Alchemy in Sandplay Therapy

The author presents the sandplay process of an 8-year-old boy whose therapeutic process illustrates how his sandplay therapy facilitated healing from a birth trauma and subsequent difficult behavior problems. His sandplay scenes depicted a parallel between sandplay and the alchemical metaphor and included images of the alchemical stages: solutio, calcinatio, sublimatio, coagulatio, separatio, mortificatio, and coniunctio. In this child's case, the sandplay therapy set into motion internal processes which eventually led him to discovering his own Self or symbolic gold. Alchemy, analytical psychology, and sandplay therapy all attempt to forge a link between consciousness and the unconscious. Both alchemy and sandplay involve the manipulation of concrete materials in order to transform the images that arise from the unconscious.