Animus

Figure 5.7

power. The sandplayis one of the best proofs of lung's archetypal theory in this regardthat we have. True manifestationsof the self may occur at all Levels - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7. I find the dynamic action with or against the self more

Self

Figure 5.B

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often emanatesfrom the left side, if it is expressed(Figure 5.8). The general central position of self is most often found, not in only a circular shapebut in a more sphere-likeareathat may not be tightly markedin the sand. Theseeight diagramsindicate some of the principal mappingsI have found to be significant. There are myriads of others; I claim theseto be one indication of certain universal tendenciesthat occur in my adult patients.We cannotcontrol the atmosphere,size, colour or shape of professional sandplay rooms which may outwardly affect - as does the therapist's personality - all that happens inwardly as patients make their sandplays. Measurement is probably impossible; hints and glimpses, however, can be given through thesemapsof tendenciespresentin sandplayers'psyche. SANDPLAY AS DIAGNOSTIC

I have indicated that the general mapping studies above have too many uncontrollable variables to be suitable to statistical verification. At a recentannualconferenceof the InternationalSocietyfor Sandplay Therapy (Founder: Dora Kalff), hosted by the British Branch and chaired in London by the author, a group of four membersfrom Milan gave a paper entitled 'The Use of Sandplay Therapyin the PsychiatricServiceof a PediatricHospital' that foreshadowsthe possible use of statistical proofs with sandplay.The authorswho are Jungiananalystsare S. Marinucci, F. Montecchi,G. Nagliero and D. Tortolani. This team has been able to begin to describedifferencesin the sandplaysof children who have cancer, determiningwho is likely to live and who is likely to die. They have the facilities at the Bambino Gesu Hospital for psychotherapeutic sandplay work in which they record much that happens in a session;verbal and non-verbal behaviour, choices and use of the materials, how used and in which order the objects are placed in the sandbox.The sandplayis photographedand using notes and drawings the therapist can elaborate a diagnosis considering componentssuch as: 1 2 3 4 5

the useof sandand the sandbox the choice of objects the actual construction the use of space the verbalizationand the non-verbalbehaviour. 97

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With cancerpatients,it was found that prognosticindicationsabout the evolution of the tumour pathologycould be discoveredfrom the initial sandplaysof oncologicalpatients.This createda possibility to change the rigid, pre-establishedbio-psychological programme, which limits so severelythe patient'squality of life. Carcinogenesis and its relation to affectivity and stress have suggestedthat the general characteristicsof personswith cancer are: a difficulty in elaboratingaffective losses, a depressiveand desperatetemperament, an inability to acceptand deal with aggressivetendencies,a preferencefor negationand removal as a defencemechanism,and difficulty in symbolization.With children who have cancerthere is a tendency not to request enough parental care and massive behaviouralregressionmay result. Four children with tumoursmade sandplaysand their work was described.An ll-year-old boy had a kidney tumour. He was not toleratinghis therapyand had beenreferredto sandplay.He madea very complex scene,constructedclockwise, beginningin the lower right-hand corner and finishing, with a small forest, in the upper right-handcorner. He describedthe scenehimself as follows: The cowboys are attacking the Indians as they want to take possessionof their territory and animals; here are some squawswho are giving birth to their children. Here is a forest with animalssearchingfor prey and here, on a rocky peak,are an eagleand somecoyoteswaiting for the end of the battle so they and their offspring can feed on the dead. And here is a sow nursing her litter. It is evident in his sandplay that this boy representsviolence, with archaic oral aggressivevalences,together with soft, delicate details. It is a very dynamic scenein which birth, deathand rebirth are presentedall togetherand circularly connectedin a continuous transformation. A 12-year-oldgirl with a Wilms tumour was referredbecauseshe refused the prescribedtherapy which could causethe loss of her hair. She was fond of her hair and asked her mother to comb it constantly. She spent a good part of the session smoothing and patting the wet sand, making small furrows as streets,placing and then rearrangingin an obsessiveway the materialsin the sandbox. She constructeda small town where everything is calm and in perfect order; everyoneis in his place. 'More than anything,' she said, 'thereis no confusion... J hateconfusion... it's a placewhere

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I would like to live; in fact, it seemsto be the town where I live: This girl repeatedthis scenealmost identically in the next two sessions,constructingit in the same way and making analogous comments.In the third sessionshe refused to construct another sandplay. Everything in this sandplay was fixed and immobile in time and space.The way it was constructedshowsa preferenceto negateand remove any aggressiveimpulse or any 'shadow' whatsoever. It seemedthat the prime concernwas to fossilize time and space. An ll-year-old boy with a rabdomyosarcomarefused the limitations the doctorsimposed;he would sneakoff to play football in spite of the fact that part of his chesthad beenresectioned. He assembleda forest in which various animals and a hunter roamedabout looking for prey. His commentwas: 'It's an ecological scene,there are many aggressiveanimals but there is no reasonto be afraid becausethey kill only for survival; it's a question of equilibrium: The secondsessiongave prognostic indications. The scenepresentsa modem man amonga group of fighting dinosaurs and he explainsthat: Charlie Chaplin was playing with a time-machineand found himself in prehistorywhen dinosaursate eachother and man lived on raw meat. If I were in such a situation I wouldn't know what to do becauseI don't know how people lived in thosedays. To a questionas to what happensnext he replied, 'Charlie was so shockedby the scenethat, with the help of an expert, he returned to his times, never again to play with a time machine.'The characteristics of this scene are orality, primitive aggression and a disturbed perceptionof time that projects the boy into prehistory beyond the personalstory. However, the boy does not falter - just as in real life he refusesto give up quality. The first picture of anotherll-year-old boy who had embryonic rabdomyosarcoma was requestedbecausehe refusedhis prescribed therapy.With eachantiblasticapplicationhe complainedof lacerating pain in his legs that had no medical explanation. His father complainedthat, in reality, this therapy only worsenedhis son's condition. In fact, his father carried him to each sessionas he did not walk. Not long after the beginningof this intensepain both the psychiatric and oncological interventionswere interrupted as the boy refusedto leave his home.

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The boy's descriptive comment about his sandplay was as follows: It is a peaceful farm where they have everything they need. Their only worry is to keepthe wolves on the other side of the river. At one time severalwolves attackedthe farmer but did not kill him; however, they did eat a sheep.Everything is at a standstill. The tractor is placed in front of the gate making it difficult to passthrough.

When the therapist indicated the bridges and a shepherd who seemedto be going out the boy replied: 'The shepherdwants to take the sheepout but the father is afraid and tells him not to go. The shepherdthinks there is more grass on the other side of the river but is returning to the farm.' After a long pausehe concluded: 'It seemslike my grandparents'farm. That was a nice place and when I was little I liked to go there.' It is worth mentioning that three of this boy's grandparentshad died of cancer and that his father had hada seriousinvalidating nephropathy. In this picture, as in the others,there is a clear attemptto fix time and a happy place, eliminating every possible aggressivevalence, but the price is to stop living. Here too, time is not his time and placesare not his places,but both time and place are those of his father and his grandparents. Sometwo and a half yearsafter thesesandplayswere made, the first and third patients were 'cured', the secondand fourth died several months after the sandplayinterventions. There are many implications, someof which I will briefly list here: 1 2 3 4 5

the disturbanceof the psychologicaldimensionof time the permanence/fixationat an archaicoral stage the patients'relation with their aggressiveimpulsesand their shadowsin general the role of parental fantasiesand the container/contentinterplay betweenparentand child contact with the construction of the individual self and its relation with time.

