Vol. 42, No. 4, October 2012 285Scripts in the Sand Sandp.docx

Vol. 42, No. 4, October 2012 285
Scripts in the Sand: Sandplay in
Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy with Children
Cinzia Chiesa
A bstract
This article discusses sandplay as a thera-
peutic tool in clinical w ork w ith children.
The origins of san dplay are described and
its possible use w ithin the theoretical and
methodological approach of transactional
analysis are described. Several clinical ex-
amples illustrate how sandplay can be used
w ithin the child-therapist relationship to
highlight certain aspects of script and its
transformation.
______
Figure 1

Figures in the Sand
(Used with the permission of Kal Khogali)
The Birth of Sandplay
D escribing the origins of sandplay in child
psychology means talking about two women:
M argaret Lowenfeld, an English pediatrician
who conceived the idea, and Dora Kalff, a
Swiss psychotherapist and pupil of Jung who
promoted its dissemination.
W e owe the idea of using sand as a therapeu-
tic tool to the pioneering and visionary work of
M argaret Lowenfeld. In 1928 she founded a
psychology clinic for children in London that,
in a few years, became a meeting place for
psychotherapists from all over the world. She
dedicated herself to researching tools for under-
standing those fantasies and experiences of chil-
dren that cannot be expressed with words.

In contrast to the prevailing interpretational
approach in the psychoanalytic world at that
time, Lowenfeld understood play as a natural
function of the child’s being and connected play
with emotional development in children. She
recounted, in a piece published for the first
time 6 years after her death, the birth of her ap-
proach in the use of play in therapy with children:
M y own approach to the use of a toy appa-
ratus with children derives from a memory
of H. G. W ells’ F loor Games (1911), the
first edition of which had made a deep im-
pression upon my youth. W hen, therefore,
I came from orthodox pediatrics to the as-
sociated study of emotional co nditions in
childhood, I began to put this memory to
use. I collected first a miscellaneous mass
of material, colored sticks and shapes,

beads, small toys of all sorts, paper shapes
and match boxes, and kep t them in what
came to be known by my children as the
“W onder B ox.” (Lowenfeld, 1979, p. 3)
T he next step was the construction of two
metal sandboxes in which children could play
with dry or wet sand and place objects in the
“magic box.” T hus was born the method that
Lowenfeld studied and deepened for the rest of
her life: the world technique. Here is how Lowen-
feld (1979) described it:
T here is a gap between a child’s world and
that of the adults of his environment, and
thus a lack of mutual understanding. . . .
Further, . . . many things are more easily
“said” in pictures and actions than in
CINZIA CHIESA

286 Transactional Analysis Journal
words. It is explained to the child that this
is a natural way of “thinking” and that this
is what we would like him to do for us
here. T he W orld apparatus is then intro-
duced and the child invited to make “what-
ever comes into his head.” (p. 5)
Lowenfeld believed that in constructing their
world in the sand, children gained the ability to
observe and transform certain aspects of their
emotional world, thoughts, and memories. From
this emerges a vision o f the child as a com-
petent and active subject in the regulation of
his or her own psychic processes. T his is now
a widely shared vision, thanks to studies con-
ducted in the field of infant research, but they
were groundbreaking when Lowenfeld began
her work.

Equally innovative was the role that Lowen-
feld (1993, 2008) attributed to the therapist.
Along with the child who is in the process of
constructing his or her world, the psycho-
therapist is called to discover, together with the
child, that which slowly emerges. T he attribu-
tion of meaning through interpretation is
avoided. Instead, the therapist is invited to cap-
ture the sense and emotional quality that the
objects have for the child who uses them.
D ora K alff met M argaret Lowenfeld in Zur-
ich in 1956 during one of her conferences on
the world technique. She was struck by the
technique and, maintaining its methodological
system, described the processes observed in the
sand, making use of concepts from Jung’s ana-
lytical psychology. Kalff (1 966) called this
therapeutic tool sandplay and contributed to its

