Sandplay | A Transactional Analysis Technique

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE:

For any student, college times are the most important one for their professional life and I believe my evolution started in my collage times when I had to take up those courses where I always knew I was weak; subjects like accounting, computer sciences especially the MS Excel and human resource. 50% of the curriculum was based on these courses for which I had to work really hard. I was really good at finance but the teacher suddenly changed the strategy. He explains that as we all have to use computers in our professional lives, we should learn how to do finance on computers using MS. Excel. Once the course started my confusing started to increase. I was already not a good grader and always had issues with interacting with other people hence it was impossible for me to ask out for help from teacher or even the students around. I use to give extra time to this particular subject besides the 5 other I had in that semester but this one was eating up most of the time. After two mid terms, I badly failed the course and there was no chance that I would get a good grade. I was frustrated to such an extent that I would come to the class, mark attendance and leave the class.

The point which turned my whole life was when I requested my teacher to let me leave the class because I wasn’t feeling well and I want to go and see a doctor. He allowed me to leave after marking the attendance but was rude and threatened me that if I missed another class he is going to fail me in that course. He also ridiculed me of failing the both mid terms and not interested in taking the classes. In anger, instead of hiding somewhere, I started roaming around in the college campus and this teacher of mine caught me red handed. Next day in front of the whole class where he was holding session of around 100 students, brought me up on the stage and insulted me for telling a lie, leaving the class and then wasting time in the campus. I was already failing the course and teacher ridiculed me in front of everyone. Although the teacher had anger issues and he would insult anyone if he didn’t like a small thing yet this was a big thing for me. In the cafeteria after the class, I could feel every one pointing fingers at me and then I left the college.

REFLECTION ON OWN EXPERIANCE

I was facing retention issues since my childhood and I always had to work really hard to pass grades, yet I always tried to prove myself as a good student. I knew I was weak and was unable to take any pressure yet I wanted to continue with my studies. This public insult broke me and I didn’t attend any of the class in the next one week and gave exam of only 4 subjects out of which I failed in two. I was paying my semester fee at my own and I felt the waste of money and I lost the self respect for myself.

Worst was that I didn’t take the next one semester as I was seriously ill and I went on medication. If I have to evaluate myself in those circumstances, I was victim of my own weaknesses and although I tried to take myself out of this Victim, rescuer and persecutor triangle, I was continuously becoming victim of my own unconscious and conscious weaknesses. My teacher was a persecutor in my case, where they tried to show me that if I lie I will definitely face embarrassment, which I faced publically in front of my whole class.

My victim story is just like all others in my condition. I felt weak and incompetent and I build this in my mind that I will not be able to perform any task until someone is there to help me. For me, I was my own rescuer but I had to work around in a specific way so that I get out of this dilemma of victim and persecutor but I didn’t know that how to go about it as everything seemed impossible. Hence to awake internal rescuer, I somehow needed an external one to help.

Although I lied to the teacher and broke the trust factor yet I felt that I was on the right path because I was unable to comprehend the course and the structure and hence wanted to runaway. Everyone in the class understood that the teacher was of rude behavior and hardly waste time to insult anyone publically yet I thought that this problem was not big enough to be insulted in front of the whole class.

THEORY NARRATION

There are many researches done on self identification and self-realization through different types of psychotherapies, where one of the well known is the Sandplay therapy which roots back to 1928. What is Sandplay and what are the different aspects of Sandplay on human evolution? With a detail analysis and with the use of cases in hand while using live examples, I will try to explain the factual situations. The case or theory used is a very well known one by Cinzia Chiesa’s Scripts in The Sand: Sandplay in Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy with Children.

The author admitted that Sandplay is as old as 1928 and there are two ladies who have extensively worked on this field. One is Margerat Lowenfeld who conceived the idea and then Ms. Dora Kalff who then promoted this idea. The author tried to do few of the things differently from the standard procedure, for example, the small rooms have everything from sand frame, wet and dry sand, different objects for example animals, stones, paper or wood but the child is allowed to bring stuff of his own in the next visit if he or she feels that the object will complete his or her scenery. This declares that it is perfectly fine for someone to be him or herself instead of being instructed all the times. No one will dictate the kid to perform certain task hence it is their own world and they can do whatever they want.

The frame provided on the other hand is a protected area for a child as described by the author. The child is free to portray anything within that protected boundaries hence any formation within these boundaries declares child’s inner world. To elaborate, one can explain that Sandplay refers to effective ways of using sand, figures and shapes in a container to express the creative inner self. While the essence of this therapy is non-verbal and symbolic in nature yet the author called it “Free and Protected place”. (L and Reth et al., 1999)

            Ms. Dora in her theory explains the sandplay training concept as an unconscious healing. She explains it as a war of Ego. Child or adult starts placing small miniatures to express his or her confusion in the inner self and create a visual representation of the thought process and disclose unconscious apprehensions. Now as the unconscious thought process gets a physical structure in front of the child’s eye, the said evolution can change certain behaviors over the period of time. It is learning and evolution theory which works together to improve on human behavior. In other words, a pathway where the unconscious becomes visible and helps in healing the conscious being and there helps and allows to live a life in more conscious, dependable and authentic way.