The analystsfrom Milan pointed out that the patients,at least thus far at the clinic, who have come through the tunnel of cancerare thosewho were able to representand confront their oral aggressive valenceswithout denying them. These patients still have a whole self including the terrifying experienceof an archetypal shadow.

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They still have the possibility to deal with their psychicimpulses:to accept them, to contain them, to transform them and give them a meaning. In referenceto time, another boy patient remarked, 'the past alwaystried to return and to destroythe presentbecauseit doesnot realize that things changeand that some things do not return'. The primary needof thesepatientsis to be supportedin their struggle, to be helpedto keephopealive in spite of the horror they are living. They havenot given up on life, they needhelp to stay alive. The situation of the two patientswho died was quite different. Either they had never beenin contactwith the self or it was earlier irreparably damaged;its substitute is a primordial fantasy of an Eden and it is necessaryto keep away every aggressiveimpulse or any transformingevent from this Eden. Time and spaceare fossilized in a dimensionwithout history; if they do have a history it is that of their parentsand they cannot separatefrom it. This is why they have given up on life, and perhapsthey are simply asking to be helpedto die. The Milan sandplay therapists point out that the doomed children haveno history consciouslyof themselvesas separatefrom their parents. The critical identification of self is described in Chapter2 in the discussionof Winnicott's theory of the 'transitional object'. For these children this phasehas not occurredand separation, when attempted through illness, goes all the way into physical deathwith suchchildren. The implicationsof this fact have yet to register with most social services, paediatric hospitalsand nursery schools.If those helping children were more aware of the implications, more helpful and preventive interventions could be taken. It would appearfrom the way this teamis working in Milan that it may be possible to get some acceptablehard statistical facts drawn from the sandplaysof tumour patients and that sufficient control of the variable-problemmay be possibleto deviseenabling statistical proofs to be elaboratedover time. This would take away some of the suspicion in academicpsychology circles that depth psychologistsmakefanciful interpretations.The diagnosticfuture of sandplayis just being born.

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FREE-WHEELING USES OF SANDPLAY There is a form of sandplayinterventionwhich shouldbe usedonly by very experiencedintuitives. I have observedDora Kalff using this techniqueand, after years of experiencein the formal use of sandplay,I have used it twice: once at a Buddhist college during a special coursewhen Mrs Kalff becameill and J substitutedfor her and a second time in the hills above Adelaide, Australia, at a distinguishedhealing centre. This use of sandplayis all the things analysisis not: it is predictive soothsayingas astrologyis and it can be most effective. Only one sandplay is made. It is interpreted immediatelyas fully as possible. Although it might seemsurprising,someremarkablehealingand insight has beengainedby someof theseone-off sandplayersbut I would caution that this is not a method, but a special intuitive reading of one sandplay. In the hands of a very perceptivepractitioner it can have helpful and even valuable psychologicalresults for the makerof a sandplay. Another variation in the work with children is the participation of the therapistin making the sandplaywith the child. This usually involves someverbal feedbackto know what is happeningbetween child and therapist; my objection is not to the occasionaluse of words but to the defencesin a child that will be called up if the adult therapistmakesinterventionsby playing with the child. This techniqueis endangeredby the authoritarianfears children have of adults and by the manipulation and persuasionof the therapist. I believe it is when a child goes free of adult immediate response, that they can express spontaneously, without interruption or curtailment, the heartfelt needs, problems, feelings, wishes and fears directly into the sandplay.Concentrationis much deeperwhen a free and protectedspaceis offered. The 'conversational'aspectof a therapist playing with the child is just what the child needs releasefrom, becauseof difficult or adversesituationsat home or school. The child doesn'twant a guessinggamesuch as what move the therapistwill make next in constructingthe scene.That is too ~hildren with the adult world. much like the daily struggleof young with the adult The exception to this is work with autistic children where connections of all kinds are in jeopardy. A 'mirroring' set of constructionmoving with the autistic child's constructionmay give such a child a glimpseof relatednessor of meaningwhich needsthe interaction and participation of the therapist directly. Certain problemsmight be relieved or solved if situationsin the sandplay 102

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are mutually overcomeby the autistic child and by the therapist building co-laterally in an atmospherethat is quiet and unforced. Where possible, I have found it beneficial to the autistic to help them gradually to gain the independentuse of the sandbox by slowly withdrawing the therapist's direct intervention while remaining sitting closer to the sandbox than one would with a normal child. While the use of sandplayfor children hasmushroomedinto use at psychiatric day centres,in establishingchild abusein courts of law, with the autistic and the physically handicapped,what further possibilitiesare therefor the useof sandplaywith adults, by trained sandplaytherapists,outsidethe consultingroom? As a deepreciprocal therapyinvolving process,transferenceand insightful delayed interpretation, I believe there is no acceptable alternativemethod to a Jungianarchetypaland symbolic setting to sandplay and working through of the sandplayer'smaterial in a seriesof sandplaysthat trace and reveal developmentalprocess. However, experimentsare going on with group procedures.One, in California, involves a group who meet and one membervolunteers to make a sandplay; then, led by a sandplaytherapist, the remainderof the group comment upon the sandplayas well and jostle the ideasand imagesabout. What I questionhere is the possibility of a performanceelement creepingin when a sandplayis made in front of and partly for a group. Knowing the mixed scrutiny that is to come puts a sandplayer into very many pressuresof consciousadaptationwhich may block the releaseof unconsciousmaterial. The point of the work may become eroded and a game of charades may result: the sandplay-makermay be only pretendingand less concentratedin a group and the interpretiveinterventionof the group may have little more than a crowd responseto the sandplay. It has been suggestedthat factories and offices should have sandplayrooms for use at break-times.The dangerhere is that the unconsciousmaterial unleashedin a sandplay might unwittingly causesomeonean industrial accidentafterwardsor other disturbing aftermath experiences.Where a sandplay is uncontained by a therapist and the therapist'ssandplayroom as the place of ritual, the danger of unlocking psychosis under no control or holding situation, rules out in my mind the use of free, unmonitored sandplay in industry or the professions.While this is a pity, psyche in our time is so troubled and often so borderlineas to precludethe 103

