Sandplay is a powerful yet gentle depth psychotherapy method that heals preverbal trauma and promotes wellbeing in both children and adults. This course provides a practical, experiential and theoretical introduction (including trauma theory, neuroscience and Jungian theory) to the concept of relational fields in sandplay therapy. Through knowledge and experience of these fields and their basis in neuroscience, the sandplay therapist is better able to identify trauma and to deepen the capacity for holding and healing deep wounds to the psyche.
Educational goals:
- Learn to distinguish between four different experiential states as they occur in sandplay and verbal therapy
- Increase your clinical skill in holding, containing, metabolizing client’s nonverbal trauma
- Understand the healing implications of the nonverbal space of sandplay
Learning 0bjectives: By the end of this weekend course, students will be able to
- Define “complex trauma”
- Explain two ways in which sandplay addresses and heals deep levels of preverbal trauma
- Describe how to identify trauma in sandtrays
- Define the term “relational field”
- Describe one or two qualities of each of the relational fields
- Define the synchronistic moment (Kalff)
This course meets qualifications for 18 hours of education credit toward certification for Sandplay Therapists of America / International Society of Sandplay Therapists (STA/ISST).
Linda Cunningham is approved by the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists to sponsor continuing education for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and LEPs. Linda Cunningham maintains responsibility for this program/course and its content. Provider #017288
Linda Cunningham, PhD, MFT, CST-T is a Certified Teaching Member of Sandplay Therapists of America and International Society for Sandplay Therapy. She is the author of Sandplay and The Clinical Relationship (2013) and a chapter, “Attuning to the Flow of Relational Energies in Sandplay: Healing Complex Trauma in Adults” in The Routledge International Handbook of Sandplay Therapy (2017). Over the past 25 years, Dr. Cunningham has written many articles for the Journal of Sandplay Therapy on the topic of the therapeutic relationship in sandplay. Dr. Cunningham created Sandplay Training Worldwide in 2013 to offer sandplay trainings for professional therapists and trainees. Since then, she has introduced sandplay and depth psychotherapy to hundreds of therapists and counselors. Dr. Cunningham has provided special trainings for sandplay therapists in United States, Ukraine, Taiwan, Chile, South Africa, China, and Russia. Dr. Cunningham is a frequent presenter at sandplay conferences. Read about Dr. Cunningham’s teaching style. She practices in Gig Harbor, Washington, specializing in anxiety, preverbal trauma, and blocked creativity.