Expressive Arts and Sandplay

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To sit in a chair and analyze is heady stuff,

but it does not help you live the power of the image.

Put the image in your body. Does it waken a response?

Of course: your rage, your grief, your great Buddha laugh.

Just put the image into your body and wait.

 

(from "Coming Home to Myself" by Marion Woodman and Jill Mellick, Conari Press, 2001)

In my practice, I create a space where people can feel comfortable and interested in what can unfold from deep within. One may choose to draw the feeling or image of a body symptom, or use clay to sculpt the prevailing mood or blockage that one is wrestling with. Every creation holds wisdom from the unconscious and, if this information is utilized, can prove highly valuable in the therapeutic process. 
 
Expressive Arts Therapy 
(also called Creative Arts Therapy) 
 
This approach usesse the modalities of movement/dance, music, art, drama and poetry intentionally by a trained clinician to further the emotional, psychological, spiritual and physical integration of an individual or group. In ancient and indigenous cultures, these modalities were part of the everyday life of individuals and communities, and functioned naturally as healing agents.  In modern usage of these modalities in the arts therapies, the focus is more on creation and expression in service of healing body and soul and less on manufacturing a production or performance. 
 
I think that the image is the connector between psyche and soma: the feeling tone in the body is producing chemistry that is picked up by the brain and made into an image...I have people paint, or dance, in order to bring in the creative energy, which is life giving. There's got to be a force strong enough to combat symptoms - and that's the archetypal energy. Jung said that without the archetypal healing, you're working with band-aids.  - Marion Woodman, Psyche and Soma: A Conversation with Marion Woodman, Depth Video, 2007
 
Touch Drawing 
 
One form that working expressively with the arts can take is Touch Drawing. I mention it separately here because it is a lesser-known medium than painting or drawing with pastels, pencils, or crayons, yet can prove to be very powerful while, at the same time, being extremely simple to do. The process of Touch Drawing was developed by Deborah Koff-Chapin and is used all over the world by expressive arts therapists to support deep healing of all kinds. It is supports and expands self-expression without words through the movement of hands and fingers on paper which is laid over an inked board. Underneath the paper, finger and hand pressure creates images and symbols, which are revealed when the paper is lifted from the board. These images have the power to reveal, surprise, express and heal. My office is equiped with everything needed for the touch-drawing process.
 
Here is what a sequence of Touch Drawing might look like: 

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If you would like to view a wonderful live demonstration of Deborah Koff-Chapin doing Touch Drawing on YouTube, click here.   

Sandplay
 
Sandplay is a non-verbal therapeutic modality suitable for adults as well as children. Images, symbols and archetypes live and move within us. Here in the sand tray, with hundreds of miniature figures, these images and symbols which live in our unconscious psyche can speak, forming themselves into three-dimensional scenes, while our conscious minds can rest --- trusting the unfolding wisdom. The sand scenes which are created do their silent work within, showing us the way.  The work of sandplay happens deep within the psyche.
 
The sandplay process consists of a descent into the unconscious to the Self, followed by a re-emergence into consciousness and a re-ordering of the ego to the Self. It is a re-alignment of consciousness to the primordial wholeness from which we come and to which we return.
- Barbara Turner, The Handbook of Sandplay Therapy, Temenos Press, 2005
 
I have had excellent results working with the non-traditional octagonal tray you see here, however I also use the standard rectangular Kalffian sandtray in my practice.

Here is what a sequence of Sandplay might look like:

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If you would like to read more about Sandplay Therapy and how it works, here is a link to an article written by the creator of this modality, Dora M. Kalff, on the website of the Sandplay Therapists of America.

Using Image to Work with Body Symptoms
 
When a person has a physical or mental symptom - whether it is diagnosed or undiagnosed, of known or unknown origin - working with images and symbols that arise from the mundus imaginalis (the imaginal world) through art, movement, and sandplay can support and provide additional information and direction in the healing process.
 
Last year, I experienced very real and painful somatic symptoms in my lumbar spine. I worked with these symptoms using traditional allopathic medicine, as well as naturopathic and homeopathic approaches. Through drawing and authentic movement I also engaged actively with my body in the mundus maginalis, coming to a deeper understanding of the roots of my somatic symptoms and working with them in an effective way. This is a core component of my practice.
 
Here are some of my drawings from that journey.

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The pain in my spine - first image

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My Spine is a Door: pain becomes a doorway and an awakener to the light in matter - third image

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Anger and fear held in my spine: compression and tension - second image