JUNGIAN SANDPLAY

free-wheelingself-interpretiveuse of the medium. Sexual imagesare often very graphic in sandplay.Usually made unconsciouslyin the hills and valleys of topography,breastsand vaginas, penises, testicles and anusesemerge often enough for interpretation and integration. I recall once a man who made a complicatedset of mountains,ridgesand valleys and then realizeda hand was masturbatinga penis in the scenery. This led to other relatedassociationsand a breakthroughin the therapeuticwork. In the first caseI describein Chapter4, the sandplay where a uterus was madeby a male patient had a breakthrougheffect on that case on many levels at once. The earth quality of sand pulls the psyche towards body expressionand this can be of inestimablevalue to the therapy. The use of colour in the objects placed in the sandboxneedsa researchbook in itself to be elucidated.I would mentionbriefly that complementarityin vivid colours chosenor pastel colours chosen can have a linking effect betweenobjects that requires interpretation. The use of alchemicalcolours - black, white, red, green or gold - must be carefully analysedand often earth colours - the browns, dark reds, beiges,greys, whites and blacks - will be used by patients for special meanings and levels of unconscious expression.Primary colours may be exclusively used as archetypal givens, and Steiner'scolour theories fit well together with Jung's basic functional colours into interpretation.Thesetheoriesare well documentedby their authors and need careful study before a therapistappliesthem to sandplayinterpretation. I have often beenaskedwhen lecturing if the sandplaymedium can contain spiritual and religious expression.To the sameextentas dreamswill, the 'awakedream'of sandplaycreationoften contains a rich and varied working through of a patient'sspiritual/religious dilemma. Many objectsrepresentinggods and goddessesare available together with shrines, retreats,churches,temples, cathedrals and chapels.These figures and buildings can be used to help the living through of various forms of inner marriages in psyche involving diverse conceptsand spiritual images. Both Easternand Western symbolic figures are available to expressthe invaluable aspectof individuation within the sandplayprocess.Many agnostics and atheistshave discoveredthrough sandplaythe unconscious releaseof integrativearchetypalmaterialwhich consciouslyenables them to contactthe God-imagewithin their own psyche.This was the last thing they expectedbut the challengeand witness of the

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sandplaymaterial was there for them to interpret and begin to live with in a new way. Reconnectionto childhood in sandplay through memories of childhood holidays at the beachor playing in a sandpit at home or at school can help an adult sandplayerbegin to regresssufficiently to constructchildhoodsceneswhere archetypalimagescan assistin reinterpreting what happenedas psychological fact, not just socalled historical fact. Atmospheresof childhood are more nonverbal in memory than adult life usually is and the medium of sand can sometimesreleasemore quickly the hidden, repressedcontent of early memoryand begin to reconstructthe past. This synthesizes past with presenttowards future. Sandplayfacilitates the return of early memory and can lead on to valuable work in the reconstruction and repair of a traumaticchildhood. I have repeatedlyobservedthat sandplayersreturn after a first process, often after a few years have elapsed, and want to do another series. This return to a continuing effort towards further self-knowingcan unleasha seriesof sandplayseven more revealing at a consciouslevel than before. Often favourite objects from the first seriesare used in new ways. The 'story' in psychecontinues. With resistancesalmost totally droppedthrough acquaintancewith the sandplayexperience,the manifestationof the self is often more clarified and revealedthan in an initial process.Psycheis tirelessin its variety and its apparentlyendlesspossibility for expression. THE UNIVERSALITY

OF SANDPLAY

The outstandingattribute of sandplay therapy which ensuresits future is its universality. It requires no technique of any kind to mould sand into a world topographyor to place objects into the sandbox which can easily be changedwithin the session(unlike painting and clay modelling where, once the paint or clay dries, it is much more difficult and frustrating to make changes). Free of languagerestraints,sandplayis open to patientsof any age. Verbal therapyrequiresa considerablelanguagebaseevenin child analysis and in adult analysis cultural background- social, political and religious - has to be consideredin relation to the analytical situation. There is a surprising sense of freedom in sandplay that many patientshave trouble finding in free associationwith words. The senseof overview in making a sandplaygives insights spon-

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taneously that few patients make using language early on in a process,unlessthey are adeptat lateral thinking. The visual image of the finalized sandplay is using that power of vision with which we most receivethe world. To conceivea sandplay is to use that mode closest to our perceiving mental organization, the three-dimensionalvisual world, a factor of central importance and influence for the unconsciousand the consciousto utilize. In actively using the hands to build the sandplaythere is a senseof craft involved which is spontaneousand leads the mind on its expressionof the psychologicalsituation. The single-mindedness of a sandplayerworking without interference,discussionor interruption from the therapist - but knowing the therapist is there as observer - holds an influence of direct expressivenessin many sandplayswhich clarifies the position of the patient'spsyche to a startling degree of flow and revelation of process.The image is photographedand the record of the psychic material held for symbolic and dynamic interpretation. One of therapy's most powerful tools, sandplaystandsalone for its inspiration towards, and alignmentwith, archetypaland personalprojectionsof a differentiation that is outstanding among the projective therapies. A healing therapy of diagnostic and psychotherapeuticexcellence, sandplayis indeeda wonderful therapy. Dora Kalff (1980) has pointed out that the course of psychic developmentmight be comparedwith flowing water. Hexagram29 (K'an/TheAbysmal (Water)) of the I Ching says: It flows on and on, merely filling at the place it traverses;it

does not shy away from any dangerousplace, nor from any sudden plunge; nothing can make it lose its own intrinsic essence.It remains true to itself in all circumstances.Thus, truthfulnessin difficult conditions will bring about the penetration of a situation within one'sheart. And oncea situation is masteredfrom within the heart, the successof our exterior actionswill come about all by itself. (Wilhelm 1951, p. 115) When we succeedwith a Jungiananalysisthat has been aided by the unconsciousprojectionswithin sandplayswe can speakof good fortune, effective interpretivework, and the graceof God.

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EPILOGUE

Fierce storms had overwhelmedthe Zurich lakeshorethroughout the winter days of 1990 I spent lecturing at the Jung Institute in Kussnacht.With the lectures behind me, my wife and I went to lunch at an ancientSwiss farmhouseat the edgeof the next Zurich suburb. I rang the ancient house bell. I noticed the date inscribed over the front door. It was 1485. We had cometo lunch with Martin and SabinaKalff in the house of sandplayfor the first time since Dora Kalff's death. Her son and daughter-in-lawgreetedus warmly through their sadness.We were full of talk about the time of Dora's passing,her gradual decline, and her peacefulacceptanceof the approachto death. Then we descendedthe old stepsto the sandplay rooms on the lower ground floor. I enteredthe oldest sandplayroom where I had undertakenmy sandplaywith Dora Kalff twenty yearsbefore. The room was strangelystill. Martin wanted to give me one of his mother's pieces from her great sandplaycollection of miniature objects. I chose a Japanese gate signifying entrance to a spiritual place. There were several suchgatesexactly the same,so removingone didn't alter the look of the shelf at all. It seemedas if it had always beenmine. I took it as we went to Dora's grave and I wantedto place it in a niche above the grave site in the sunlight just for a moment. UnconsciouslyI put it upsidedown in the niche. We are living in an upside-downworld. It is the dead who are the right side up. The glorious flowers on the tomb spoke to me of my time of study and assimilation and the long years of clinical experience using sandplay in my practicein London. The late afternoonshadowsfell as we walked back to the house, 107

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the international archive of our sandplay group. My wife and J returned to our lakeside hotel and quietly walked by the water's edge as the sun set. We would soon be walking into the sunsetof life ourselves.We were in a spiritual silenceas calm was restoredto the silvery lake's surfaceafter long days of violent storm waves. Thank you, Dora Kalft for giving me an understandingof the most powerful psychologicaltherapy now available in the world JungianSandplay,the Wonderful Therapy.

