ABSTRACT
Selected moments of a Sandplay process illustrate the workings of the psyche across different levels of neural integration and individuation.
The ostensible motivation of the client in her forties for embarking on therapy had been the question: “How can I bring together irksome and numerous job-related demands even while preserving my humanity?” In the course of the work – which extended over a period of three years – a further motivation emerged, which can be paraphrased as follows: “How to build trust and the capability to love in spite of a background of childhood abuse?”
The work shows how this client with a traumatic background in childhood was over time able to find trust for a new partnership and find new creativity and assertiveness in her job after a fundamental crisis. She was helped by her increasing capability to be present with both reassuring and difficult body sensations and feelings evoked by Sandplay, the method of ‘entering into the dream’, inner images and finally by childhood drawings expressive of the abuse she had undergone. This was essential for transforming moments of darkness and doubt and reconnection with a profound sense of inner security.
