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Reviews
SANDPLAY IN THREE
VOICES: IMAGES, RELATIONSHIPS, THE NUMINOUS
BY KAY BRADWAY, LUCIA CHAMBERS & MARIA ELLEN CHIAIA
Reviewed by
Liana Kornfield and Jack Kornfield
Woodacre, California
Sandplay in Three Voices evolved out of informal conversations between three
senior sandplay
therapists concerning the importance of relationship, in the fullest sense,
to sandplay therapy. In
Bradway’s introduction, she includes:
the relationship between the therapist and client. But also the relationship
of each to the sand;
of each to their own unconscious and to the other’s unconscious; the
relationship to the unlived
side of the shadow of each; the relationship to the numinous, the spiritual,
to something beyond
each, where the Self connection is made between the two. We wanted to get at
the meaning of
some of these connections. Not just a single meaning, but the many deep meanings.
(p.1-2)
As we review this wise and wonderful book, we would like to share some of
the reflections
the book kindled in us as we traversed its rich territory. What is especially
new about this
territory, this exploration of the nature of therapeutic relationship in sandplay,
is that its form
suggests that it may take three or more to discover it. More complex than the
reflections of One.
More lively than Two. Their multiple perspectives enhance one another, jockeying
each other
until new insights are gleaned with an “ahhh” or an “mmm.” As
readers we join this trialogue as
the Fourth perhaps, squaring and completing the dynamic conversations that
will continue well
after we’ve finished the book. As reviewers, we felt invited into a mature,
clear and deep process
of inquiry into the direct experience of sandplay itself, arising from the
authors’ years of practice
and through their focus on the many kinds of relationships we encounter in
therapy.
Eight of the most
important topics in sandplay therapy — Therapist – Silence – Child –
Mother –Self – Shadow – Chaos – Numinous – are
explored as the ground of our most basic
therapeutic experiences. The book is not so much concerned with articulating
cognitive
techniques or current theories of relationship as it is with our attuning ourselves
to what
Chambers refers to as the “heartbeat of the psyche.” As we listen
deeply for this heartbeat, with
the help of the sand and images, the possibility arises of our meeting at the
numinous level of the
Self, where healing and wholeness are born. This experience does not happen
by accident nor
does it happen by design. It arises in the “free and protected” space
created by the therapist’s
living knowledge of the psyche.
Sandplay in Three Voices begins by directly engaging us in our role as Therapist.
We are
reminded at the outset that “what is required in sandplay” as therapists
as well as clients, “is the
courage to descend into the depths of the human psyche and open its mysteries.
Sandplay opens
doors into the unconscious” (Chambers, p.24).
As we first read, we feel a little of what the client must feel walking into
a strange room
with a strange person at the beginning of therapy: the tentative beginnings,
the unknown
destination. This is new territory, this trialogue. Where are we going? But
as we turn the pages
and these three therapists begin to speak their concerns and “let their
hair down,” we begin to
settle back and before long we are drawn into the rich world of depth therapy
they know so well.
We realize with appreciation that the book follows the arc of the sandplay
process itself, not
always in the exact order of the topics, but in the connections explored. We
travel with them now,
drawing out some of the threads weaving through the fabric of the themes.
It speaks to the wisdom of these three women that once we have been engaged
by the
Therapist trialogue, they next address the profound value of silence. What
is so beautiful about
this primary placement of Silence is that the authors not only describe the
nature and importance
of silence in sandplay therapy, but also show how our relationship to silence
will deeply affect all
the subsequent relationships that arise. “Meeting another human being
in that place of silence
allows for a... different kind of meeting to happen. Valuing what emerges out
of that silence is
critical to sandplay” (Chiaia, p.31).
Chiaia then speaks to the silent resonance and co-transference experiences
that arise in
sandplay, the importance of not interpreting, and the possibility of experiencing
in the silence of
the relationship the spiritual, numinous aspects of the psyche (pp.41-44).
Bradway gives two
beautiful examples in which the sandplayer, not the therapist, provided the
silence (pp.47-49).