108

BASIC SANDPLAY EQUIPMENT

Sandplayroom A special room is provided for sandplayseparatefrom the verbal analytic consultingroom. Sandtray A specially built sandbox, approximately 18 inches deep by 23 inches acrossby 3V2 inches high, of which the sides and interior bottom are waterproofedand painted in the colour of azure blue water. The sandtrayis placedon a low table and filled with sandto aboutone-half the depth of the tray. One dry sandtray and one wet sandtray are provided for free choice. Miniature figures are displayedon shelveson the walls of the sandplayroom. Water jugs are available to add water for moulding the sand if needed. Figuresand objectsrepresentingthe 'world' Small toy-sized miniaturesrepresentinghuman, animal, plant and mineral life are presented.Buildings for all purposesare provided from as many culturesas possible.Prehistoricand fantasy animals are available. Cultural, historic and symbolic figures from East and West are provided. Vehicles of land, seaand air are included. Sandplayslides Kodachromecolour slides record the patient'sseriesof sandplays. Photos are taken after the patient leaves the session before the sandplayis dismantledby the therapist.

109

GUIDELINES FOR TRAINING TO BECOME A SANDPLAY THERAPIST

Aims of the training

As a result of the training one will be acceptedinto the International Societyfor SandplayTherapy.On the basisof this membershipone is entitled to use 'Sandplay'in the way establishedby its founder, Dora Kalff. The training is understoodas a supplementarytraining. Qualifications for training

Applicants for training are expectedto show evidenceof having the following qualifications: 1 A withuniversity the adult education as a medical doctor, pedagogue, psychologist,theologian,clinical social worker, or a specialized training in one of the humanitiesor social sciences.Personsnot having a university education but who can demonstrate adequateeducationalbackgroundwill also be considered. 2 Some knowledge of psychopathology, psychodiagnosisand psychotherapy,which shall preferably have been achievedby formal study and applied clinical experiencewith patients/ clients. 3 Evidenceof having had somein-depth inner developmentand insight such as may be achievedin the experienceof personal analysis, meditation or other disciplines leading to such developments. 4 Licensure to practise psychotherapyin countries and regions where licensureis required. Exceptionswill be madefor exceptionalpersons. 110

GUIDELINES FOR TRAINING

Courseof training

Personalexperience The experienceof the Sandplayprocesson a personalbasis under the guidanceof a qualified Sandplaytherapistis fundamentaland required. This should lead to an experienceof the particular possibilities of Sandplayfor helping to unfold one'sown self-realization. If possible, the personalSandplayexperienceshould precedea regular attendanceat seminarson Sandplayin order to safeguard the spontaneouscharacterof this experience.

Theoreticaltraining Theoretical training in the practice of Sandplay is principally derived from individual study and participation in training seminars. The relationship of the Sandplay process to the general history of the evolution of consciousnessas it is expressedin religions, mythologiesand the traditions of various cultureswill be studied. During this phase of the training three theoretical seminar papers are required. In these papers elementsof the work with Sandplay should be connectedwith researchin psychology and other fields.

Practicumand supervision Practicalwork with patients/clientsduring training will be regularly supervisedin individual and group sessions.At the conclusionof training one completed case will be formally presentedto the training committeefor review and determinationof qualification for membership. For information write to Joel Ryce-Menuhin,85 Canfield Gardens, London NW6 3EA, UK.

111

with THE LOWENFELD-KALFF with the theadult adult CORRE SPONDENCE

Margaret Lowenfeld in her important pioneeringwork in London with 'World Pictures'in the sandkept in touch with Dora Kalff and their correspondence in the 1950sand 1960s,which I havecarefully studiedin full from the Lowenfeld Archives, showsmutual respect. Otherwise, it is an unexpectedly uneventful exchange of very polite circumambulations.Here is an exampleof an exchangeabout the interpretationof a horse symbol to which Kalff did not reply showing how frustrating it is for an archivist in sandplaywhen all issuesare avoided. June2nd, 1957 Dear Dr Lowenfeld, Sometime ago I have sent you my paperon my experiencewith the world pictures.As I told you, it is the only copy and I would be glad to have it back. Do you think that it is possible to send it to me? I would be very happy if you would say a word on it. But I am surethat you are very busy as always. Maybe that I corneto London between short trips and in that case I would be looking forward very much to visit you and your clinic. With all best wishesand kind regards. Sincerelyyours, Dora M. Kalff. 26th June,1957 Dear Mrs Kalff, I was very glad to get your letter and I want first to apologize very much indeedfor having kept your Manuscriptall this time. It is really very good of you to have allowed me to have your only 112

THE LOWENFELD-KALFF CORRESPONDENCE

copy and I appreciateit very much. I have kept it carefully and am now returning it thoughtfully. The reasonwhy I havekept it so long is concernedwith my book on the World Technique.I am very interestedin your paper,it is the only thesis that I have seenwhich presentsthe World Techniquein a Jungian background,and I have been turning over in my mind both your paperin itself and its relation to the whole presentation of the World Technique.I like your paper. I think it makesa very good presentationof the value of the World apparatusand I am particularly interested in the fact that you find, as I do, that it proves so valuab]e an instrument also in the treatmentof adults. Two points only in your paper I would like to discusswith you at some time -I have put a pencil cross in the margin beside them. These are your treatment of the horse as a feminine symbol and what you sayaboutthe circus. Take the horsefirst. I am very glad to hear that you may be coming to London and I would like, if it were possible, to arrangea small discussionwith you on the use of the World with adults, if this were possible. The difficulty is one of time. June and July are impossible months in London as all the Societies have long conferences and it makes the timetable extremelycrowded,so I would be glad to know as long beforehand as possible, supposingyou do come, what dates you will be here and what evening would be possiblefor you. The horse from our point of view is practically always either an instinct (E) symbol or a masculineone and I would be most interestedto know why you felt that this particularhorsewas feminine. Secondly,about the circus. Our children constantlymake use of the circus figures and it is very rare to find them awareof the side of circus performers you interpret here. To the English child it seemsto me a circus is much more a strangekind of grown-upplay, exciting and marvellous, and in most caseswe find it associated with the bewilderedexcitementarousedin children by any contact with adult sexuality. I think our workers at the I.c.P. would like to discussthis with you. But to comeback to the thesisitself. I would very much like to have a copy of this in our Library. Would it be possible for you to have a copy made? Quite a number of our workers read German and our senior workers particularly I think would be very interestedto read it. If you could at any time achieve an English translation this would also be valuable and I would particularly like to have a translationof your last two pages.I am consideringincluding thesein the book on the technique.We havea 113

JUNGIAN SANDPLAY

chapterdealing with the experiencesof other workers while using the technique,and it is here that it would be included. Are you in touch with the Society for Analytical Psychologyor with the club of Jungiansin London and do you know the London situation at all? It is unfortunately a very tangled one owing to conflicting interests and conflicting ideas, particularly between those trained in Zurich who corne to Englandas already practising analysts and those who have been trained in England only. This situation makes it always delicate and difficult for anyone who is not a Jungian, to move with any certainty with the Jungiansin London, and one needs always to know before one does know exactly what the relationshipsare, so if you could write me about this it would be a help. Thank you for sendingme the photographs.I find thesedifficult to seebeing small but probably they corne out in much betterdetail when projectedon a screen.Would it be possiblefor you to bring your collection of World photographswith you and I would try to see if I can borrow a projector here with which perhaps,if there were an opportunity, you could demonstratethem at I.c.r. With kind regards, Yours sincerely, MargaretLowenfeld Enc. Several times later in the correspondencethere were suggested meetings or conferenceinvitations which never carne off. Every time Mrs Kalff sent a pupil to London, the contact with Dr Lowenfeld didn't work for unexplainedreasons.The lettersbetween Lowenfeld and Kalff were always cordial and expressedinterests that seemedmore diplomatic than professionallyinteresting.They askedabouteachother'swork and then kept on going on their very separateways. It was Kalff who brought the Jungian backgroundto sandplay. Although several gifted pupils of Lowenfeld have always claimed that Lowenfeld was not really Freudian (and I can agreefrom her excellent books that there may have been eclectic tendencies), Lowenfeld was not Jungianin the sensewe think of it in London in the 1990s.For me, she was iconoclasticyet creativein her remarkable work The World Technique(1977), in a basicallyFreudiansetting and Zeitgeist. Lowenfeld had wide interests and knew the professionalLondon Jungianscenewell in a friendly collegial manner. 114