promotion and awareness around the world, in-
cluding by founding the International S ociety
for Sandplay T herapy in 1985.
Sandplay Today
Presently, sandplay finds its application even
in therapeutic contexts that have theoretical
models that differ from a Jungian approach. It
is done now with children and adults, in groups
or with individuals. Even in transactional analy-
sis we can find examples of the use of this tool.
Romanini (1997/1999a) discussed it in her clini-
cal work with children, and Kottwitz (1993)
and D ay (2008, 2010) have described using it
with adults.
In this article I present the way in which I, as
a transactional analyst, perceive and use sand-
play in psychotherapy with children. I think
that this therapeutic tool fits well into the child-

therapist relationship and can be used to work
on various core points of the script as well as to
bring survival conclusions into focus.
T he script model I use is the one conceptua-
lized by English (1977, 1988, 2010). I use the
concept of survival conclusions in a develop-
mental perspective, as conceived by English
and later referred to by Rotondo (2001). Eng-
lish emphasized the function of the script in
infant development, with the child needing to
give structure to time and space, to provide
meaning for relationships with caregivers and
meaningful others, and to make sense of reality
(English, 1977, p. 290). During its formation,
the script organizes itself in temporary gestalts,
that is, in shapes that transform themselves over
time into survival conclusions.
I think of survival conclusions as creative re-

sponses: the best that could possibly be found
in a certain moment of development. Led by
the Little Professor, they organize themselves
as a form of “mediation between the vital needs
of the child and what he perceives as environ-
mental dem ands” (Rotondo, 2001, p. 17). B e-
cause of their role in this process, and therefore
survival, these conclusions may become, over
time, self-restricting and repetitive, precluding
exploration of new approaches to experience.
I think that the representations children cre-
ate in sandplay may be observed through the
theoretical frame of this script model, with par-
ticular reference to survival conclusions. T he
scenes created in the sandplay can be concep-
tualized as organizations of the internal and ex-
ternal reality that the child exp eriences in that
particular moment. T hrough these representa-

tions, the child’s survival conclusions find ex-
pression, within both the space of the play and
the relationship with the therapist.
A Play Space B etw een Protection and
Permission
Lowenfeld suggested using a sandbox of 57
x 72 x 7 centimeters, with a blue bottom that
can represent water when needed. These dimen-
sions are related to the child’s potential field of
SCRIPTS IN THE SAND: SANDPLAY IN TRANSACTIONAL
ANALYSIS PSYCHOTHERAPY WITH CHILDREN
Vol. 42, No. 4, October 2012 287
vision at a distance of a half meter. T he sand-
play technique uses dry or wet sand and a
variety of small objects with which the child is
invited to construct a scene inside the sandbox.
I will describe each of the elements that make
up this therapeutic tool: the sand, the objects,

and the sandbox.
Sand is a natural, malleable m aterial that is
capable of preserving the traces of even a deli-
cate gesture when it is dry and of assuming a
definite and complex form when wet (M arinuc-
ci, 2003; M ontecchi, 1993). T hese characteris-
tics make it a sturdy but modifiable medium,
capable of embodying polarity and opposites.
A ccording to the quantities of water with
which it is mixed, sand can be dry as pow-
der or wet and heavy. W hen pure and clean,
it can conjure up order: each grain of sand
is found in a precise place. Sand, however,
can also be muddy and dirty and represent
chaos. Sand can be suitable for construc-
tion, but as quicksand it can suck down
anything that is solid. . . . Images made of
sand are easily altered and yet their de-

struction offers the possibility of new uses.
(Pattis Zoja, 2010, p. 97)
W e can associate the idea of this material
with the idea of transform ation that character-
izes the child’s psychological development,
with the evolution of subsequent representa-
tions of his or her being in the world that can
lead to the structuring and restructuring of script.
Sand and psyche have many things in common:
movement, moving in search of a new form, and
having reached the new form, beginning to
flow again. T he plasticity of sand gives three-
dimensional expressivity to children through
involvement on a kinesthetic level (touch and
movement) and the use of the visual channel.
T he centrality of the corporeal and sensory
activation renders the use of this material in the
therapeutic field fit to energize the child.

