Soble, Laura
CATERINA AND THE HOWLING WOLF THE CALL FOR CONNECTION

Laura Soble, Oakland, California

Journal of Sandplay Therapy, Volume 20 Number 1, 2011

KEY WORDS: howling wolf as a symbol, child sandplay therapy process, adoption, fetal alcohol effects, Ukraine, attachment, attunement, singing in therapy, voice in therapy, co-transference, art, Sandplay therapy, Ukraine, symbol, animal, poverty, orphanage, resilience.

ABSTRACT: The author discusses the sandplay therapy process of an eleven-year-old girl adopted internationally from the Ukraine, focusing on her use of the symbol of the howling wolf as a thread throughout. Information about the howling wolf in the natural world is presented as a prelude to highlighting the child’s clinical work, which included sandplay, art, play, and singing, to provide mirroring, twinship, and connection. The client, raised in poverty and sent to an orphanage at a young age showed signs of fetal alcohol effects. She demonstrated creativity and resilience, as she used the therapy and the co-transference to create a coherent narrative of her past life in the Ukraine, and her current life in the United States