THE LOWENFELD-KALFF CORRESPONDENCE

In originating the term 'sandplay', Dora Kalff correctly got Lowenfeld's permissionto differentiate the Jungian work from the 'World Technique', and to separateherself out and away from Lowenfeld from then onwards. Pioneersare usually polite to each other as they steadfastlygo on their individual paths. Pioneersare also, by definition, ego-centricif not 'ego-eccentric'!

115

NOTE ON RYCE-MENUHIN'S BRITISH SANDPLAY GROUP The British Branch of the International Society for Sandplay Therapy(Founder:Dora Kalff) was foundedby Joel Ryce-Menuhin, B.Mus., B.Sc., M.Phil., IGAP, IAAP in January1988. Its Honorary Patronsare BaronessVera von der Heydt, IGAp, IAAP; Sir Yehudi and Lady Menuhin, O.M., KB.E.; Geoffrey Carton; Fiona Leyland; Roberto and Eila Hershon-Guerra; Ruth Lazarus; Dr Dagmar Leichti von Brasch M.D.; Dr Roderick M. Peters,M.B., M.R.C.P., M.5c., SAP, IAAP; Yaltah Menuhin Ryce; JohannesWasmuth;and, ill memoriam: Cecil E. Burney, Ph.D; Dr Violet de Laszlo, SGIAp, IAAP; and Helen Dowling.

116

REFERENCES

Adler, C. (1966) Studiesin Analytical Psychology(2nd edn), New York: C.P. Putnam'sSons,p. 122. - - (1979) 'Ego integrationand patternsof the coniunctio' in Dynamicsof the Self, London: Coventure. Bastian,A. (1860) Der Menschin der Geschichte,Leipzig: Wigand. Boehme,J. (1934) The Signatureof All Things, with Other Writings (trans. W. Law), London: J.M. Dent and Sons(first publishedin 1682). Bradway, K. (1985) Sandplay Bridges and Transcendent Function, San Francisco:CC. Jung Books. Budge, E.A.W. (1960) The Bookof the Dead, New York: University Books. Coomaraswamy,A.K. (1977) SelectedPapers,vol. 2 Bollingen SeriesLXXXIX, Princeton:University Press. de Vries, A. (1984) Dictionary of Symbolsand Imagery, Amsterdam:Elsevier SciencePublishers. Eliade, M. (1958) Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, Bollingen SeriesLVI, New York: Pantheon. Erikson, E.H. (1951) 'Sex differences in the play configuration of preadolescents',Americanloumal of Orthopsychiatry21: 667-92. - - (1964) 'Inner and outer space:reflectionson womanhood',Daedalus 93:558-97. Evans, C de B. (trans.) (1924) Meister Eckhart, by F. Pfeiffer (1857), Vol. 1. London: J.M. Watkins. Fordham,M. (1944) The Life of Childhood, London: Routledge. Freud, S. (1925) CollectedPapers, vol. II, London: Hogarth. - - (1927) The Ego and the Id, London: Hogarth. Hubert, H. and Mauss, M. (1898) Sacrifice in Nature and Function, London: Cohen& West (see1964 edn). Jaffe, A. (1972) From the Life and Work of c.G. IUllg, London: Hodder & Stoughton. Jung, CG. (1933) ModemMan in Searchof a Soul, New York: Harcourt Brace. - - (1939) 'Die psychologischenAspektedes Muttersarchetypus',Eranos lahrbuch 8: 79-91, Zurich: Eranos. - - (1954a) Tlte Development of Personality, Col/ected Works, vol. 17, London: Routledge.

117

JUNGIAN SANDPLAY

- - (1954b) The PracticeofPsycilOtherapy,CollectedWorks, vol. 16, London: Routledge. - - (1956) Symbols of Transformation, Collected Works, vol. 5, London: Routledge. - - (1959a) Tile Archetypesof the Collective Unconscious,Collected Works, vol. 9, part 1, London: Routledge. - - (1959b)The conceptof the collectiveunconscious',in CollectedWorks, vol. 9, part 1, London: Routledge. - - (1960) The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, Collected Works, vol. 18, part 1, London: Routledge. - - (1961a) Two Essayson Analytical Psychology,Collected Works, vol. 7, London: Routledge. - - (1961b) Freud and PsycilOanalysis, Collected Works, vol. 4, London: Routledge. - - (1961c) Memories,Dreams,Reflections,New York: PantherBooks. - - (1969a) 'The holy men of India: introduction to Zimmer's Der Weg zum Selbst',in CollectedWorks, vol. 11, London: Routledge. - - (1969b) Psychologyand Religion: Westand East, CollectedWorks, vol. 11, London: Routledge. - - (1971) PsychologicalTypes,CollectedWorks, vol. 6, London: Routledge. - - (1972) The Structureand Dynamicsof the Psyche,CollectedWorks, vol. 8, London: Routledge. Kalff, D.M. (1980) SandplayBoston: Sigo Press. Krishna, G. (1972) The Secretof Yoga, London: Turnstone. Lawrence,D.H. (1922) Fantasiaof the Unconscious,New York: Seltzer. Leenhardt,M. (1947) De Kamo: Les Personneset Ie Mythedu MondeMelanesien, Paris: Gallimard. Lowenfeld, M. (1979) The World Technique,London: Allen & Unwin. Luria, A.R. (1966) 'L.S. Vygotsky and the problem of functional localization', SovietPsychology5: 53-60. McGuire, W (ed.) (1974) The Freud/Tung Letters, Bollingen Series XCIV; Princeton:University Press. Meier-Seethaler,C. (1982) 'Erich Neumann'scontribution to the psychopathology of child development',Journal of Analytical Psychology27(4): 357-79. Miller, D.L. (1980) 'Theology'Sego/religion'ssoul', Spring, 78-89. Millar, S. (1968) The Psychologyof Play London: Penguin. Neumann,E. (1973) The Child, New York: G.P. Putnam'sSons. Piaget,J. (1951) Play, Dreamsand Imitation in Childhood, London: Routledge. Rudin, J. (1968) Psychotherapyand Religion, London: Notre DamePress. Ryce-Menuhin,J. (1984) 'From the analysts'chair in 1984', Harvest30: 89. - - (1988) The Selfin Early Childhood, London: FreeAssociationBooks. Sardello,R. (1982) 'The Landscapeof Virginity', in J. Stroudand G. Thomas (eds) Imagesof the Untouched,Dallas: Spring Publications. Vygotsky, L.S. (1962) Thoughtand Language,E. Haufmannand G. Vakat (eds and trans.), New York: Wiley. Watkins, M. (1981) 'Six approachesto the image in art therapy', Spring, Dallas: Spring Publications. Weinrib, E.L. (1983) Imagesof the Self, Boston: Sigo Press.

