Healing and Transformation in Sandplay: Creative Processes Become Visible

by Ruth Ammann

Sandplay is a powerful method of psychotherapy, based on practical, creative modelling - literally a "hands-on" approach to healing the whole person. Sandplay has both diagnostic and therapeutic value, and is efficacious for adults and children. Since there are no preconceived ideas about "art" in sand, there is a wonderful freedom and flow in using sand creatively. This book focuses on the process of sandplay and how it works. Ammann's account draws upon her wide knowledge of myth and folk tale, but remains a practical work, dealing systematically with the "how-to" details, the necessary role of sand pictures in enhancing the self-regulation of the psyche, the two routes from psyche to sand pictures, and the symbolic interpretation of spatial phenomena. Ammann illustrates these principles in several case histories. "Healing and Transformation in Sandplay" contains a plea to therapists to make greater use of sandplay, alongside classical dream analysis. As a means to liberate the forces of the brain's right hemisphere - the intuitive and bodily rather than logical or rational - sandplay activates deep layers of the unconscious in the service of healing and development, layers hard to reach with more verbal methods of therapy.

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Steve Ellerhoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

A sandplay therapist I admire greatly told me that this is a cornerstone text for the field, so I'm grateful for her recommendation on reading it. I can see why! Ruth Ammann sets out so much here that feels foundational. I am most impressed by how mush wisdom comes across in her explanations of sand pictures, of their sequential analysis, of the significance of the sand itself, and on and on. You can really tell that she was deeply experienced with this mode of novel therapy when she wrote this. You can also see how a whole field of therapists on down the line have been inspired by it. Wonderful stuff, all the ways people have found to help others through life.