I link the importance of this therapeutic
intervention with the hypothesis developed by
Romanini (1991/1999b, 1997/1999a) that the
Child ego state holds a central position during
the whole of childhood. She (1991/1999b) intro-
duced the concept of the real ego to represent
the ego state that is more consistent with the
chronological age of a person. During infancy,
the ego state energized as the real ego is the
Child ego state. Romanini stated that a child is
a product of his or her environment (external
recognition). For these reasons, she represented
a diagram of the ego states during childhood in
an unusual way, with the Child ego state in the
middle referring to the location of the real ego.
“Plotting in a diagram the C hild between the
Parent and the Adult seems a better expression
of the childhood personality. It marks the func-

tion of the real ego that makes the contamina-
tion between tho se two ego states more diffi-
cult” (Romanini, 1999b, p. 58). W ith adoles-
cence begins the transition of the real ego into
the Adult ego state that becomes central in the
usual ego state diagrams.
The child who plays with the sand can choose
between many miniature objects set out on
shelves: human and imaginary figures, animals,
trees, houses, vehicles, stones, shells, and piec-
es of wood. T he objects offer a representational
system to draw on and, as Romanini (1997/
1999a) emphasized, allows for the use of fan-
tasy even in very young children. T he objects
used in sandplay perform an analogous role to
that of the transitional object d escribed by
W innicott (1971). T hey are positioned, in fact,
in that area of intermediate reality that allows

for a connection between the internal and the
external, between inside and outside. For this
reason, I am interested in the meaning that a
certain object has for the child who is using it
in that moment and in the relational field in
which both therapist and child are involved. I
do not see the objects as being specific symbols
to decode.
G iven this way of perceiving the o bjects, I
have developed a variation of the technique as
originally conceived by Lowenfeld. I allow the
child to construct an object (with paper, wood,
or clay) that can then be p laced in the scene
that he or she is creating or to bring a small
object from home and put it in the sandbox T he
child’s Little Professor (B erne, 1972) is there-
by stimulated to look creatively for a shape or
object that will render his or her emotional

state expressible and externally visible. I use
this variation with some children, particularly
when I perceive that the youngster’s Free Child
energy, within the dynamic of the play, seems
CINZIA CHIESA
suppressed by worry about making mistakes or
by the desire to please the therapist’s expecta-
tions. In these cases, asking a child to be active
in creating or bringing an object into the scene
helps to reestablish an atmosphere within the
therapeutic relationship of double OKness, a
definition that Romanini (1997/1999a) used to
underscore the intersubjective, unique, and crea-
tive exchange between persons in the O K /O K
position. T his supports the permission that “it
is O K to be yourself, to express your ideas and

desires.”
For example, during our first m eeting, and
before choosing the objects she wanted to use
in the sand tray, Sophia asked if she was sup-
posed to depict the real world or the world that
she wanted. W hen I told her that she could
choose whatever she preferred, she decided to
create her desired world (Figure 2). T his in-
volved a place in which she could play in the
company of people she was connected to: her
mother, her father, her brother, and her friends.
I suggested that if she thought that something
was missing in the scene she had built, she
could create it using the available materials.
Sophia enthusiastically accepted my proposal
and constructed a border, which represented
something that was m issing for her. T o make
the border of her world safe and protective, she

created some waves out of blue and white
paper.
Figure 2
The Desired World
T he use of sand and objects takes place in a
container that defines, by means of its borders,
a horizontal space, inside of which the child is
free to play and create what he or she wants.
For this reason, I think of the sandbox as a
creative space that is developed within an
atmosphere of protection and permission. I use
the terms protection and permission as de-
scribed by Crossman (1966) because I think
that within the play space of the sand tray, the
child can experience some permissions within
a protected relational frame, for which the
therapist is in charge. I will propose some argu-
ments for this hypothesis.

