November 29, 2024 • 15 mins
In this episode of the Play Therapy Podcast, I respond to a question from Laura in Washington about incorporating sand trays in a child-centered play therapy (CCPT) playroom. Laura is hesitant due to her dislike of sand and the practical challenges of working in a shared space. I share tips on choosing sand types, such as kinetic sand or Jurassic Sand, to minimize mess and make cleanup easier.
I also cover essential miniatures to include in a sand tray, emphasizing the need to represent the three categories of toys in CCPT: acting out/aggressive, creative/emotional, and real-life. Lastly, I clarify the CCPT approach to sand tray play, highlighting that it’s a neutral option for children to engage with, without the directive or interpretive elements often associated with Jungian or Adlerian sand tray therapy.
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If you would like to ask me questions directly, check out www.ccptcollective.com, where I host two weekly Zoom calls filled with advanced CCPT case studies and session reviews, as well as member Q&A. You can take advantage of the two-week free trial to see if the CCPT Collective is right for you.
Ask Me Questions: Call (813) 812-5525, or email: brenna@thekidcounselor.com
Brenna's CCPT Hub: https://www.playtherapynow.com
CCPT Collective (online community exclusively for CCPTs): https://www.ccptcollective.com
Podcast HQ: https://www.playtherapypodcast.com
APT Approved Play Therapy CE courses: https://childcenteredtraining.com
Twitter: @thekidcounselor https://twitter.com/thekidcounselor
Facebook: https://facebook.com/playtherapypodcast
Common References:
Cochran, N., Nordling, W., & Cochran, J. (2010). Child-Centered Play Therapy (1st ed.). Wiley.
VanFleet, R., Sywulak, A. E., & Sniscak, C. C. (2010). Child-centered play therapy. Guilford Press.
Landreth, G.L. (2023). Play Therapy: The Art of the Relationship (4th ed.). Routledge.
Bratton, S. C., Landreth, G. L., Kellam, T., & Blackard, S. R. (2006). Child parent relationship therapy (CPRT) treatment manual: A 10-session filial therapy model for training parents. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.
Benedict, Helen. Themes in Play Therapy. Used with permission to Heartland Play Therapy Institute.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You're listening to the Play Therapy Podcast with Dr. Brenna Hicks,
your source for centered and focused play therapy coaching.
Hi,
I'm Dr. Brenna Hicks,
The Kid Counselor.
This is the Play Therapy Podcast where you get
a master class in child-centered play therapy
and practical support and application for your
work with children and their families.
In today's episode,
I am answering a question from Laura in Washington State.
(00:24):
Essentially about as far away from me
as possible,
at least in
the United States proper.
I know Alaskans are technically probably further away,
depending on where you live in Alaska.
But
Laura in Washington,
Brenna in Florida,
literally top to bottom,
side to side,
about as far away as it gets.
My niece and nephew in-law actually live in the Seattle
(00:46):
area and I've been there and it is very lovely.
We loved the market.
We
loved Seattle Mariners Stadium
and we actually left for an Alaskan cruise out of the Seattle port.
So
anyway,
I have good connections and memories in the Seattle area.
So Laura,
thank you for the email.
Her question is about
sand therapy
(01:07):
in the CCPT playroom.
Which I'm really excited to talk about this,
so I'll read parts of Laura's email and then we'll dive in together.
So she says,
could you do a podcast episode on Santray therapy,
the use of a sand tray in CCPT,
the
theory behind why it's useful,
essential miniatures to have,
etc.
I'm finishing up my degree and I've been
(01:27):
doing CCPT at my practicum setting with kids.
I abhor the texture of sand on my skin.
Do not come to coastal Florida.
You will be very unhappy.
We have beaches everywhere and they're so pretty.
Clearwater Beach.
Public service announcement,
y'all.
Clearwater Beach,
which is where I grew up,
my hometown,
legit.
(01:48):
Oh,
OK.
Can I tell a related a side story and then I'll get back to the beach story.
This is a very recent conversation that my mom,
brother,
and I had.
So we were talking about hometowns because a lot of country
songs talk about hometown and I was sharing my thought on
there's a song that says,
I'm proud of where I'm from.
And so I was kind of just pondering what am I proud of of being from Clearwater,
(02:10):
Florida.
So I was sharing just my thoughts with my mom and she says,
Where would you say your hometown is?
And I said,
Clearwater.
She says,
you were born in Dunedin,
which is an adjacent city,
smaller adjacent city.
And I said,
well,
I was born in Dunedin Hospital,
but
(02:31):
My home,
like my first home that I lived in was in Clearwater,
and she's like,
but you weren't born in Clearwater,
you were born in Dunedin.
And I was just so perplexed by this.
So then I'm like,
Brandon,
my brother.
