ABSTRACT
When Debbie called for an appointment, she said that she wanted to do sandplay with me because she had recently been diagnosed with lung cancer and had been told that she would live for no more than two years. She wanted to do sandplay in order to get ready to die. I found myself feeling frightened. I had read Jane Wheelwright’s book, The Death of aWoman (1981), and I had been so admiring of Jane’s “staying with” her patient Sally, who also died of cancer. Jane had been able to receive Sally’s anger and rage, to feel with her sadness and despair, and finally to witness her withering away into death. I wondered if I could be with anyone in that way, if I could give in the way that would be required, would be demanded. I need not have worried. Debbie did not make demands. She gave more than she took.