O ffering the child the chance to play in the
sand in our “company” (Alvarez, 1992, p. 184)
means transmitting the permission “It’s OK to
be a child,” a central therapeutic tenet in the trans-
actional analysis approach in child psycho-
therapy (Romanini, 1997/1999a). Protection is
linked to the size of the container, which em-
braces the visual field and o ffers a contained
view of the contents expressed by the child in
the sand, shared and equally observable by the
child-therapist pair. T o appreciate the signifi-
cance of the protection offered by the confines
of the sandbox, it is useful to reference the
image of an em pty fram e, with which M ilner
(1952) correlates containment and creativity in
the therapeutic process:
I said that in conditions of spontaneous
action in a limited field, with a malleable

fragment of the external world, it seemed
that an internal force, capable of organiz-
ing and creating, was released. . . . In order
for this to happen, there needed to be an
empty space, an empty frame. . . . I believe
that the frame demonstrates that that which
is inside must be perceived and interpreted
in a different way than that which is out-
side; it marks an area in which that which
we perceive must be considered a meta-
phor. (p. 105)
In the empty frame created by the sandbox,
the child can access that portion of experience
that W innicott (1971) defined as potential space,
a place of play and creativity in which reality
and fantasy are mixed but never completely lose
their boundaries. Real objects are overlapped
by a fantasy dimension, which transports them

Vol. 42, No. 4, October 2012 289
into an area in which the illusion created by the
play temporarily suspends reality without elimi-
nating it. As the therapist, I participate in what
is happening in this area of play inside the
child-therapist field. T ogether, in the area of
the sandbox, the objects, and the sand, the child
and therapist share a sp ace that I define as
transactional in that it is an organizer and acti-
vator of verbal and nonverbal transactions from
inside to outside. I agree with Kottwitz (1993),
who, when speaking of her work with sandplay,
wrote, “I do not see myself as an analyst who
interprets symbols, but as a partner in a verbal
and non-verbal transactional process” (p. 77).
T he therapist uses empathic transactions

(H argaden & Sills, 2002) aimed at the reality in
which the child finds himself or herself in the
moment and at sustaining and stimulating quali-
ties that the child cannot recognize or that have
not yet developed. In the presence of the thera-
pist, children can dialogue with the images that
they have created in the sand and enter into
contact with their emotional world, relive cer-
tain distressing situations without being over-
whelmed, and activate possible transforma-
tions. T he space and time of the play are differ-
ent from the ones in real life. B y playing in the
presence of the therapist, the child has access
to an intermediate portion of experience be-
tween subjective and objective, between the
internal and external worlds. W ithin the bounda-
ries of this imaginative experience, similar to
an immersion in the world of fairy tales, some

distressful experiences can become more im-
mediate and observable but at a safe distance.
M eanwhile, because of the actions that the child
can concretely put in place within the play field
(i.e., move some objects, take out others) and
the sharing process with the therapist, some
psychological content can be reorganized into
new shapes.
I think back to a child who placed a bridge in
the sand (Figure 3). T his image is particularly
evocative of the relational significance that
sandplay acquires in therapeutic work. W e can
consider it as a communication tool, a bridge
that allows for a connection between the thera-
pist and the child. I included this im age here
thinking of Resnik (1996), who referred to the
bridge as a metaphor of the b ond: It is a
conjunction, a connection, and, at the same time,

it allows movement from our own point of view
to that of another.
Figure 3
The Bridge
Traces in the Sand: The Script in Action
In sandplay, the child creates in the presence
of the therapist a physical and visual story,
made up of objects, that can be considered to
be three-dimensional “words” in which the
arrangement is regulated by rhythm, gesture,
and movement. W e can imagine that there is a
link between the body, emotions, im ages, and
words. Each one of these expressive outlets can
be seen as an access door that allows the child’s
experience to be expressed. I have worked with
children who began with words as they re-
counted a story, others who touched the sand in
silence, and still others who stared for a long