Chambers helps us clarify definitions of silence, starting from Webster’s “the
absence of any
sound or noise... making no sound... quiet... still... speechless...” to
the creation of communal
silence where, “free from the confining definitions of the human voice,
the path is open for a
message from the deepest layer of the unconscious.” She reminds us that
silence not only holds
the sought-for wisdom, but the “dark pain and surrender” from which
the living energy of the Self
arises which has the ability to move us into a new awareness of life. “Therapists
sit in that place
of no words, hold and wait, turning themselves over to the deeper wisdom of
the process” (pp.50-
53).
The trialogue then moves into the earliest template of relationship we know:
Child and
Mother: Winnicott has said that in the first year we cannot even separate these
two archetypes or
experiences. There is one “mother/child unity.” What is the child’s
experience of this unity and
then the separation? What issues relate to this archetype? Chiaia tells us:
The child archetype is an aspect of individuation. In individuation the symbol
of the child
represents the figure that synthesizes the conscious and unconscious elements
of the
personality; it unites the opposites and makes whole... We may experience all
that is abandoned
and neglected and/or all that is divinely powerful... And there will be the
opportunity to touch
and experience the “eternal child,” an experience that cannot be
described in words, but only in
images. (p.68)
This is where we begin as sandplay therapists, by offering the client the
means to reconnect with
what Jung called this “indescribable experience” (p.68).
The authors talk
about the importance of the play in sandplay. “Playing
is part of human life
at all stages. The ability to play and imagine and be creative is our birthright” (Chiaia,
p.65). In
our times, children and adults are often disconnected from this creative imagination
through
attachment difficulties. We learn ways we can help these clients reconnect
with the healing
instinctual Self; through listening, through ritual, through appreciating the
playing, the doing and the
creating, through our joy and pleasure in being with this person. One of Bradway’s
favorite
words is cherishing.
The Child is born from the Mother, and our experience of her permeates all
of our senses.
We do not have to go very far to find her. Yet sometimes, when what we are
looking for is this
close, this elemental, we can miss it. Central in the authors’ conversations
about the Mother is the
understanding that the relationship to the mother, and the experience of the
mother/child unity, is
essential to the constellation of Self which will consolidate and guide the
client’s healing. The
authors’ phrases in this trialogue help us recognize the subliminal places
and sensory experiences
through which the mother’s presence can be welcomed and attended to in
therapy:
Sandplayers are going towards the mother-child when they touch the sand...
in touching the
sand they are touching the earth... the earth is the prima materia... The body
of the mother... the
mother comes in through the hands of the client... we see breasts in the sand...
we see a belly
mound in the sand... she buried and dug up... she practiced and played at losing
and finding
what she had lost... this realm is touched through feelings and emotions...
this is the first
relationship before there were words... the sound of my voice is soothing in
the realm of the
mother-child unity... empathy is non-verbal... It’s the holding. (pp.79-92)
Then the sandplayer
matures. “I want you to not just love me for myself.
I want you to
love me for what I can do,” states Bradway’s client (p.83). We
hear the shift. The chapters on the
Self and the numinous help us to approach and understand this profound shift
that has taken
place. How do we as therapists shift with it?
The Self and the numinous are life-changing experiences, almost indescribable,
and yet
as we read these trialogues we come to remember that these experiences are
deep in our bones.
“The psyche knows the Self” (Chambers, p.114). We are called back
to this renewing experience
of our wholeness again and again in the course of life through the vehicle
of deep relationship.
We, as sandplay therapists, have the extraordinary privilege of re-entering
this numinous realm
time and again through our call into unusually deep relationship with our clients.
There is far
more in these chapters than we can relay. Read them slowly. They are contemplations
on the
mystery that we, therapists and clients, are and always have been, whole. The
authors remind us
that our primary task is not to analyze or interpret or reduce the client to
a category of pathology,
but to mirror their intrinsic wholeness back to them. In Chiaia’s case
study in chapter eighteen,
the Self manifests within a “positive co-transference” relationship
(pp.118-119).
The trialogues on Shadow and Chaos take their place between the Self and the
Numinous. Chiaia tells us that Henderson, in Shadow and the Self, says the
shadow is opposite to
the Self, and wherever the Self is, the shadow is. “So we are holding
the opposites at the deepest
level of the psyche” (p.141).
Chambers says:
Mining for the gold then becomes a struggle; a struggle that we experience
as suffering...the Self is attempting to direct our consciousness to an awareness of a rejected
side of the personality...
