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Expressive Arts and Sandplay: The Journey Continues

Elizabeth Massey

I want to tell you the how and why of my becoming an expressive arts therapist. I want to tell you, and I want to remember, because part of the journey is to remind oneself of the real passion that sustains and supports the ongoing practice of being an expressive arts therapist. I came to this work in San Francisco on my father's birthday seven years ago. I bought him a metaphysical journal as a half-joke (for his secretive spiritual side) and to my surprise, there was an advertisement in it for me. It described the Masters Program of Counseling Psychology with an Emphasis on Expressive Arts, taught at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). I was struck by how it resonated with me, and I started the application process almost immediately. I had been making a self-portrait photography journal over six months, and it became my tool for showing the application panel my already-begun expressive arts process.

In graduate school, we practiced with so many arts modalities; it was both enlightening and overwhelming. It was like learning a new language every semester - how dance/movement can become a dialogue, how deep complexes can be addressed with psychodrama, how the construction of a poem in the therapeutic arena can encapsulate the hidden aspects of self, and more. I was naturally drawn to the arts, and loved the experiential part of my schooling, which was foremost. My teachers were mentors and our class was comprised of nine women from different parts of the country. We were the second class of the new expressive arts therapy program, and we were both spoiled and experimented upon because of that. My classmates came from dance, drama, visual arts, poetry, literature, and sculpture backgrounds. Our ages were varied, our sexual identities differed, and our cultural experiences were widely contrasting. And yet, the expressive arts offered the natural backdrop for co-creating common ground. It allowed the full verbal and imagistic expression of the human experience through different modalities.

After graduate school I went to work at an agency for children for four years where I studied sandplay therapy. This agency offered interns extensive training in the sandplay modality while they were collecting their licensure hours. Again, I was surrounded by very solid mentors, and the premise of the agency encouraged a deep descent into the core of the self to discover previously unforeseen attributes. The supportive faculty at the agency enabled a person like myself to take a deep journey much like Persephone's descent into the underworld, and the elders around me knew that there would also be an ascent and a re-entry into the world of healers. It was profound for me. I found myself following protocol, and discovering many aspects of myself as a person and a therapist during that time.

So what is sandplay therapy? Well, there is a sandbox big enough to fit the natural field of vision, filled with beautiful white sand and available for playing. There is also a world of miniature figures in the room, and these figures come from categories such as nature, the mystical world, the domestic world, and more. The therapeutic value combines the sand and the figure or figures, enabling a client to shape a world in the sand.

The “sand painting” healing process is not new; Navaho tribes used a process with sand and organic pigments to create transformative sacred space for the ill or suffering tribal member. A client of the sandplay process is not taught anything; on the contrary, it is the belief by the sandplay practitioner that the client holds the full potential of his or her healing in the integrative mind/body. The sandplay simply evokes this healing in a very natural and undemanding way. There are no rules in this expressive arts modality. There is simply the desire to seek full potential and growth on the part of the client/seeker. If one has symptoms, the healing potential for those symptoms is physically found in the finished sandplay work and holds an energetic “charge” in the mind/body. This “charge” comes from the archetypal and personal revelations that have been stirred and reawakened in the making of the sandplay work. And this “charge” remains dynamic after the session, still stimulating pathways between the unconscious and conscious worlds within us. Sometimes, the client goes through darkness(uncertainty), and while going back towards the light (towards insight), the therapist's role is to be a spiritual and psychological guide, witness and constant ally.

And so, back to the present. I now reside in Asheville, North Carolina, and have an office on East Chestnut Street. I followed intuition and have met some very talented practitioners with whom I share office space. I practice the aforementioned sandplay therapy as a specialty with adults and children, and my practice is called Expressive Arts Therapy of Asheville. I am remarkably honored and grateful to have made my way to this amazing part of the country where we are all held by very nice earth energy and powerful ancestral (both mankind and animal-world) wisdom. I am looking forward to meeting others here who may be interested in working in the art mediums that go beyond words. I can ensure a safe and rich journey to those who experience expressive arts therapy in my new therapy practice. To live is hopefully to also learn, grow, and enrich oneself along the way.