time at the objects, as if to compose an image
in their mind before creating it.
Constructing a scene in the sand is a creative
exp erience connected to the way in which the
child connects his or her feelings with external
reality. U sing W innicott’s (1971) words, we
could say that it depends on how this child
“encounters reality.”
T he process of creating a scene in the sand
can begin from any of these points: from ges-
ture, expression of an emotion, a visual por-
trayal, or verbal communication. In looking at
the gestures with which children construct their
scenes in the sand and the forms that these
creations assume, I have to make reference to
the methodological approach suggested by art
therapist and psychoanalyst M imma Della
Cagnoletta (2010). Starting from Ogden’s (1986)

theoretical conceptualization of the different
ways in which an individual gains experience,
Cagnoletta identified three possible methods
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with which objects and materials are approached
within the creative process in a therapeutic
environment:
• B ody concentration: a form of sensory ex-
perimentation by way of touch, movement,
and the rhythm of the body
• Formal resolution: order and structure are
given to the elements with which one
interacts
• Symbolic narration: seeking a form through
which to tell about oneself and one’s own
experiences

T he hypothesis is that these three modalities
follow an evolutionary path and correspond to
growth transitions. E ven when symbolic narra-
tion has been achieved, the other two modali-
ties can continue to be present and usable at the
same time. I have observed that children begin
by predominantly using one of these modalities
and then transform to an expressive-communi-
cative level over the course of the therapeutic
process.
A good example of this is the case of a 5-
year-old child whom I will call “T ommaso.” I
worked in therapy with him for a serious sphinc-
ter retention disorder accompanied by a state of
anxiety that caused him to abandon any type of
experimentation (food, new activities) because
he was afraid he would not succeed. T ommaso
used the sand only at the end of our therapy. In

doing so, he approached this experience with
his body, exploring the wet sand, touching it
gently, and molding several forms without
using objects and without speaking. W atching
him stroke the sand, I was aware that his body
was slowly but surely abandoning its tensions
and that an old need for contact and sensory
0experimentation (somatic Child/C ) was reemerg-
ing. It was not yet time to use words. Little by
little, the forms that he constructed in the sand
became more defined, organized, and accom-
panied by comments until, in one of our meet-
ings, he began to tell me the story of some
seeds that wanted to be planted in order to
sprout. He chose a few pieces of colored corn
and planted them in the sand, asking me to
water them and await their flowering with him
(Figure 4).

In working with T ommaso and watching his
flowering, I thought several times of physis,
Figure 4
Seeds in the Sand
which B erne (1972) described as an innate
drive toward life that allows us to activate pos-
sibility and change, a positive force of sponta-
neity and creativity. T he relationship between
physis, creativity, and lucid activity during
development has also been highlighted in re-
cent neuroscience research, which sees play as
a function of self-regulation and spontaneous
psychic processing (Tronick, 2007).
T hrough play, guided by his or her fantasies,
a child can experiment with new behaviors and
express his or her own emotional world. It might
be considered a way to practice being script
free (B erne, 1972). Some children have trouble
playing and seem to have lost faith in their own

gestures, images, and thoughts. I believe that
the richness of the expressive channels that sand-
play involves make this therapeutic tool adept
at reactivating the energies of the Child and, in
particular, the intuition of the Little Professor.
As a transactional analyst, I often think of the
child who inhabits this space of free and
protected play in the presence of the therapist
as if he or she leaves traces of his or her survi-
val conclusions in the sand, “a creative re-
sp onse, the best in that moment, that the child
m anages to give in order to put together and
integrate herself and the environment” (Roton-
do, 2001, p. 17). I look at the child’s creation
as an organization of a part of experience, a
portrayal of his or her being in the world. I
agree with Kottwitz, who affirmed, “I see the

