Leading Training Centre and Advocates for Integrative Sand Therapy in Australia
About Us
Sandtray as an Expressive Therapy
Sand therapy is a whole brain healing technique and is a highly therapeutic and multidimensional form of therapy that can provide non-verbal or verbal emotional release. Using an indoor sandtray measurements approximately 70 cm c 50 cm x 10cm (wood with the bottom painted blue) and array of sandtray miniatures that represent daily activities, people, buildings, movement, nature, spirituality and more.
As a whole brain activity clients learn to explore their internal feelings, emotions, bodily sensations and images expressed in ‘sand worlds’ by parts of the brain that have no verbal language.
Most traumatic memories are stored as implicit memories (Goodwin & Attias, 1999), containing emotions, physical sensations, images and sounds rather than facts, dates and details. Homeyer and Sweeney (2011) describe that these memories are stored in the limbic system and the brain stem, two of the oldest parts of the brain, and are unavailable for cognitive processing. Instead, significant neurological activities in the form of hyper-activated chemicals responsible for different brain and body functions produce a high level of emotional and physiological arousal which continues to activate fight, flight or freeze responses to any perceived threat.
Sand therapy is invaluable when working with adults and children alike. Children can unconsciously process an issue by representing it in the sand, by manipulating the symbols, the child has ‘control’ of the situation. Control is choice and when given choice anxiety is alleviated.
Improve Cognition
Improve Sensory-Motor Function
Cultivate Emotional Resilience
Foster Self Awareness
Foster Self-Esteem
Promote Insight
Enhance Social Skills
Reduce Conflict
How Integrative Sand Therapy Heals
HOW TO HEAL YOUR CLIENT WITH SANDTRAY THERAPY
You may know the why – diagnosis/trauma history and when – behaviour.
But HOW do you heal your clients and help them move into a state of feeling safe & socially connected.
Sandtray Therapy establishes a system of safety (neuroception) for your clients through connection (therapist attunement) to help them work toward healthy psychological well-being, development & restoration (unmet needs).
The client engages their right brain hemisphere to do Sandplay therapy using creativity to express feelings, release anti-anxiety chemicals in the brain called neurotransmitters. These neurotransmitters Oxytocin, also known as the love drug and Serotonin to create the feeling safety, reducing feelings of anger and aggression.
Sandplay is a highly engaging form of therapy that can provide emotional release. Using the indoor sandtray and the vast array of sandtray miniatures clients build worlds that represent their own intrinsic worlds. By building sand worlds there is little need for a verbal explanation of inner feelings nor a need to verbally explain emotions, bodily sensations, rather there is a felt sense and a unification of body and mind.
The sand player will resolve issues in the sand, changing the scene, building resilience, finding unmet needs with the support of the therapist unconditional approach. Sandplay therapy helps clients to change their brains, create new neural circuits through brain plasticity. It leads clients towards healthy psychological growth and well-being.
Sandplay is invaluable when working with adults, young people, children of all abilities.
Ideal settings include early learning as Early Intervention, School Counselling, NDIS settings, Private practices, Youth centres, Social Services (OOHC), Social Work setting, Psychological practices and more.
Our Therapeutic Services
In the 1920’s Margaret Lowenfeld developed the technique we now call Sandtray Therapy. She was a woman with deep insight into the mind of children, teenagers, adolescents and adults. Her method has helped hundreds and thousands of clients to understand their childhood issues and help them express these using the nonverbal, expressive therapy of Sandtray. Sand play is a right brained integrative therapy for; children/adolescents who are having difficulty expressing their emotions, children/adolescents who are non verbal due to intellectual disability, trauma or non English speaking.
Individual Counselling
Couples Counselling
NDIS
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