◎ This article is excerpted from "Psychoanalysis: Understanding and Experience", "The Operation of the "Sandbox Game"", by Shen Heyong, (Beijing) Sanlian Bookstore, 2004.
"Sandbox game" is a form of psychoanalysis, but it also contains the meaning and function of the three levels of psychoanalysis: "Tranquility: Healing the Mind and Psychotherapy", "Tranquility: Peace of Mind and Psychological Education", and "Peace of Mind: Clear Mind and Mental Development". Therefore, the operation or operation of the "sandbox game" is carried out on the basis of psychological analysis. Psychoanalysis's "unconscious principles", "symbolic principles" and "inductive principles" are still the key to treatment from the "sandbox game".
However, compared to the basic methods of psychoanalysis such as hypnosis, free association, positive imagination, and the analysis of empathy and dreams, the "sandbox game" has its own characteristics.
*Photo taken from the sandbox playroom at the Wash heart island counseling center
01
Get it from the heart
How to start a "sandbox game" often becomes the first problem encountered.
In general, the psychoanalyst can introduce the model of the sand table and the sand table room to the analyzed person, including the characteristics of the sand table, the dry sand table and the wet sand table, and the blue bottom surface that appears after the sand is pushed away. However, whether to make a sandbox is entirely up to the analyzed person himself. Avoiding any factors that compel the analyzed person to make a sandbox is the first rule of "sandplay" therapy.
If the analyzed person shows interest in sandplay, it is already moving. As an analyst, the guideline should often be simple and flexible, with the general meaning of "here is the sandbox, here is the toy model, you can play with it and do whatever you want; or you can put any toy model you want on the sandbox and build whatever picture you want to build." ”
If the analyst wants to do it and says that he doesn't know what to do, then the analyst may wish to put his hand on the sand of the sand table and feel it with his heart... Then express your inner feelings.
With a certain feeling and feeling, then it is generally necessary to go to the shelf to pick out the toy model. If we use the principle of "feeling and passing" in the I Ching to explain, then this selection is a two-way street. That is, it is not only you who are picking a toy model, but the seemingly silent toy model is also picking you in the dark. At the very least, it is the unconscious that allows you to express the meaning and function of its existence through the silent model of the toy.
Harriet Friedman's sandbox playroom
So it's already a kind of telepathy, starting with your hands touching the sand in the sand table. Behind the sand, there is the symbolic meaning of sand and water, the connection with Mother Earth, the communication with the collective unconscious and archetypes, the spirituality and creation of the heart... The healing meaning of the "sandbox game" is also included.
The power and decisive factor of healing comes from the depths of the player's heart, not from the external healing or influence. As a sandbox game analyst, its role is not to guide or guide healing, but to awaken the player's inner guide, play a role of care and protection, and play the effect of accompaniment and empathy.
02
It should be at hand
It is from the heart and it is in the hand. With the induction of the heart, then the performance of the hand has a profound meaning and background, it can be said that the hand is performing, operating, and the "heart" is talking and expressing. As the saying goes, "ten fingers connected to the heart" and "mental craftsmanship" also have the unique meaning of their "sandbox game" treatment.
In the process of "sandbox game", the player uses his hands to construct invisible inner feelings. He may have picked up a certain toy model from the shelf in the sand room, touched it with his hand, picked it up, picked it up and put it down. He may also be on the sand table, carefully placing a certain toy model in a position suitable for it, moving up and down from side to side. Or, touch the memories contained in a toy model with your hand. In fact, all the sandbox toy models used by the player may contain traces and memories of the individual's psychological or unconscious level. And this perceptual contact is also the restoration and re-experience of memory in a psychoanalytic atmosphere of freedom, protection and safety.
In fact, sometimes, the player may not choose to use any toy model, but just use his hands to stroke or pile up some shape of sand on the sand. But for the analyst, it is also the expression of the heart. From the imprint of the hand left on the sand table to the flow of sand and the shape of the sand formed by the touch of the hand, it belongs to the psychoanalysis of the sand table game. Like the analysis of dreams, behind those forms is the meaning of the mind, or the existence and manifestation of the unconscious.
03
Shaped in sand
The player ends up leaving us with a picture on the sandbox, which is what many books on "sandplay" therapy focus on. Since there is a brewing of "getting from the heart and responding to the hand", then "the instrument with the heart has no writing". With an understanding of the psychoanalytic connotations based on Chinese culture, we know that this "text" and "reason" are interconnected, and the "text" of the Golden Text is alluded to it. The clues of "texture", the depth of psychology, and the wonderful use of the mind will also be fully revealed.
When we are faced with a sandbox picture, we are feeling the expression of the player from the bottom of our hearts through the form of that picture, and the spontaneous appearance of his unconscious. Sometimes, the player will tell you the story after completing his sandbox drawing, or even in the process of playing it. But it may also just leave you with his sandbox drawings and his non-verbal expressions.
The first thing we need to pay attention to is where the player is when building the sandbox and where the analyst is. Secondly, the direction of the sandbox picture is oriented to oneself or to the analyst. Then, the fluidity of the energy in the sandbox drawing can be observed from the manual traces left by the player on the sand and the motion of the toy model in the sandbox.
Although we call the sandbox "non-verbal psychotherapy," the sandbox is depicted "talking," using symbolic language consistent with unconscious psychology.
For example, if the player places a frog in the sandbox, the mythological and cultural significance of the frog and the symbolic significance of the frog's own transformation have a very important significance and role in the sandbox picture and the player's psychological analysis process. The frog's position in the sandbox, its relationship with the toy model around it, and the appearance, transfer and disappearance of many sandbox pictures, etc., all show the inner changes of the player and the process of its healing and development.
While completing the chapter "Sandplay Therapy," I was invited by the International Sandplay Therapy Society to give a presentation at the August 2003 International Symposium on Sandplay Therapy in Seattle. I gladly accepted the invitation and titled "Sandbox Games and Chinese Culture.". Whether it is Calf's own dream, or the analysis of the "sandbox game" starting from the "I Ching", or the effective intervention of the five elements of yin and yang in the treatment and healing of the sandplay, this is what I expressed at the conference in Seattle.
In fact, obtaining this "synchronicity" is the embodiment of the psychological meaning of the unconscious, with a wonderful symbolic meaning, but also the experience and effect of sincerity and induction. This is true of "sandbox games", so is dreams, and so is free association and positive imagination.