Vol. 42, No. 4, October 2012 291
possibility of identifying notable information in
the depicted scene regarding the script origins
of certain difficulties” (p. 76).
T hrough the following clinic example, I will
show how sandplay can improve the compre-
hension of some script issues and start a pro-
cess of reconsidering the client’s survival stra-
tegies and looking for more functional options.
The Little Crocodile
At this point I want to describe the symbols
created in the sand by 7-year-old Fabio, whom
I met while he was having problems at scho ol
that were characterized by defiant behavior.
T his had become serious enough that his teach-
ers had started to define him as an “impossible

child.” Sandplay was a part of almost all of the
meetings between Fabio and me, and they con-
tributed to the creation of a shared narrative
thread, even with his parents, around which the
entire therapeutic process developed.
W ith mastery and precision, Fabio repeatedly
lined up two armies in the sand, hidden be-
tween plants or behind rocks, arranged on a
bridge or on the shore of a river: opposing sol-
diers in an endless war, with no winner and no
loser (F igure 5). During therapy, I watched
Fabio, admiring the care with which he man-
aged to construct the scene of battle, each time
inventing new hid ing places and creatively
organizing the space. At the same time, I was
struck by the sense of immobility that I per-
ceived in that scenario of infinite war. Action
seemed frozen in the soldiers’ posts.

Even Fabio, active and vital in arranging the
two armies and constructing the scene, seemed
to shut down and immobilize himself in the
face of his creation. His free and creative move-
ments at the beginning of the play became more
and more rigid. T hey eventually stopped and
left space for a silent observation that conclud-
ed with a request: “C an we take a picture of
this battle? Even though this time no o ne won
and no one lost?”
At one point in the therapy, I collected all the
pictures of the battle scene I had taken over the
course of the therapy until then. T his allowed
me to share with Fabio the evolution of the pro-
cess of the play that took place within the sand
tray. Looking at and talking about them and
Figure 5
The Endless War
giving meanings to his creations in the sand

promoted a reflective/mentalizing process. This
process facilitated the communication of Fa-
bio’s feelings and fed a progressive emotional
literacy in him as he gave voice to the mean-
ings of his creations in the sand.
For several months our meetings were occu-
pied by the depiction of this conflict without
solution: move or stay still, feel or freeze. These
polarities appeared to be an emotional impasse
in which Fabio seemed suspended, just as the
soldiers were. T his play space played the part
of a container in which he could create a form
that rendered this impasse communicable and
observable.
In the sand, Fabio portrayed his script con-
clusions (English, 1977). In the sandplay, war-
riors were doing battle just as Fabio did at
school, provoking and “doing battles” with his

classmates and teachers. I imagined his survival
strategy as follows: “T o be seen and important
and to be recognized by others, I’ll fight and
I’ll provoke battles and I’ll get others mad at
me, even if this means to set aside and hide my
real needs and genuine/real emotions.”
N ext to him, I countertransferentially felt his
tension and confusion, his rage and fear, and I
developed an action of reverie, supporting him
in elaborating those emotions that were still not
expressible. I am referring here to the well-known
concept of reverie, intro duced (for the first
time) by B ion (1962) and reconceptualized by
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G iusti (2008) in transactional analysis therapy
with children. T he therapist promotes within

himself or herself an internal dialogue (between
Parent and Child) by which to process what the
child does not yet have the ability to feel emo-
tionally. T his is what Giusti called a reverie
action.
O ne day, something changed. Fabio asked
me, “Don’t you see som ething new today?
Look, there’s a small crocodile, hidden there”
(Figure 6).
Figure 6
The Little Crocodile
T he small crocodile did not participate in the
war and was not lined up with the armies.
Fabio explained to me that the crocodile liked
the water, sand, and trees and was in search of
a safe place in which to live. Initially, the croco-
dile occupied a hidden and m arginal space in
the scene, but slowly and surely he became the

protagonist. He was more and more visible, and
Fabio affectionately described his characteris-
tics: “H e has just been born, and he is learning
to feed himself, he’s not bad, he’s an intelligent
animal.” Later, he affirmed, “You know, I’m
that crocodile.” I thought of the trusting, emer-
gent part of himself, free from the emotional
impasse, that Fabio was learning to use.
From this perspective, the crocodile can been
viewed as an object used by Fabio to express
his authentic need to be seen for his qualities,
to move within the space, and to engage him-
self in relationships more freely. T he crocodile,
at the beginning hidden and silent, then more
and more visible and moving within the sand
tray, can be seen as a creative object, an expres-
sion of Fabio’s energy that allowed to him to
change his survival strategy. I look at Fabio’s

