© 2014 Sandplay®

Therapists of America/Journal of Sandplay® Therapy

Regina Driscoll, PhD, CST-T is a past President of the board of trustees of

Sandplay Therapists of America and member of the International Society for Sandplay

Therapy. She is a Founding member of

MSTG and of the Sandplay Therapy Institute. Dr. Driscoll is the Founding Editor of CyberNews.

PAINTINGS (pp.2-8)

© Terri Amig. www.terriamig.com

REFLECTIONS: BOOKS & EVENTS JOURNAL

OF SANDPLAY®

THERAPY © 2014

THE TEACHINGS OF DORA KALFF: SANDPLAY

Temenos Press

2013

Edited and Compiled by

Barbara A. Turner, PhD

A Reflection by Regina Driscoll St. Paul, Minnesota, USA

The Teachings of Dora Kalff: Sandplay by Barbara Turner is a sumptuous volume, large in size, printed on heavy, glossy paper and rich with images. Barbara Turner, an ISST/STA Certified Teaching Member, has taken the shorthand notes she kept from several lectures given by Dora Kalff in northern California in the late 1980s and her three-week “Sandplay in Switzerland” residential seminar in 1988 and crafted them into a volume of the words of Kalff. The original sandplay images are of course not available but Turner has created images from her notes, in some cases making figures to approximate those in Kalff’s collection, that give the reader a sense of what the case material looked like.

The first chapter (“Boy, 15, Failing at School and Withdrawn”) covers the material Kalff presented in California, in March, 1988. At that time, Kalff would spend some months of the year in the Carmel, California, area. Under the aegis of UC Santa Clara, she would present three-day workshops on sandplay therapy. As it happens, I attended those events in 1988 and 1989 and thus experienced Kalff’s teaching around the same time Turner did. Kalff sat at the head of a long room with a hundred or more therapists; she presented a sandplay image and asked for comments. Participants went to the microphone and gave their impressions and Kalff responded, often gently agreeing and then expanding on their remarks, telling anecdotes of her own life and professional development and amplifying the symbols. I too came home with many pages of treasured notes – although not shorthand transcripts. I remembered quite clearly that we covered 17 trays in three days and often mentioned that when recounting to others what it was like to hear Kalff teach. Here in the first chapter are those 17 trays. Turner has refined those proceedings into Kalff’s words on each tray and she occasionally intersperses the questions of participants where Kalff’s response offer clarifications of her therapeutic philosophy. Dora Kalff was highly fluent in English but because she was not a native speaker her sentences are not as complex, not laden with additional phrases and clauses and adjectives as one would find with a native speaker. This has the effect of giving her language a simple but profound clarity and Turner’s text captures the feeling of this very well. The reader can hear in the cadence of the words something of what it was like to be in Kalff’s presence: her calm acceptance of the client, her deep knowledge of the archetypal roots of symbols, and above all her Appetite © Terri Amig. www.terriamig.com

clarity of vision, which placed the experience of the Self as the center of sandplay and of human development. The free and protected space of the relationship and the therapy room is essential to the experience of the Self. Turner quotes Kalff thus: “There is one main issue in the work with sandplay. It happens on a very deep level. With this tool we have access to the deepest layers within ourselves and the deeper unconscious. Why does this happen? My whole psychology is based on a free and protected space. It is the task of the therapist to provide such an environment. With the sand we work from a very deep level, a very deep

transference.” Kalff addresses the question of what is the healing agent in sandplay by referencing Jung. “Jung said that there is a synchronistic moment when what is happening in the outer world occurs at the same time in the inner world. If this takes place, then the psyche usually takes the next step in development. Because the therapist has the outer experience and can understand the client’s inner experience simultaneously, this

creates the Confer © Terri Amig synchronistic moment and the transformation takes place. If I am not able to see what they show me, there is the necessity for the client to play out the situation many times until I get it. When I see the same energies playing out in the room, I have to ask what it is that I am not seeing.” Kalff’s essential principles for sandplay therapy– what is required and what is not acceptable– come through clearly, often in response to a participant’s question. One asks, “Should we look to see ourselves in the client’s trays?”

