Cunningham, Lauren
‘PIG PIE’: SANDPLAY IMAGES OF PROGRESSION AND REGRESSION

Journal of Sandplay Therapy, Volume 17, Number 2, 2008

KEY WORDS: infantile states, field, progressive and regressive, Sandplay therapy, infantile states, archetypal, resource, primal Self, Fordham, individuation, analytic work, clinical examples, sandplay, childhood, primal self, clinical example, body-psyche, female, child, parental separation, progression, regression, adult, male, female, adult.

ABSTRACT: Sandplay images may provide an entrée into a deepening of analytic work. As the sandplay is created and felt, infantile states that have been lost or forgotten as well as other experiences of the ineffable arising from an archetypal source can be evoked and touched upon. Images may contain elements both of earliest childhood with manifestations of the primal Self as Fordham postulated, as well as intimations of where a person is evolving in their individuation process. Three clinical vignettes illustrate the creation of sandplay images emerging from the body-psyche that show both regressive and progressive trends that opened the analytic work.