The Psychic Language

In dreams, and in expressive arts such as sandplay therapy, the psyche communicates in a language of symbols. Symbols are specific forms of archetypal energy and are sometimes referred to as archetypes. Symbols can be animals, people, colors, numbers, words, sounds, feelings, bodily sensations, or even life events that have meaningful coincidence A symbol is a living image produced by the psyche with a very specific purpose. A symbol has a meaning that is unique to one’s own life, yet also linked to a deeper, collective, even religious context.  

When I dream of a lake, for example, I have personal associations that have meaning only to me. My personal associations may change from one day to the next, depending on my recent experience of lakes. When I interpret the symbol of a lake in a dream or sandplay image, my personal associations are crucial to that interpretation being accurate. The symbol of the lake also has a collective reference.  Using this collective reference can help amplify and deepen the meaning of the lake symbol when it comes up in a dream or sandplay image. The collective meaning puts the symbol in a larger context. 

As a whole, dreams, imaginative images and sandplay images may be compensatory, seeking to balance a view held by the conscious mind.  Or they may reveal the psychic dimension of things as they are. Dreams and sandplay images may be about process, depicting the operations ongoing in the psyche. They may be prospective and point in directions the Self wants the individual to take. Or they may be predictive, indicating future events. 

Professional Papers

The following papers were written by Colorado Sandplay Therapists. Some are about specific symbols, some about Jungian psychology, some about Buddhism.

Gayle Bodine, ATR, Thornton.
Artemis
The Alter

Nancy Burnett, PhD, ISST Candidate, Denver.
Red Riding Hood A View in the Looking Glass…the heart…

Christine Ford, MA, ISST Candidate, Denver
-Emotional Deviance in Feeling Reactions to Stress 
-Resilience in Children Under Stress 
-Jungian and Post-Freudian Theory in Light of Religion's Return to Psychology
-Spirit in Psychotherapy
-The Star in the Earth
-Terreus, The fire of the fourth
-Psyche & Spirit: Fate of a Modern Dichotomy in the Postmodern Winds of 2000
-Psyche & Spirit: Inner Relationships and Mystical Traditions
-Psyche & Spirit: Inner Relationships and Psychodynamic Traditions
-Psyche & Spirit: Transformation Through Relationship

Laurel Howe, MA, Analytic Training Candidate, Denver
-Holding Ground: Job as a model for the experience of the autonomous psyche
-Listening to Schizophrenia: A review of  The Far Side of Madness by John Weir Perry
-Necessary Evil: What Divine Providence according to Luzzatto, the Jungian individuation process, and Christ as a symbol of the Self have in common. 
-A Larger Sense of Self:  Shifting identity through Zen meditation and Jungian psychotherapy. A review of Gathering the Light by Walter Odajnik.  
-Seeing Invisible Faces:  Common threads in mindfulness-awareness meditation and Jungian analysis (2pp.) 
-Regard all dreams as Dharma (1p)
-Introduction to Sandplay Therapy for Children

Sandra Montgomery, LCSW, (ISST Candidate) (Colorado Springs)           
The Snake

Marlene Moody, MA (Westminster)
Grace Foster Pollard, MA, LPC, ISST (Teaching Member) (Boulder)
Five Buddha Energies

Jeane Rhodes, Ph.D, LPC
Birth Imagery in Sandplay
Return to Top