Integrating Sandplay Therapy with Dance Movement Psychotherapy

Sophie is a student on our current Integrative Sandplay Certificate Training. She has offered to share her experience of integrating Sandplay Therapy with Dance Movement Psychotherapy.

The Power of Integrating Sandplay Therapy and Dance Movement Psychotherapy.

The two approaches are distinct yet powerfully echo one another and provide an exciting innovative therapeutic approach.

I’m on the beach, bare foot, I can feel the sand on my feet,

I enjoy the coarse texture, the wet and dry versions of sand. The cool or hot areas, depending on climate and time of year. I skip and jump in the surf. I bury my feet, digging a hole and letting the sand fall back in. I use my hands. I collect shells and stones, climb rocks, feel the wind and sun hit my skin. I run, and I sculpt images and mounds in the sand.

Sandplay

The sand is contained in a shallow tray. It is there for us to play with, to feel, mess about in and sculpt. Sometimes it feels like mixing flour in a bowl when baking.

Sometimes like holding time in the hour-glass, sifting sand in our hands.

There is a rhythm, a soothing, as hands move continuously through the sand, a feeling of meditation and grounding occurs.

Embodied Approaches

Both Dance Movement Psychotherapy and Integrative Sandplay

are embodied approaches.

Over the years I have been curious about and drawn to embodied approaches. I graduated as a Dance Movement Psychotherapist in 2013. In my work as a DMP, I like to offer people space to be themselves. To explore in movement and play. I bring therapeutic props. These support creative exploration. I invite people to experience moving without thinking about how they move. Its like a meditation, but we move, and we simply let our body decide how and where and if it will move.

This is not dissimilar to sandplay therapy, where a client is supported to free flow, without expectation. We can be very conscious about our choices in where we place and what we place, yet our unconscious will still manage to show up there in the tray with some message for us.

A client can choose from an array of symbols- small objects collected by a sandplay therapist. The joy we have in finding these items is a lovely gift to experience. Each time a symbol is selected and placed in the sand a new, unique meaning is created.

In sandplay we negotiate levels of meaning making. Engaging in a process of making the unconscious conscious.

Where we can tell a story about what we see in the sand, a felt story, what we feel in our bodies when we take in the new display, the symbolic meanings carried by our collective ancestral stories and our personal associations with the symbols. Added to that is the relationship between the symbols and the space in the tray. Much like in DMP how we place ourselves and move around a space has much to reveal about us.

Authentic Experiencing

Combining movement and sensing into our bodies with playing in the sand tray is an area that fascinates me. I work through authentic movement, a non-stylised mystical psychotherapeutic movement practice integrated with sandplay. Both offer an opportunity for the person to be authentic, to connect spontaneously and feel into their present being, often experiencing relaxation and personal insights.

The Process

There is an invitation to move.

Following a few minutes of movement, there is an opportunity to take the experience of moving into the sand, a continuation of processing in a quiet conversation with one’s body and play. When it feels appropriate, we explore the experience as it arose.

Many layers of noticing emerge. In the felt sense, in how it is to move, to be witnessed, and to hear their witness respond to what is shared. My role as therapist is to accompany their journey; to be a compassionate witness; to create space to discuss and respond in words and conversation about these experiences and what metaphors and themes arise.

About Sophie

Sophie Rogers is a student on our current Integrative Sandplay Certificate. She has a private practice in Malton, North Yorkshire

If you are interested to explore this exciting way of working with Sophie, please get in touch with Lindsey at hello@sandplaytraumatraining.co.uk

Lindsey will be very happy to pass your details on to Sophie.

Come and Train with Us!

If this article has sparked your interest in training as an Integrative Sandplay Therapist and you are a level 4 qualified therapist or higher, please get in touch