Treating Traumatized Children: Kalsched’s Vision of “Dis” as Expressed in Sandplay Therapy

Mary Raftopoulos, PostGrad, DipPsych, GradDip, ChildPsych, PhD, Registered Psychologist

Abstract

The author draws from her extensive clinical work as a psychologist and supervisor working primarily with at-risk children in out-of-home care who have persistent Child Protection involvement during their lives. She discusses the inner world of children who have experienced interpersonal trauma. The author relies mainly on Kalsched’s Trauma and the Soul (2013) and The Inner World of Trauma (1996) to explore the presence of psychological benevolent and malevolent “beings” (defenses) that inhabit a child’s inner world and which can be unconsciously depicted in children’s sandplay and stories. Kalsched’s “self-care system” (defenses) and children’s encounters with “Dis” (Kalsched, 2013) are demonstrated through clinical examples and accompanying sandplay images. Vignettes exemplify the psyche’s capacity to work towards healing the rupture from a disturbed mother-child unity, affirming the power of sandplay and an attuned therapist to offer healing to children impacted by extensive interpersonal trauma.

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