Sandtray Therapy and Spirituality

Clients reveal their inner worlds through scenes in the sandbox, and humanistic therapists try to enhance this clients’ experience through the verbal part of sandbox therapy. Humanistic approaches emphasize the importance of the relationship and believe in the importance of core conditions. There is tremendous value in creating a climate for clients where they can take their time, tell their story, feel their feelings, and explore the fascinating and mysterious inner world of themselves. Good therapy is about the relationship. The relationship is the most important factor in any approach to therapy: far more important than any technique, knowledge, or experience. Meta-analyses of counseling outcome studies have shown that the therapeutic relationship is highly correlated with positive treatment outcomes, regardless of theoretical orientation or techniques (Frank & Frank, 1991; Hansen, 2002).

However, in people’s daily lives, meaningful relationships are rare. Many clients who come to therapy do not have relationships in which they can experience loss, struggle with ambivalence, and question self-limiting assumptions and concepts. Others come to therapy with questions about the meaning of their lives. They may feel empty, disillusioned or doubtful due to the recent realization that they have focused their lives on something meaningless. Hope eludes many clients as they struggle with discouraging circumstances or self-defeating habits. Therapists who tackle big questions like “What should I do with the rest of my life?” help clients rediscover meaning and hope.

Myers and Williard (2003) argued that spirituality is about meaning, growth, and relationships. They defined spirituality as “the capacity and tendency present in every human being to find and build meaning about life and existence and move towards personal growth, responsibility and relationship with others” (p. 149). Myers and Williard noted that spiritual experience is “any experience or process in an individual’s life that creates new meaning and fosters personal growth as evidenced by the ability to move beyond previous frames of reference and risk change.” (p. 149). Myers and Williard noted that their definition of spirituality is broad enough to include religious beliefs and secular ideologies.

Sandtray therapy allows clients to focus on the heart of things. When clients create scenes in the arena that focus on what their lives are like now, they take the time to stop living on the periphery and focus their attention on the center. Clients are good at being distracted by work, entertainment and activity, but distractions only help clients cope; they do not help clients find meaning in life. Obviously, work can be meaningful and having fun is important, but for many people work is not meaningful and free time can be unfulfilling.

Humanistic sand tray therapy promotes healing and spirituality by helping clients reconnect with their true selves. Fear is the main factor that prevents us from reconnecting with who we really are and from being real. In fact, according to Kagan and Kagan (1997), people learn to fear each other in childhood and this fear tends to persist into adulthood. Kagan and Kagan noted that people are afraid of being hurt or hurting others and fear being swallowed or swallowed by others. Most of our fears are vague and seem irrational.

Although we fear people, we also need them. According to Kagan and Kagan (1997), this approach-avoidance conflict characterizes most human interaction. “People seem to move toward and away from simple, direct intimacy with others. This approach-avoidance syndrome appears to be a cyclical process: intimacy is followed by relative isolation, which is followed by further attempts at intimacy” (p. 298). Given this approach-avoidance conflict, people establish a psychologically “safe” distance that is unique to each person. People tend to find a distance where they are somewhat intimate and safe (Kagan & Kagan).

If sandbox humanistic therapists build a therapeutic relationship in which clients feel safe, they can help clients overcome fears that hinder their ability to be who they truly are and develop meaningful relationships. This process of finding meaning can restore a sense of balance and peace and reawaken the spiritual nature of clients who have struggled to experience it.