Suffering is acknowledged as containing an ‘element of
the divine’...and this aspect of the psyche can be welcomed by the sandplay therapist who knows that
the darkest moment always comes before the dawning of new light. (pp.156-157)
“As sandplay therapists,” Bradway adds, “we’re
different from most people because we
know it [the shadow] doesn’t have to be gotten rid of. And our knowing
this is what is healing for
the sandplayer.” “Yes.” says Chambers, “In the sand
there is always a place for the dark and the
scary...” (p.139).
Chaos and darkness are indeed scary:
We leave the conscious level and we descend. And it’s not so bad at first.
The animals come in
and there are plants and rocks... then, if you keep on, you will descend into
a place where there
is a rearrangement of all the elements as they were existing up to this point
in time... And you
can’t let go and know that something else is coming. So you have to let
go into nothingness...
Jung called it ‘the dark night of the soul’... The old is gone
and the new is not yet there.
(Chambers, p.163)
It is here, Chiaia says,
that the relationship to the therapist comes in. Because the therapist has
been through this and
holds the possibility that something will emerge...Chaos and darkness have
a light, a meaning,
and a dark radiance that will shine if we create a space for their expression
and experience.
(pp.163, 170)
And so we wait, sometimes for a long, long time, for the experience of that
dark radiance. We
track the combined voices of the authors in this trialogue:
The sandplayer enters into a realm of mystery... One can’t believe it
until one has experienced
it... A resonance between the sandplayer and the sand, water, and figures begins
to happen...
[but the numinous] is deeper than the objects... it’s the objects imbued
with the psyche, the
objects imbued with the inner experience of the person who uses them... In
relationship to the
therapist. It’s the whole connection. Numen is the spirit... the breath
of life... called forth... the
material imbued with spirit... If you cross into this place, your whole world
is going to change...
you can’t go back...you go through the gate, and you go on, it’s
all new. (pp. 179-187)
In Sandplay in Three Voices we are guided to the numinous through the complex
relationships, the emergent oppositions, the shadow, the destructuring chaos,
that are all stages of
the therapeutic journey. The recovery of the divine child and a deep experience
of the Self are
critical to the individuation process and to a meaningful life. This is the
splendor of the One.
Coming to rest in the generous lap of the archetypal mother replenishes us
in the bountiful
compassion of the Two. The unpredictable terrain of Three calls us to enter
into relationship with
the moving, spiraling archetype of cosmic creativity.
On this journey the dynamic trialogue, what we might call the archetype of
three, is set in
motion by the authors and held by the constancy of their love of depth and
their trust in that place
of silence which allows “the unconscious, unknown parts of us that are
numinous and mysterious
and shadowy to come forth” (Chiaia, p.38). There are many names for this
ancient form of the
triad: the world triad, representing the eternally spiraling cycles of time—past,
present and future;
the triple goddess – virgin-mother-crone; the three fates; the Christian
trinity; the Sanskrit triangle
of life are just a few. The triangle has predominantly represented the female
principle, but the
double triangle is a symbol of creation itself. It is the union of the masculine
(rising up) and the
feminine (coming down), the movement of opposites.
This movement chosen by three senior sandplay therapists may be a fertile template
for this
time in our world. In Buddhism this would be the recognition of the law of “dependent
arising” or
interdependence. The answers we most seek will not arise out of oneself alone.
As Chambers
quotes Hillman: “The heroic age of psychology is past...The end of analysis
coincides with the
acceptance of femininity... We cannot go it alone...we must have a ‘knowing
together’” (p.106).
The space this book holds is broader than the essential and deeply transforming
relationship
between two. “The many deep meanings” of relationship carried through
Sandplay in Three
Voices suggest that some of the answers for our complex times may be fruitfully
accessed in
encounters of three and more, where the rich seeds we’ve planted in the
depths of the psyche are
gathered and combine in new and creative ways. The book is calling us towards
a dynamic
experience of the Trialogue, of trust in the spiraling movement of life, and
in its last phrase, to a
relation to the Infinite.
© The
Journal of Sandplay Therapy, Volume
XV, Number 1, 2005 |
This
course helps therapists to understand what sandplay therapy
is all about and perhaps to use some of the principles developed
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to "do sandplay." Although sandplay therapy sounds
so simple. it takes much time and study and consultation
to prepare to actually practice as a sandplay therapist.
Clinical training includes doing a personal sandplay process
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