I'm like,
Brandon,
weigh in here.
Would you,
where would you say you're from?
He was not
privy to the conversation my mom and I had,
so he was not swayed in his vote.
I randomly texted him in that moment and said,
(02:53):
where would you say you're from if someone asked,
what's your hometown?
And he goes,
Clearwater.
And I'm like,
thank you.
So now I need y'all to weigh in.
Is it the,
the city in which the hospital
You were born,
is that your hometown or is it like the house you lived in,
your hometown?
I'm curious because I think I'm in the right here.
(03:14):
My mom disagrees,
my brother's on my side.
I want to hear from you,
brenna@thekidcounselor.com.
These are the things that swirl in my brain,
y'all.
This is,
this is what occupies my time
when I'm not thinking about CCPT,
which is rare,
but it,
it happens.
OK,
so back to the beach.
Clearwater Beach,
my hometown as I claim it anyway.
I always,
always,
(03:35):
always,
always top 10 beaches in the whole world.
Like if you look at the beach ratings,
Clearwater Beach always makes top 10 rankings.
So if you are in a frigid area of the country or the world
and it's winter
and you would like to come to sunny beachy,
beautiful palm tree laden Florida.
(03:56):
Even though Laura does not want any sand on her,
but if the rest of you are interested in that,
come hang out with me.
We will go to Clearwater Beach.
It'll be a great day.
All right,
I'm back on track,
I promise.
So,
I abhor.
I can't even say that word.
Why would you abhor sand?
Oh my gosh,
I can't fathom it.
OK.
I abhor the texture of sand on my skin,
(04:16):
so I have avoided buying sand for my playroom.
I understand that sentiment.
Additionally,
I'm in a shared office space.
The playroom I have set up is one of many rooms
that other interns can reserve for use with their clients.
But in case a different therapist needs it needs it right after me,
I have to be able to clean everything up in a timely manner,
which has also scared me away from sand.
But I just started working with a 13 year old,
(04:39):
which is my first older child that I'll be doing CCPT with.
She has really intense anxiety in addition
to perfectionism and anxiety related to school performance
that she and her mom have reported,
I saw manifestations of her anxiety in our first session
where she spent the whole session meticulously organizing the room.
Sounds about right.
Something tells me that a sand tray might appeal to her.
(05:01):
Yes,
I would like to have that as an option in my playroom for her and other kids.
Double yes.
do you have any tips on how to set up a sand tray and
the essential miniatures to have obviously for use in the context of CCPT?
Thanks so much.
I appreciate the work that you do.
All right,
Laura,
so not only am I going to make you a sand therapy convert,
you might actually not hate the the feeling of sand on your skin at some point.
(05:25):
It's a possibility.
So here are my thoughts on sand work.
I've been getting a lot of questions lately actually about.
Having a sand tray in a CCPT playroom.
So this is a really helpful question.
I'm glad we're talking through this.
My first thought,
that this is kind of just brain dump for you all.
My first thought is,
if you have to have quick cleanup,
(05:46):
if you don't particularly like the feel or texture
of sand and or you're worried about the mess,
you have two main go to options.
You can either buy kinetic sand,
which is far easier to clean up,
doesn't stick to things,
doesn't make near as much of a mess,
and you can typically have smaller
areas
in which kids can use kinetic sand.
In other words,
you don't need a massive sand tray with kinetic sand.
(06:09):
Because it functions differently,
so the container can be far smaller.
So kinetic sand is going to be one option.
Jurassic sand
is another.
That's the only sand I've used for years in my center.
All of my therapists have Jurassic sand.
There's all different grains,
all different colors,
all different styles,
but why I love it,
(06:30):
it's dust-free #1,
it's washable #2,
and number 3,
it
does not stick to things and
it
is just high.
quality,
better sand.
I used to go to like Home Depot or Lowe's,
which for my international people,
that's home improvement stores in the states,
and just get there literally,
(06:50):
it's called play sand.
So it was designed to go in outdoor sandboxes most of the time.
But
it
was more like beach sand,
to be honest with you,
and it stuck to everything
and it was not washable,
and it was dusty,
and there were just all,
it started to smell bad after a while after it had been
wet and dried and wet and dried and wet and dried,
(07:10):
it starts to stink.
Long story short,
we switched to Jurassic Sand,
and we've been really happy with that.
I don't have any affiliation with them.
You know what,
I'm gonna see if maybe I could get you all a coupon code
for all my listeners.
So let me see what I can work that out.
But what I'm trying to say is I'm not pushing them,
plugging them.
I'm not gonna get a kickback from it.
(07:31):
I just use it myself and I really think that they are,
to me,
what I have found to be my favorite sand product for sand work.
So,
those are your two options there.
