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Sandplay Therapists of America

Herrmann, Steven B. The Transformation of Terror into Joy  

Herrmann, Steven B. The Transformation of Terror into Joy
Oakland, California

Volume XVI, Number 2, 2007

Key Words: Trauma-defense, complex, liquidation.
Abstract: In this article the author describes the dreams and sandtray pictures of a four to nine year old boy. Through a series of sandplay images he examines the emotional interaction between a terrified boy identified with the figure of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, and a persecuting archaic mother-imago identified by the boy with the terrorizing Wicked Witch of the West in that movie. Over the course of Willy’s therapy the affects of the terrified boy/terrifying witch object come together in his psyche and with this integration the embarrassing and shaming symptom of bedwetting is eliminated. A shift in the patient’s emotional states, from terror into joy, is symbolized by sand pictures and dreams depicting the liquidation of the witch and Willy’s metamorphosis.

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