Sometimes you just don’t have the words to say what you are feeling.  At those times, Art and Sandplay therapy can help.  Whether it’s making marks on paper or placing objects in sand, no one tells a story better than you do.  Whether it be individually, in couples, or as a family, seeing is believing.

Art therapy is a process of taking art materials (colour pencils, pastels, paints, etc.) and creating whatever wants to happen at the moment.  Sometimes it can be a simple drawing of yourself or your situation.  At other times it can be  laying down colours, making squiggles or writing words.  All of these creations have a story to tell; a message to deliver.  With the help of a trained art therapist, thoughts, feelings and ideas are given a space to emerge in order to help you to move forward through your own creative process.

The  process is simple: The therapist provides a wooden tray that is painted blue on the inside and filled half-way with sand. 

Next to this are shelves filled with hundreds of miniature figures , which include animals both real and imaginary, stones, shells, all kinds of people (soldiers, knights, wizards, fairies, and ordinary boys, girls, men and women), houses, bridges, trees and flowers, cars, boats, planes and many other things. 

You are then invited to put any items you would like into the tray, moving the sand and objects around until you feel the tray is done.  At this point you have created a “story” which you can decide to talk about or to just look at.  The therapist’s role is to witness the tray and accept it as it is. 

Let me show you what I mean.  Here is a picture of a sandtray.  Inside it are placed a queen, a king, a bridge and a dragon.

Are the king and queen separated or brought together by the bridge?  Is the dragon their friend or their enemy?  What would you say is going on in this picture?  There is no wrong or right answer.  The story is about you, how you see things, and what you want to do about them.  With a trained therapist, your story comes alive in a way that is helpful and meaningful to you.

Sometimes couples and/or families end up caught in a lot of, what I call, wheel spinning.  They use the same words over and over again and end up getting nowhere.  They stop hearing what each other has to say and start not feeling heard.  Through Sandplay, by picking objects and placing them in the sand, time gets slowed down.  Listening happens because the stories are initially told through objects instead of words.  The person who has created the story takes center-stage.  They explain to their partner or family members what is going on for them through the sand. 

It is not unusual for things to appear in the sand which are very clear for everyone concerned to see and discuss.  How much easier is it to say and hear, “that monster really scares me” instead of “you act like a monster”?  Many things can emerge which may or may not be verbalized.  It's your decision. The very act of creating a tray with a partner or family member allows so much to be seen, felt and talked about in the here and now which gives you something tangible to see, understand and work on.  The therapist provides the safety and the guidance for changes to occur.