Sandplay Therapy: Treatment of Psychopathologies

Often the hands will solve a mystery 

that the intellect has struggled with in vain. 

– C.G. Jung

Ten European sandplay therapists describe how severe psychopathologies can be treated in the ’free and protected space’ of the sandbox.

The sandplay therapy cases in this book illustrate some of the most difficult, yet also most effective applications: psychoses, borderline syndromes, psychosomatic illnesses, drug addictions, or narcissistic character disorders. 

Sandplay seems to access areas of human suffering which have otherwise always resisted psychotherapeutic treatment. 

Recent research in neuroscience explains why this is possible: trauma is not remembered in verbal form – what has never been articulated in words nor ever ’shaped’ cannot be outwardly expressed. In sandplay, however, ’it’ manifests itself as a form, shaped by the hands. 

The inexpressible can be seen and touched – therefore, it can be transformed.

Contents:

Eva Pattis Zoja: Understanding with the Hands

Vito La Spina: Sandplay Therapy in the Treatment of Borderline Personality Disturbance

Andreina Navone: Matter and the Psyche: A Feasible Therapy

Stefano Marinucci: Children in Distress

Francesco Montecchi: The Self and Family Archetypes in Children

Wilma Bosio: Image and the Analytical Relationship in Sandplay Therapy

Lorenzo Bignamini: Sacrifice as Death and Rebirth in Adolescent Development

Marcella Merlino: Images of Time: New Departures at a Public Drug Addiction Clinic

Franco Castellana: Sandplay and the Analytical Partnership

Ruth Ammann: On Resonance