Here's another thought,
with an older girl,
13,
especially an anxious one.
You are far less likely to have a mess made
with sand work.
So your younger kids
(07:52):
likely to make messes either accidental or on purpose.
Older kids,
you typically don't have as much of a concern of the
sand getting spilled or thrown or making a huge mess.
So I think for your first one,
it's probably a pretty safe bet,
Laura,
that a 13 year old,
especially an anxious one,
is likely not going to make a mess if you add sand to your playroom.
(08:14):
So what do you need
to make this happen?
You need a small container,
ideally with a lid.
And you want to have it on a table or on a stand.
Either one,
it can even be on a rolling cart and you can push it out of the way when you don't want
to use it and you can roll it out when a child wants to or you wanna have it available,
but it needs to be on something that is about at
(08:36):
stomach height,
give or take.
So you don't want it really low on the floor,
you don't want it really high,
you kind of want it at stomach or so level.
And it can be portable or not portable,
whatever,
it just needs to sit on something.
And here's why sand work
is really important.
It's very self-s soothing.
The kinesthetic nature of it,
(08:57):
the repetitive nature of it,
it's tactile,
it's sensory,
it's all this stuff.
There's self soothing
when a child just does repetitive behavior in sand.
I think it would be really ideal for this client that you're describing,
Laura.
And that's why I do actually think that
when you have highly anxious kids in your playroom,
having a sand tray is just so powerful for them.
(09:19):
So to move on to your question about what miniatures would you want to have?
The simplest answer is you want to think about
the three categories of toys in a child-centered playroom,
and you want to represent those three categories well
in your miniatures.
You have acting out aggressive toys,
you have emotional,
creative,
artistic toys,
(09:40):
and you have real life toys.
Therefore,
your miniatures,
you wanna have animals,
you wanna have people,
you want to have
nature related items,
anything for real life.
Buildings and structures,
fantasy elements.
Bridges
(10:02):
If you don't have a sand tray with a blue bottom,
you want to have something that can be representative of water.
Ideally,
what you're doing is
Presenting a child with all kinds of different options to create
out of those three categories what they need.
And
you really ideally don't ever just want one animal,
(10:24):
for example.
If you're going to have a zebra,
you want to have 2 or 3 zebras because it needs to be able to make a family.
If you're going to have an elephant,
you want 2 or 3 elephants.
So try not to just get one figure at a time.
I mean,
here and there,
it's no big deal.
If you do have animal families,
you can have some individual animals as well,
but you don't want 75 individual animals
(10:46):
and no family units made up of animals.
Similarly,
you can have random people figurines,
but you certainly want
people figurines that make up a family as well.
All kinds of nature elements,
so trees,
bushes,
flowers,
rocks,
sticks,
pine cones.
Anything you would find in nature really
(11:07):
fake or real,
and
structures,
you know,
hospitals,
jails,
schoolhouses,
all kinds of things, little wishing wells,
those are really popular.
Kids love wishing wells.
Anything that's a structure in the world.
Bridges,
very powerful symbol and sand work,
(11:27):
ladders,
think about,
you know,
if a child's creating a world,
what would they need in the world?
I have a little metal mailbox.
I love it.
So just think about things that a child could use to create a world,
real life stuff,
food,
drinks,
plates,
pots,
and these are all small scale,
right?
And some of that's going to be hard to find,
(11:48):
so just do what you can.
And
here,
here's the,
the blessing and the curse of sand work.
You will never have all the miniatures that you want,
even when you have too many.
So,
here's your,
here's your fair warning right now.
You get into sand work,
you will
forever be buying miniatures even when you have more than
(12:10):
you need because there are always more that you want.
It's a never ending
money drain,
but
it's put to good use,
I suppose.
So just start with basics.
Just like with toys,
kids will use what they have.
So just because you don't have 700 miniatures,
if you have 70,
(12:30):
they will use what is available to them
and they'll creatively figure it out.
Just
have as much as you can 3 categories of toys represented.
And here's my final thought on a sand
tray
in a CCPT playroom.
Much of santray training
is Jungian or Adlerian.
(12:51):
When we have sand trays in our CCPT playrooms,
we are not following Jungian and Adlerian theory for how to do sand work.
We're not telling them to choose a character for each person and their family.
We're not telling them to name their world.
We're not telling them to,
we're not asking them to tell us what they would change about their world,
(13:12):
what they would add to their world.
That is not CCPT.
When we have a sandtray in a CCPT playroom.
We treat it just as any other toy option.
So they can choose to play with it or not play with it,
and if they choose to play with it,
we respond exactly the same way we would to them playing with
the army men
(13:33):
or the stuffed animals,
or the puppets or anything else.
We reflectively respond.
You put that there.
Oh,
that guy,
you chose that one for there.
Oh,
you got it.
