Purposeful Imaging

Kay Bradway, PhD, JA, CST-T

Abstract

Kay Bradway, Founder of STA, ISST and the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco, finds “purposeful imaging” a helpful description of what happens in sandplay therapy as well as in dreams, active imagination and art forms. Bradway writes “The term 'active imagination' which has been used by some to describe what happens in sandplay therapy does not do it for me.”  She explains that in sandplay therapy, therapists (and patients) witness the miracle of self-healing. Repeatedly she writes that she has seen sandplayers, in a sense, “take over" the therapy in the healing and transformation of themselves. Every item that is placed in the tray has a purpose. It contributes to the ongoing process and finally often shows the achievement of a healing and transformation. Purposeful imaging by the unconscious is clearly visible to the conscious of both the sandplayer and the therapist, even if neither one is conscious of what it meant at the time.

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