118

REFERENCES

Wells, H.G. (1911) Floor Games, New York: Amo Press (revised edn publishedin 1975). Wilhelm, R. (1951) (trans.) I Ching or Bookof Changes,London: Routledge. Winnicott, O.w. (1971) Playing and Reality London: Tavistock.

119

NAME INDEX

Adler, Gerhard49, 59 Aristotle 40 Bastian,Adolf 18 BOehme,J. 54 Brown, Albert 18 Budge, Sir E.H. Wallis 73 Burckhardt,Jacob18 Coomaraswamy,AK. 76-7 de Laszlo, Violet 1 de Vries, A 24 Eckhart, Meister 76 Eichmann,Adolf 57 Eliade, Mircea 26 Erikson, Eric 4 Evans,C de B. 76 Fordham,Michael 20, 46, 49 Freud,Anna 49 Freud, Sigmund6,7,15-16,17, 19-20,22-3,47,64 Graves,Robert87 Hubert, H. 18 Jaffe, A. 16 Jalalu'd-DinRumi 77 Jung, CG. 2, 3, 4, 6-7, 33, 38, 40, 46,63,64,65,89,90;archetypal theory and symbols15, 16-20, 21,22,23,48,67,79-80,96

Jung, Emma 2, 4 Kalff, Dora 1-2, 3, 4, 23, 24, 25, 26, 31,33, 102, 106, 107-8, 110; correspondence with Margaret Lowenfeld 112-15 Kalff, Martin 107 Kalff, Sabina107 Kernberg,Otto 49 Kohut, Heinz 49 Krishna, Gopi 26 Lawrence,D.H. 51 Layard, John82 Leenhardt,Maurice 28 Leonardoda Vinci 17 Lowenfeld, Margaret2, 3-4, 5-6; correspondence with Dora Kalff 112-15 Luria, AR. 8, 9 McGuire, W. 20 Marinucci, S. 97 Mauss,M. 18 Meier-Seethaler,C 59 Millar, S. 9 Miller, D.L. 64 Montecchi, F. 97 Nagliero, G. 97 Neumann,E. 59 Piaget,J. 9, 10, 46 Plato 18, 76

120

NAME INDEX

Rudin, J. 65 Ryce-Menuhin,Joel 4, 8-10, 14, 15-20,45,111, 116 Sardello,Robert 82 Schiller, Friedrich 7 Shakespeare, William 87 Stein, Leopold 49 Steiner,Rudolph 104

Tortolani, O. 97 Vygotsky, L.S. 9 Watkins, Mary 3 Weinrib, E.L. 2, 79 Wells, H.G. 3 Wilhelm, R. 106 Winnicott, O.w. 10,21,49,52,53, 101

121

SUBJECT INDEX

accidents103 achievementand masculinity 31 active imagination19, 33 adolescence:casestudy 38,77-89,

Plates 24-33

adults: usesof sandplayfor 103 affectivity 98; seealso feeling aggression,child 98, 99, 100, 101 agnostics104 alchemy,alchemicalprocess55,57, 60, 104 alter-egosee shadow analyst see therapist analytical psychologysee Jungian analysis Analytical PsychologyClub 23 angelsin dreamsand sandplay56, 72,73-4,76 anima: casestudy (1) 40, 42, 43, 44; casestudy (2) 38, 53, 54, 55, 58, 61,62,63;and sandplayforms 95-6 animals60, 61, 62, 63, 67-76 passim, 79, 80, 82, 83, 84, 86, 89; bull 87, 88; horsesee horses animus: casestudy (1) 41; case study (2) 51; casestudy (3) 67, 69,70,71;casestudy (4) 84, 87, 88; and sandplayforms 95-6 anthropology18, 19,26 anxiety 77, 89 appearance:differentiationfrom reality 22 archetypalgames6

archetypalimages16, 17-18, 19-20, 21, 22, 24-7, 30, 36-7, 46, 49, 60, 62, 65, 101, 105,106; of God 65, 104 archetypes15-20, 21, 22, 25, 26, 65, 81, 96, 104; child 6, 18, 19, 36, 41, 42, 43, 69, 90; earth mother 19,24; family unity 79; of meaning67; parental19, 48, 49, 59; and sandplayforms 92-3; shadowsee shadow;syzygy 19, 81; wise old man 19, 42 astrology26, 102 atheists104 autistic children 29, 35, 102-3 autonomy11-12, 88 awe 37

Ba 73

babies30, 46-8, 52; seealso children baby as symbol 43, 44, 56 Babylonianmythology 61 BambinoGesuHospital, Milan 97 Bedford College, London 16 behaviourpatterns16 birds 43, 44, 67, 69, 70, 72, 74, 76, 83,84-5,86 birth 98; traumaof 53,56-7 bisexuals35 boats73, 74, 79, 82 bridges60, 62, 80, 83, 84 British SandplayGroup 116 Buddha70, 73, 74 buildings (sandplayobjects)5-6, 43

122

SUBJECT INDEX

bulls 87,88 butterflies87 California: group experimentsin 103 cancerpatients:sandplayand diagnosisin 97-101 cars 83 carving 19 casestudies:(1) A man maturing 38, 39-45, Plates 1-8; (2) A man healedof traumaticchildhood ego damage38, 45-65, Plates 9-12; (3) A woman in grief 33, 38, 66-77, Plates 13-23; (4) A girl enteringpuberty38, 77-89,

Plates 24-33

civilization and play 8 day modelling 19, 105 cognition 22, 48-9 collective unconscious15-17,26, 46,47,49,65,79,81,91-2,94: seealso archetypes colours 26, 71, 83, 104 compensation48 complex(es)3,54,65;mother42 concentration14, 26, 102 concern,senseof 21 conflict 13, 14 Congressof Psychology,Paris (1937) 4 conscious17, 25, 27, 91-2, 94; relationshipwith unconscious 22,47,65,89 consciousness 17, 46, 47; expansion of 2-3,4 conversation102 counter-transference see transferenceand counter-transference craft, sandplayas 106 creativeimagination,creativity 6-7, 14 crystal: comparedwith collective unconscious16, 79-80 cultural environmentand traditions lOS, 111; child and 49

categoriessee archetypalimages catharsis40, 56, 61 chaos14, 35, 90 child abuse103 child analysis105 child archetypesee archetypes childhood: of Jung6-7 childhoodassociations7, 105 childhoodfantasy17,21,90 childhood traumata39, 42, 45, 105 children: aggression98,99, 100, 101; autistic 29, 35, 102-3; and circus 113; depression36; development9-11, 65; diagnosis death67, 69, 72-3, 76, 77, 81, 98; and sandplayforms 100, 101; see in cancerpatients97-101; obsessive35,98; and parental also grief archetypes19, 48, 49, 59; defences13, 14, 22-3, 35, 47, 64, 98, 102; casestudy (1) 39, 43; case participationof therapistwith study (2) 52, 59 102-3; and play 4, 9-11; and deintegration46 play therapy29-30; psyche18; delusions16, 17 psychiatrictreatmentand emergenceof 'World Technique' depersonalization52, 53 depression30-1,36,52,54,55,56, 3-4; and reality 21, 48; and 69, 75, 98; author's,and its transitionalobjects10, 21, 101; treatmentI, 31; casestudy (4) value of sandplayfor 6; seealso babies 77,79,81,82,87,88 Chinesemythology 26, 44, 68 development,developmental problems3, 38, 89, 103; seealso Christianfigures and symbols17, children 23, 27, 32, 41, 42, 55, 68, 69, 72, 73, 74, 75 diagnosisand sandplay97-101 distress-ego59, 60 circus as symbol 113

