Balfour, Rosa
NAPOLIELLO: EVOLUTION OF SANDPLAY IMAGES IN HEALING: A CASE OF CHILDHOOD SEXUAL ABUSE OF A THIRTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD WOMAN
Milan, Italy
Journal of Sandplay Therapy, Volume 17, Number 2, 2008
KEY WORDS: healing, child, sexual abuse, Sandplay therapy, adult, female, Basedow Syndrome, analysis, unconscious, dreams, Sandplay therapy images, repressed, positive transference, ego strength, transformation, individuation, sandplay, clinical example, adult, female, pharmacological treatment, Basedow Syndrome, depression, dreams, positive transference, split, integration.
Abstract: The case illustrates the therapeutic process of a 36-year-old woman who was sexually abused by a non–family member from age 9 through age 11. The patient had been under pharmacological treatment for Basedow Syndrome when she initiated analysis due to a profound depression. This case illustrates how very slowly her unconscious, as evidenced in the images of her sandplay and, in a parallel manner, in those of her dreams, and within a context of a positive transference, begins to recompose within itself the elements of her psychological state of disassociation and scission (split). Ultimately her ego fortified, became able to confront positively those her experiences previously repressed completely and to re-elaborate them in a dynamic process of integration of emotional spheres previously disassociated, along a path of psychological transformation and individuation.