Origin and Theory for Narrative Sand Therapy

Origin and Theory for Narrative Sand Therapy ©

Narrative Sand Therapy© emerged from my cross-cultural research into Sandplay therapy (Preston-Dillon, 1999). It is my contribution to the clinical use of symbols and sand that integrates several approaches, theories, and clinician skills. My work is influenced by deep listening to the voices from the cultural other, a term referring to our socially constructed identities, the anthropological, sociological, and culturally sensitive psychological perspectives. No matter where we are on earth, we are the embodiment of multi-cultural identities, we are the cultural other, we live within the constraints of language, cultural sensibilities, experience, and attitudinal bias towards ourselves and others. All these layers of culture show up in sand scenes. From a narrative perspective, ways of conceptualizing and responding to sand scenes and to clients reflect the philosophies and psychologies of humanistic-existential, socio-cultural perspectives.

Narrative Sand Therapy is grounded in questions from my work with therapists for the last 23 years and my research. Central to recognizing the power of symbol work are questions and reflections from therapists’ experience. I wondered how clinicians could resonate with a heightened presence, develop relational depth, to weave validation into the process, to explore while keeping safe boundaries, to recognize and respond to existential experience, to cull insights from countertransference, to extend cultural knowledge and sensibilities, to pace and shift awareness, to engage without invasive questions or reliance on prompts, and, to hold layers of what is spoken and what remains in silence.

It has been 40 years since my training in Sandplay therapy. Narrative Sand Therapy is a shift in perspective and practice; in ways to deepen our understanding and responses to clients and their sand scenes. This narrative approach emphasizes the phenomenological, intersubjective experience of the client and clinician, an interlaced reality. As with most projects, it is a work in progress, and yes, in process.

This program is grounded in depth work with clients using symbols, metaphors, and collaborative active imagination. It is an existential and cultural framework, a relational process, with pacing and flow, with silence, poetics, and I-Thou dialogues. A Narrative Sand therapist uses wonderment instead of interpretation, maintains heightened presence to resonate with clients, sand scenes and symbols, is client-centered and collaborative.