123

SUBJECT INDEX

Divine Mother (Mahasakti)74, 75, 76 drawing 19 dreamanalysis19, 20, 38 dream(s)3, 7, 16, 17, 19, 20, 104; casestudy (2) 50, 51, 53-7, 60, 65; casestudy (4) 78, 79; myth as a 26 dual mother 17 earth mother19,24 EasternseeOriental Eden 101 educationalpsychology89 ego 20, 21, 33; casestudy (1) 42, 43, 44, 45; casestudy (2) 50-63; case study (3) 67, 74; casestudy (4) 83,84,85;damageto 45, 49-63, 64; dissolutionof 50; distress-ego59, 60; Freudand 23; and religion 64-65; and sandplayforms 92-3, 95; theory 46-50 ego-centricity43, 59, 115 ego-ideal47-8, 49 ego-strengthening 89; casestudy (2) 63; casestudy (3) 76; and play 9-11 Egyptian civilization and mythology 17, 19, 25, 71, 72-3, 84, 87 emotionalimpact of sandplay32, 40, 56, 61; seealso feeling envy 50 equipmentfor sandplay109 Eros 31 Eternal Child see archetypes,child ethnology18, 19, 26 Europeanheritage:symbol of 86 eweke28, 29 expansionof consciousness 2-3, 4 experienceand play 10-11 extraversion7; casestudy 38, 78,85 factories: sandplayin 103 fair play, conceptof 8 fairy tales 16, 20 family 79,95

fantasy6, 7, 17, 20, 33, 90, 101; child and 17, 21, 90; symbolic 9, 19,89; seealso imagination father 42, 47, 48, 50; casestudy (4) 77-89 passim; seealso parental caring, parents Faust18 feeling 4, 32; seealso emotional impact of sandplay feminine principle, femininity 24, 31, 69, 113; casestudy (2) 55; casestudy (4) 84, 85, 86 fertility 70, 80, 84, 85, 87 fixations 65 folklore 20, 26 free association19 freedom6, 13, 105; from self 77; see also spontaneity Freudianism30,32, 114 frogs 42, 43, 70-1 frustration 59 future: projection of, during sandplay2, 102 gates62, 74, 75, 88, 107 Germaniclegends26 gestures4 girl: casestudy of 38, 77-89, Plates 24-33 Gnosticism24 God 31, 37, 49, 50, 65 God-image65, 104 Great Mother 60, 71 Greekmythology 17, 24-5, 55, 87 grief 38,42,66-77;seealso death Grim Reaper69, 70 groupsfor sandplay103 hatred50 healing: snakeassociatedwith processesof 24, 25 healing, psychological2-3, 13, 20, 29, 32, 33, 70, 102, 105, 106; case study (3) 38, 71; casestudy (4) 88,89

hieros gamos75

horses42, 60, 67, 69, 70, 71, 74,75, 76,81,83,84,86,112,113 hysteria35

124

5 UBJECT INDEX

I.c.P. 113, 114 I Ching 58, 106 ideas89,90 images7; archetypalsee archetypal images;non-verbal2, 3, 12-13; religious 64, 65; symbolic 4, 16, 19,22; seealso symbols, symbolization imagination:active 19,33; and play 10-11,30 Immortal Self 77 immortality 68,72-3 independence11-12, 88; seealso separation Indian chieftain and family 67,69, 71, 74-5, 84 Indian mythology and literature25, 75, 87-8 individuation 26, 39, 63, 64, 70, 74, 104 initiation 28, 29, 88, 102 innocence86 insects86, 87; and psychosis34 instincts17, 20, 23, 25, 47, 61, 89, 90, 113; gratification of 10 InternationalSociety for Sandplay Therapy23, 97, 110, 116 interpretation4, 5-6, 12, 15, 19, 20, 32, 33-4, 36, 89-90, 102; suspicionof 101; seealso symbolic meanings,symbols, symbolization introversion7 intuition 4, 28, 32 intuitive readingof sandplay102 Isaiah 90 Jung Institute, Kiissnacht107 Jungiananalysis15, 19, 46, 65, 95; sandplayusedin conjunction with 2, 6, 33, 34, 97, 113, 115 Jungianpsychotherapy40; Confession40, 41, Plate 1; Elucidation 40, 41-2, Plates 2-4; Education40, 43, Plate 5; Transformation40, 43-5, Plates 6-8 Jungians:conflicts between114

Ka 72-3, 77 Khaibit 73 Khu 73 Kleinian play therapy30 Knight 43,44 knowledge22 Kundalini 24, 25, 44, 75

lambs 68,69 language22; ambiguitiesof 12-13; seealso speech;verbal lateral thinking 106 legends26 libido see psychic energy Lifou language28 London: conflicts betweenJungians in 114 loneliness70 love 70,84 Lowenfeld Archives 112 manapossession,inflation 40,43, 45, 50 mandala,mandalaconstruction62, 83, 95 marriage:casestudy involving 38, 39-45, Plates 1-8 masculineprinciple, masculinity31, 95, 113; casestudy (2) 5; case study (4) 85 masturbation52, 104 meaning:archetypeof 67; and play in children 9 meanings:in life and religion 49, 64; symbolic see symbolic meanings meditation25 Melanesia28 memories7 men: casestudiesof 38, 39-65, plates1-12; and sandplay therapy4 menstruation38, 77, 80, 82, 83, 88 mental laziness63 mid-life crisis 2, 38 Mithraic cults 87 Moral Rearmament55 mother 10, 47, 48, 50; casestudy (1) 41,42; casestudy (2) 57-61

125

SUBJECT INDEX

passim;casestudy (3) 71; case study (4) 77-89 passim;dual 17 mothercomplex 42 mourning see grief music: listening to 13; sonataform parallel to stagesof psychotherapy40 mysticism17 myth, person7, 28 myths 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 24-5, 26, 44, 55, 61, 68, 71, 72-3, 75, 87-8, 111 narcissism50-9 passim,63, 85 neurosis17, 50, 52, 64, 65 non-sense14 Norse mythology 24 numbers:three 69; five 75 numinosity 37, 76 object psycheseecollective unconscious obsessives35, 98 occult philosophy17 octopus80 offices: sandplayin 103 orality 98, 99, 100 Oriental figures and imagery: case study (1) 44; casestudy (3) 67-76 passim;casestudy (4) 79, 82,84,86,87,88,89 Oriental philosophy25 painting 19, 105

paramahamra69

parentalcaring, parents10, 11, 19, 47-8, 49-50, 52, 59, 77-89, 98 parentalfantasies100 patience15, 36 patients:behaviourduring sandplay5, 97; curiosity about sandplay35; interactionwith sandplay3,4; non-rational expression5; suitability for sandplay4, 34-6; transference conflicts 33 perception46; universalpatternsof see archetypes