Kalff replies, “I do not like to see myself in the picture. If I see myself it would not be humble. Do not see yourself as the one who guides the process. You provide the space so the process can take place. Our help is to provide the empty, protected space where the process can happen. Do not interfere with the process by wanting something or directing something. We must have tremendous respect to observe this process taking place. To see a human being grow and develop their potentials is something very

Desire © Terri Amig wonderful.” Likewise, to the question “Should we ask the child where he is in the tray?” Kalff says, “Never ask if the child is here or there in a tray. What would this bring us? These are unconscious manifestations. If I make this connection for them, it is too early. We have to let the whole thing grow… Adults would like to know what things mean, but they have to accept that I do not interpret. Synchronicity does not take place if I interpret and do the work for them.” Her words remind the reader also that the constellation of the Self is not the end of the process: “The process is never finished at the

Want © Terri Amig center. It is from this place that we must build up… This is like the grass that comes out in the Spring. It is tender and can be easily damaged… We have to find a place for these energies to be integrated and used.” The reader notes also in reading Kalff’s remarks that the environment in which she worked in Switzerland was different from ours today. Her way of working might not be acceptable in today’s consumer-oriented market. She says: “Always see the parents first… You want to understand their complaints. Then I tell them that I will see the child, but I want to

Above © Terri Amig

Untitled © Terri Amig

protect the free and protected space. So there should be no interference from the outside from the parents or teachers… But if it becomes necessary to see the parents, I ask the child if they will allow it.” Turner has added some additional information for the reader interspersed throughout the text. For example, when Kalff tells her story of how the role of the hare in Eastern and Western cultures differs and how it influenced her insight into what her work must do, Turner includes the text of the tale Goethe told that moved her so profoundly. “Goethe took this story and made a poem of it. He describes the death of the rabbit. He knew where we were going in Western culture. I took this as a warning that we must revive the feminine in the sense of the ability to become spiritual. I promised myself that I would try

to develop the feminine in whoever came into my practice. This is the urgent need of our day.”

The book includes also the full citations for references mentioned by Kalff and a very detailed index. The photographs and drawings are very well done and convey well to the reader a feeling of the clinical images. The book is beautifully bound and printed on heavy paper. A major obstacle for some may be the price. The book retails for $180 and is currently listed on the author’s website, Temenos Press, at a sale price of $120.

Dora Kalff wrote relatively little in her lifetime. Much of what she taught comes from a kind of oral tradition in which those she taught now pass on to others what they learned from her. The Teachings of Dora Kalff: Sandplay captures the oral wisdom of Kalff remarkably well. It could be an excellent addition to the library of the sandplay therapist, providing a sense of Kalff’s voice, lost to her students since her death in 1990.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER: REGINA DRISCOLL, PHD, CST-T is a teaching member of Sandplay Therapists of America (STA) and the International Society for Sandplay Therapy (ISST). Dr. Driscoll is a past president of the STA Board of Trustees; Founding member of the Minnesota Sandplay Therapy Group (MSTG) and Founding member of the Sandplay Therapy Institute (STI). She is the Editor of CyberNews and has published in the Journal of Sandplay Therapy. Dr. Driscoll is also trained as a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and was director of mental health services at the Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota for more than 20 years. She is in private practice in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA where she sees children and adults.

CORRESPONDENCE: rmdriscoll@mac.com.

Dreams ©Terri Amig www.terriamig.com

Follow the Blue Line © Terri Amig www.terriamig.com

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

TERRI AMIG attended the Corcoran School of Art and Design, Washington, DC; California Institute of Art, Valencia, California with further studies at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, with Timothy Hawkeworth, and at Anderson Ranch. She lives and works from her home/studio along the coast of Southern New Jersey, USA. Terri Amig’s more recent shows include: 2014 The Quiet Life Gallery, Lambertville, NJ. “Falling” a solo show. 2013 Kleinert James Art Center, Woodstock, NY. “The Animal Looks back at us” curated by Sara L. Henry. 2013 Trendz Gallery, Stone Harbor, NJ. 2013, Soma Gallery, Cape May, NJ a solo show.

THE TEACHINGS OF DORA KALFF: SANDPLAY edited and compiled by Barbara A. Turner, PhD A reflection by Regina Driscoll, PhD KEY WORDS: reflection, book, sandplay, teachings, Dora Kalff, Barbara Turner, Carmel, California, workshops, oral tradition, Self, transference, unconscious, archetypal, clinical images, symbols.