transformation and his reorganization of the
space within the sandbox as the beginning of a
process of change.
W e can say that the actions, movements, and
changes that take place in sandplay express the
possibility that the child will allow himself or
herself to formulate a new survival strategy,
closing a gestalt that is still open and thus cor-
recting the decisions of a script that is still in
the making. In this process, a creative potential
develops that is capable of confronting and over-
coming difficulties in light of new orientations
and new decisions.
C onclusion
In this article I showed some connections be-
tween transactional analysis psychotherapy with
children and the use of sandplay. I highlighted
how sandplay can be a relational tool that al-

lows for a connection between adult and child
by way of a communicable and convertible im-
age of the child’s internal world. In my clinical
experience, I have found it useful to look at the
scenes built in the sand by children and to link
these to the theory of script, in particular, sur-
vival conclusions as conceptualized by English.
M oreover, I think that sandplay is a flexible
tool that allows reflection through a sequence
of photos of the evolving sand tray scenes and
the telling of a shared story and narrative. In this
sense, I think it would be useful to explore con-
nections with the work of Allen (2010) and
Stuthridge (2010) and their theories of script as
a coherent self-narrative, respectful of a per-
son’s development and needs.
I want to close this contribution by thanking
the children and their parents who allowed me

to use the images of their creations born in the
sand. I believe that this has rendered my ac-
count of this play technique more vivid and its
profound significance more apparent.
Cinzia Chiesa, Provisional Teaching and
Supervising Transactional Analyst (psychothera-
py) is a psychologist and psychotherapist. She
works in M ilan, Italy, at Centro di Psicologia
Vol. 42, No. 4, October 2012 293
e Analisi Transazionale [Center for Psycholo-
gy and Transactional Analysis] as a psycho-
therapist with children and fam ilies and as a
train er and supervisor at Scuola di Specializ-
zazione in Psicoterapia [School of Specializa-
tion in Psychotherapy] . She can be reached at
Via G entile Bellini 10 , 20146 M ilan, Italy; e-

m ail: [email protected] tiscali.it . This article
was originally published under the title “Script
in the Sand” in Q uaderni di Psicologia Analisi
T ransazionale e Scienze Umane, 55-56/201,
2011. This is a new, updated version.
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Sandtray and
Solution
-Focused Therapy
Elizabeth R. Taylor
Texas Christian University
Both solution-focused (SF) and sandtray therapies have been
shown to have effective
healing properties. SF, a primarily verbal therapy, uses
carefully worded and timed
questions and comments that solicit the clients’ already existing
strengths and resil-
iencies to solve the current and future problems. Sandtray
therapy relies primarily on
nonverbal communication through the use of carefully selected
miniatures within the

confines of a sand tray to facilitate clients’ healing and
strengthen internal resources.
Because these therapies at first appear to be so different, it is
not surprising that their
combined application is rarely mentioned in the literature. Yet,
similarities between
the two therapies do exist and may be combined to provide an
empowering and brief
experiential therapeutic journey. A brief background and
theoretical orientation to
SF therapy is provided, accompanied by illustrations of the
merger of these two
approaches. Also discussed are similarities between SF and
sandtray therapies and
the advantages of combining them in work with children and
adolescents.
Keywords: solution-focused, sandtray
Regardless of age, ethnicity, or gender, sand is a medium that
crosses all
boundaries. It is difficult to resist moving one’s hands through
the sand, touching
and feeling its fine grain, moving it from one side to another,
making paths, and

building mountains. With sand and carefully selected
miniatures, one can move
through the past, present, and future; describe unspeakable
events; confront one’s
demons and overcome challenge; become a new person while
retaining the best of
the old; and create the potential self and its many possibilities.
Indeed, the use of sand and its miniatures is an established
therapeutic ap-
proach with children, adolescents, and adults (Homeyer &
Sweeney, 2005). A
primarily nonverbal method of intervention, the “work” is done
through the sand
material and the carefully selected toys the client uses to
construct and sometimes
to play out his or her world. Because sandboxes are familiar to
most children, sand
play is not likely to be threatening and more likely to be a safe
way to express what
may seem to be unacceptable feelings and impulses (Oaklander,
1988). Sandtray
therapy has other benefits as well. For clients who are less
prone to verbal
communication or who may not be language proficient, the sand

