Adult

The client was suffering from panic attacks which were affecting his work and personal life. He had a demanding job for which he needed to be quite robust emotionally. Through a combination of talking, drawing, sandplay scenes and puppetry, we linked his panic attacks to unexpressed trauma around a family holiday when he was three. Exploring this, together with learning techniques to deal with the anxiety, helped the intensity and frequency of panic attacks to lessen.

Adolescent

A fourteen year old boy had developed a phobia of certain animals which was interrupting the family life and making it difficult for the family to visit certain places as he would become hysterical. In the therapy lots of issues emerged about school, particularly bullying of him by other pupils and one teacher. Understandably he was angry and frightened about this but unable to talk about it to anyone. In the sand tray he enacted scenes in metaphor which helped him to express these feelings, especially the very angry feelings towards his teacher. Expressing his feelings enabled him to strengthen his sense of self and the phobia became less important.

Child

A seven year old girl was being very disruptive in the classroom and behaving aggressively towards the other children. The teacher didn’t have time to offer one to one attention to her as several other children were behaving similarly, in effect copying this girl’s behaviour. In one to one therapy sessions she spent her time building dens out of cardboard, cushions and chairs. Although the shape these took varied they always included games for us to play together within them.

This girl felt quite anxious and insecure. Her father had left the family home when she was very young and saw the girl rarely and she needed more attention from both her parents. During the course of therapy her behaviour in the classroom began to change as did her interactions with other pupils. She became less aggressive and was increasingly able to join in with the other children.

“The child’s story in the sandtray is often
a powerful metaphor for some aspect of the child’s life” 
Violet Oaklander, “Hidden Treasure”