Resonating with Kawai

Sachiko Taki-Reece, EdD, MFT, JA, CST-T

Abstract

Sachiko Taki Reece, a Japanese Jungian analyst and sandplay therapist, writes of her experience with Dr. Kawai’s presentation at the seminar “The Enlivened Moment,” a benefit for the Journal of Sandplay Therapy in 1996. The author was struck by the personal experience of being unable to understand her notes from the presentation, and realizing that she was learning about Dr. Kawai’s insistence of “knowing nothing” or the “hollow center.” Kawai emphasized the importance of the therapist being conscious of his/her own evolving experience with a client. Through two cases, Dr. Kawai illustrates the value of “wholeheartedly doing nothing.” Dr. Kawai presented the ox-herding pictures, as related to alchemy, with the addition of a series of 15 pictures painted by a contemporary Japanese woman who, Dr. Kawai explained, was “attempting new things in the old tradition.” Dr. Kawai is making a significant contribution in the field of sandplay therapy.

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