Bradway, Kay. Sandplay in Preparing to Die

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Bradway, Kay. Sandplay in Preparing to Die

Volume 2, Number 1, 1993 (Volume II, Number 1, 1993)

KEY WORDS: death, sandplay, preparation for death, hope, co-transference, opposites, unconscious, consciousness, ego-identity, woman, clinical example, sandplay therapy.

ABSTRACT: A 55-year-old woman came to do sandplay therapy in order to prepare for dying. Her doctor had given her two years to live after a diagnosis of lung cancer. She came for 20 visits in the 21 months that our relationship spanned. She made 14 scenes (all included) which took her through her anger toward her father and ex-husband, her feelings inferiority as a woman, her ambivalence about religion, her early shame about not working, and her fears of attachment. Although she talked about some of these problems, they were mostly worked out in the sandplay. She died peacefully with little pain two years after I started to see her.

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