Description
In Sandplay and the Clinical Relationship, Linda Cunningham, Ph.D., further develops the clinical theory of sandplay therapy presented in her first book, Relational Sandplay Therapy (2005), including supporting evidence from neuroscience and attachment theory.
Cunningham brings to the foreground the importance of the therapeutic relationship in sandplay and also explains in detail how to work silently within the relationship. Focusing on the importance of the therapist’s subjective experience (countertransference) as the container for psychic energies, she describes four archetypally based fields of human experience:
Field One: Original Oneness/Merger
Field Two: Twones/Rupture
Field Three: Differentiated Oneness/Transitional Space
Field Four: The Numinous Field
The first two relational fields illuminate our work with preverbal or nonverbal trauma. The third field is a field well-known to sandplay therapists, abundant with symbolic meaning, empathy and a feeling of connection. And the fourth field is the background, sacred space necessary to all sandplay work, which frequently becomes heightened in sandplay sessions, particularly when the Self is constellated.