Persianmythology 25 persona52, 53, 56, 85 personalunconscious15, 17, 25, 81, 91-2,94,106 phallic symbols24, 41, 42, 86, 87, 88 photography5, 97, 106, 109, 114 physically handicapped103 physics15, 22 play 4; physicalaspect14; psychologyof 8-11; symbolic 9, 33,90 play therapy29-30 pre-verbalexpression,level 3, 14, 32,81 prediction, sandplayusedfor 2, 102 primordial imagessee archetypal images protection5, 6, 12 psyche17, 18, 19,36,46,50, 103, 104, 105; and fantasy7; levels projectedinto sandplay91-7; observationof 15; and symbolic play 22, 28-34 passim,90, 106; and water symbolism56,106 psychiatricday centres103 psychicdevelopment106 psychicenergy31,36,40,89,90; casestudies42,43,60,61,69,71 psychicimpulses101 psychic wholeness6 psychodiagnosis110 psychologicalchange3 psychologists:suspicionamongst 101 psychology111; analytical see Jungiananalysis;educational89 psychopathology110 psychotherapy110; Jungiansee Jungianpsychotherapy;and religion 45, 63, 64-5 psychotics,psychosis34, 103 puberty: casestudy 38, 77-89, Plates 24-33 puer aeternussee archetypes,child punishment47,50 rational thinking: discouragedin sandtherapy3

126

SUBJECT INDEX

reactionformation 39 reality: child and 21, 48; differentiation from appearance 22; and neurosis64-5 rebirth 17, 37, 61, 68, 70, 76, 81, 98 reductiveanalysis,therapy 29-30, 32,89 regression30,32,78,98; and sandplay3, 5, 13, 105 relationships:difficulties with 52, 53,63 religion 18, 26, 62, 111; and psychotherapy45, 63, 64-5 religious expressionin sandplay 75-6, 104-5 repression15, 16, 23, 47; casestudy (1) 39 reptiles 41, 43, 60, 76, 84, 86; and psychosis34; snakessee snakes rites de passagesee initiation ritual: obsessive35; of sandplay28, 29,31,32,36,37,103 Romanbeliefs 86 rose, golden 86, 87 Royal Societyof Medicine 23 royalty 55 rules of play 8, 10 sado-masochism 35,61

sahu 72 Samadhi26

sandas earth-medium11, 104 sandpictures4, 14; construction5, 12-13, 97; visual quality 12-13, 106 sandplay:author'sfirst experience of 1-2; equipment109; frequencyof use 32-3, 35, 36; Jungand 4,6-7; origins and evolution of 2, 3-4; physical aspect14, 106; statisticalproofs 97, 101; universality 105-6 sandplayforms: mapping91-7 sandplayobjects29-30, 104, 109; in casestudies41-5,60-3,67-77, 79-89; meaningssee symbolic meanings;placement93, 97 sandplayrooms4, 29, 97, 103, 109; Dora Kalff's 1, 107

sandplay therapy: suitability for 4, 34-6 sandtrays4-5, 6, 35, 59, 109 schizophrenia25, 50 scienceand imprint 18 security fears 47

Sekhem73

self 20, 21, 28, 37, 46, 50, 77, 89, 100; casestudy (1) 39, 44, 45; casestudy (2) 55, 62; casestudy (3) 69; damageto 101; limitation in play 8, 10; and religion 64; and sandplayforms 95, 96-7 self-confidence11, 86 self-consciousness 78 self-discovery,knowledge10-11, 14, 28, 105; casestudy (2) 45; casestudy (3) 69; casestudy (4) 85 self-expression13, 29-30 self-interpretation:dangersof 103-4 self-realization28, 111 sensation4 separation11, 21, 66; seealso independence seriousnessand play 9 sexualimagesand symbols41, 42, 43, 56, 60, 86, 87, 88, 104 sexualpatternsand problemsSO, 52-3,57,63 sexuality78, 84, 85, 86, 113 shadow19, 21, 40, 41, 43, 53, 57, 63, 99,100 shells62, 70, 80, 85, 86 signs 23 snakes23-6, 44, 56, 75, 85 Society for Analytical Psychology 114 sonataform: parallel to stagesof psychotherapy40 soul 64, 76, 82 space:delimited 6, 35, 59; immobility in 99, 100, 101; meditative76; menaceof 58-9; relativity of 15 spacewalks 46 speech4, 12-13, 14, 97 seealso verbal

127

SUBJECT INDEX

spiritual expressionin sandplay 75-6, 104-5 spontaneity5, 102, 106, 111

Spring 3 stones,stonecircles 42, 62, 70, 74, 76, 81, 85, 86 stress89, 98 superstition26 symbolic 3, 28 symbolic fantasy9, 89 symbolic images4, 16, 19, 22 symbolic meanings3, 5-6, 19, 20, 33, 36; in casestudies41-5,

53-7,60-3,67-77,79-89;see

also interpretation

symbolic play 9, 33, 90; objectssee sandplayobjects symbols,symbolization4, 20, 21, 22-7,90; child's learning 21; difficulty in 98; seealso individual symbols syntheticinterpretationsee interpretation syzygy 19, 81 theology 64 therapist:alertnessand sensitivity to images3; interpretationby see interpretation;necessityof presenceof 103-4; as observer4, 6, 11, 32, 35, 36, 79, 106; participationwith children in sandplay102-3; patience15, 36; and stagesof construction5; training 110-11 thought4, 70; developmentof abstract10; discouragementof rational, in sandplay3 time: disturbedperceptionof, in cancerpatients99, 100, 101; relativity of 15; snakes symbolizing25 tragedy40 transcendentfunction 20-1, 89 transferenceand counter-transference 12, 33, 40, 57, 58, 83

transitionalobject 10, 21, 52, 101 trees41, 42, 61, 69, 70, 71, 76, 82, 85, 86 unconscious26, 67, 90; colIective seecolIective unconscious;and Jung7, 19, 23; personalIS,16, 17, 25, 81, 91-2, 94, 106; projectedin sandplay3, 28, 103; related to conscious22, 47, 65, 89; snakeas symbol of borders of 24 uterus43, 104 verbal analysis:accompanying sandplay32, 33, 34, 36, 60, 79; author'sexperienceof, with Dora Kalff 1 verbal feedback102 verbal psychotherapy3, 13, 32, 34, 35, 57, 59, 105-6; seealso words virginity 80, 82, 83 waiting quality 80, 82, 83 war 8 water: comparedwith psychic development106; symbolismof 56,67,82 water jugs 109 wholeness,psychic 6 wisdom 85 wise old man 19, 42 women: casestudies33,38,66-89, Plates 13-33; psychoanalysis and sandplay4 wonder37 words 4, 12-13, 14, 97; seealso verbal work 10 working class: casestudy of 45-65 'World Technique'of Margaret Lowenfeld 3-4, 112, 113 Yahweh seeGod yoga 26 Zurich: analyststrainedin 114; author'svisit to homeof Dora Kalff 1, 107-8

128