and the miniatures
become the language through which the child can communicate
(see Vinturella &
James, 1987), producing tangible results (Hunter, 2006). For
those who are stuck in
old ways of problem-solving, sandtray therapy opens up new
perspectives from a
“three-dimensional field” (Bainum, Schneider, & Stone, 2006,
p. 36). Unlike other
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Elizabeth R. Taylor, College of
Education, Texas Christian University, TCU Box 297900, Fort
Worth, TX 76129. E-mail: [email protected]
tcu.edu
56
International Journal of Play Therapy © 2009 Association for
Play Therapy
2009, Vol. 18, No. 1, 56 – 68 1555-6824/09/$12.00 DOI
10.1037/a0014441
types of expressive techniques, such as drawing or writing, skill

is not required for
creating scenes, so that self-consciousness and fear of judgment
are not so prob-
lematic (Bradway, 1979). For some, the sand itself is so
relaxing that deep and
painful issues are less frightening to discuss in the therapy
session (Homeyer &
Sweeney, 1998).
Beginning with Margaret Lowenfeld in the early 1900s, the use
of sandtray
began as a therapeutic approach, which she called the “World
Technique.” Clients
used miniatures as a vehicle for communicating and expressing
their emotions and
resolving conflicts in their internal and external experiences
(Turner, 2005). In 1956,
Dora Maria Kalff, a Jungian therapist, studied with Lowenfeld,
applying Jungian
concepts to the World Technique, subsequently developing
Sandplay. Both Kalff
and Lowenfeld believed the goal of sand work was to uncover
the nonverbal, but
Kalff believed that the creation of a series of sandtrays led to
healing at deeper,

unconscious levels. Lowenfeld was much more active with the
client during the
creation of the sandtray, talking with the client, asking
questions, and making
interpretations; whereas, Kalff believed such dialogue was
intrusive and focused
more on the completed tray with the role of the therapist being
one of an observer
(Homeyer & Sweeney, 2005).
Since that time, several theoretical approaches to play therapy
have been
applied to the therapeutic and healing property of sandtray
work, including Adle-
rian (Bainum et al., 2006), Jungian (Peery, 2003), Gestalt
(Oaklander, 2003), family
(Carey, 2006), and group play (Hunter, 2006) therapies.
Clinicians using these
different theoretical approaches employ, to different degrees
and in different
formats, sand and its miniatures as a method of assessing,
communicating, and
facilitating the healing process; however, most of the literature
on therapeutic
sandtray addresses Kalff’s Jungian approach (Bainum et al.,

2006).
Recently, postmodern clinicians have drawn upon the healing
aspects of min-
iatures and the sandtray, including narrative (Freeman, Epston,
& Lobovits, 1997)
and solution-focused (SF) therapies (Nims, 2007), the sandtray
becoming another
component of the therapy process. Little has been written,
however, about the
application of SF philosophy and therapeutic techniques to
sandtray with children
and adolescents; therefore, it is the author’s aim to address this
void and demon-
strate the practical application and integration of SF theory and
techniques to
sandtray and its miniatures. The reader is encouraged to
examine the writings of
well-known and experienced practitioners and researchers,
including those of Hom-
eyer and Sweeney (1998, 2005), Hunter (2006), and Turner
(2005) regarding the
specifics of sandtray, including selection of miniatures, tray and
sand options, and
interpretation, as these will not be addressed here.

SF THERAPY AND ITS APPLICATION TO SANDTRAY
WORK
Basing their work on the communication approaches of Gregory
Bateson and
Milton Erikson, Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg developed,
researched, and
wrote extensively on SF therapy. Unlike other therapies that are
based on already
established philosophies and techniques, Berg and de Shazer
based their work on
inductive procedures of attending to what worked with clients
and what clients had
57

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