The Victim, who is not conscious of his or her inner being, but wants to improve on in his behaviors and life, will always work on his weaknesses and strengths to improve on and to become his/her own rescuer and in order to accept the reality. Hence when we say that Sandplay helps meeting the unconscious being with the conscious one we declare that the person has certain expectations from his/her own self but he is unable to identify them and hence with the help of Sandplay, wants to know the unknown. Therefore Sandplay helps and plays important role to amalgamate the real and fantasy world at one place. The person who is unconscious about his powers and strength can evaluate himself in these Sandplay boundaries. (Williams, 2013)

The another important aspect of Sandplay as described in the theory is the Therapist and client personal relationship as the therapist plays a vital role in the whole process. This process is widely known as Transactional Analysis. While the client is busy with his own fantasy and real world development, the therapist observes the development and helps in the verbal and non verbal communication of the client with his own emotions. Presence of therapist, gives the client space to talk to his own created world and relate to it assuming that someone is listening to him and reply. This helps the client to understand the communication he is having with himself while constructing his world in sand and start relating to it. There are still certain assumptions on which are building blocks of Transactional Analysis principals:

• Everyone is responsible for their choices and thought process
• Everyone should be treated with dignity
• Everyone has the right to take their life’s decision
• Change is obvious hence people can change (Dowson, 2013)

Expression made in the Sandplay is totally dependent on how one encounters the reality and there are three steps to the pathway of evolution. First with the help of touch, movement or the body gestures one tries to describe his inner and outer world. Next is the formal resolution where the client tries to give a structure or formation to different elements like sand, wet or dry and other items and articles around. Third and final is Symbolic Narration, or the final project through which the client tries to explains his experiences and his own inner self. Improvement or Evolution starts taking place when one tries to do some addition, subtraction or replacement in the total design which he or she has created in the sand, while in his mind, he is trying to relate to many things which has important role in the behavior improvement (Warr-Williams, 2013).

 

 

Through playing around with different items and articles in the Sandplay, and guided by his or her fantasies, an individual will always experience new behaviors to express his or her own inner world. In simple words, the person whether they are kids or adults or even professional working in any organization are given chances with the help of figures and different arrangements in sand bounded by the sandbox, to create a world which related to his or her inner state. This way through free mind and creatively, all unconscious processes become visible in a pictorial.

The theory in nutshell describes that Humans have the ability to ignore the inner self consciously or unconsciously and once they start feeling the gap, the problem arise and Sandplay then plays its role to reduce the said gap. (Dowson, J. 2013). It brings over a period of time, richer and deeper relation of an individual with its inner self. All the feeling in the unconscious whether these are wishes, dreams, and aims for future, thoughts or intention, all become clearer. This activity brings harmony between conscious and unconscious being of a person while healing, filling the gap and bringing positive change.

REFLECTION ON THE THEORY:        

Everyone in their life is struggling hard to remain in the game as the challenges presented by the life are continuously evolving and hence there is always change to improve. Yet there are people and cases where they don’t know where they stand and what do they require from the future although they had the power. Thus the gap arises and this is where Sandplay and other psychotherapies start helping. This theory which is based on Sandplay and its impact on any human life, explains that how an individual faces the gap between the conscious and unconscious level and how Sandplay over a period of time starts the positive change. (L and Reth et al., 1999)

Sandplay helps one identify his or her real self, and the theory well defines the impact of Sandplay on individual’s life. Sandplay has an in-build capacity to awake the body process, making them more powerful so that they can tackle with the painful or fearful experience of life. In the failure of the words to express the pain, Sandplay plays an important role to express those unsaid feelings. (Dowson, J. (2013)

There are two people involved in the whole process, one is the individual himself who is going through the pain to identify the true identity of himself and then there is the Therapist who with his warm and welcoming personality tries to unfold the unknown unconscious without uttering a word. (L and Reth et al., 1999)

A person who has experienced Sandplay will instantly realize that there is some connection. As the theory explained that just like human behaviors and attitudes, sand has the ability to get into any shape and it has the capacity to preserve any traces when it is dry and wet form is more complex and definite in its nature. Moreover the psyche of an individual and sand have many things in common, for example, free movement, and movement in order to search for a new shape while just not stopping there but to move on for improvement. Hence the immediate connection is definitely not s strange association.