You found a spot for it.
You're going to use the exact same
interaction
that is adherent to CCPT
even when a child is doing something in the sand.
(13:55):
We don't ask questions,
it's not directive,
it's not projective.
It's not anything other than CCPT all the way.
So if they choose to do something with miniatures in the sand.
That's the same thing as if they choose to play a board game,
or they choose to throw the darts against the target.
It's just another option.
So we do not deviate or change our CCPT approach,
(14:19):
it just becomes another option for kids.
So Laura,
thank you so much for the email.
I hope that that was helpful to you,
but to everyone as well.
Maybe you haven't
put a sand tray in your room yet because
you didn't really know how you could integrate that.
I hope that it gives you the courage and the excitement to
think about it because it really does add
a special element
to our work with kids.
(14:40):
All right,
I love you all.
If you want to get in touch with me,
brenna@thekidcounselor.com,
as I mentioned,
only 2 podcasts for these 2 weeks in November that I'm in Australia.
I'm fine.
Don't be alarmed.
I always do appreciate it when I don't release a podcast and
I get a whole bunch of people reaching out and saying,
Is everything OK?
So I promise you I'm fine.
And if you have been thinking about joining the Collective,
(15:03):
we would love to have you our online community for CCPTs. www.CCPTcollective.com.
Check it out.
We've had so many new members join and
really excited about what's happening in there.
So
if you've been kind of on the fence,
please dive in,
give it a trial and see what you think.
We'd love to have you.
OK,
love you all.
We'll talk again soon.
Bye.
(15:23):
Thank you for listening to the Play Therapy Podcast with Dr.
Brenna Hicks.
For more episodes and resources,
please go to www.playtherapypodcast.com.
You're listening to the Play Therapy Podcast with Dr. Brenna Hicks,
your source for centered and focused play therapy coaching.
Hi,
I'm Dr. Brenna Hicks,
The Kid Counselor.
This is the Play Therapy Podcast where you get
a master class in child-centered play therapy
and practical support and application for your
work with children and their families.
In today's episode,
I am answering a question from Laura in Washington State.
(00:24):
Essentially about as far away from me
as possible,
at least in
the United States proper.
I know Alaskans are technically probably further away,
depending on where you live in Alaska.
But
Laura in Washington,
Brenna in Florida,
literally top to bottom,
side to side,
about as far away as it gets.
My niece and nephew in-law actually live in the Seattle
(00:46):
area and I've been there and it is very lovely.
We loved the market.
We
loved Seattle Mariners Stadium
and we actually left for an Alaskan cruise out of the Seattle port.
So
anyway,
I have good connections and memories in the Seattle area.
So Laura,
thank you for the email.
Her question is about
sand therapy
(01:07):
in the CCPT playroom.
Which I'm really excited to talk about this,
so I'll read parts of Laura's email and then we'll dive in together.
So she says,
could you do a podcast episode on Santray therapy,
the use of a sand tray in CCPT,
the
theory behind why it's useful,
essential miniatures to have,
etc.
I'm finishing up my degree and I've been
(01:27):
doing CCPT at my practicum setting with kids.
I abhor the texture of sand on my skin.
Do not come to coastal Florida.
You will be very unhappy.
We have beaches everywhere and they're so pretty.
Clearwater Beach.
Public service announcement,
y'all.
Clearwater Beach,
which is where I grew up,
my hometown,
legit.
(01:48):
Oh,
OK.
Can I tell a related a side story and then I'll get back to the beach story.
This is a very recent conversation that my mom,
brother,
and I had.
So we were talking about hometowns because a lot of country
songs talk about hometown and I was sharing my thought on
there's a song that says,
I'm proud of where I'm from.
And so I was kind of just pondering what am I proud of of being from Clearwater,
(02:10):
Florida.
So I was sharing just my thoughts with my mom and she says,
Where would you say your hometown is?
And I said,
Clearwater.
She says,
you were born in Dunedin,
which is an adjacent city,
smaller adjacent city.
And I said,
well,
I was born in Dunedin Hospital,
but
(02:31):
My home,
like my first home that I lived in was in Clearwater,
and she's like,
but you weren't born in Clearwater,
you were born in Dunedin.
And I was just so perplexed by this.
So then I'm like,
Brandon,
my brother.
I'm like,
Brandon,
weigh in here.
Would you,
where would you say you're from?
He was not
privy to the conversation my mom and I had,
so he was not swayed in his vote.
I randomly texted him in that moment and said,
(02:53):
where would you say you're from if someone asked,
what's your hometown?
And he goes,
Clearwater.
And I'm like,
thank you.
So now I need y'all to weigh in.
Is it the,
the city in which the hospital
You were born,
is that your hometown or is it like the house you lived in,
your hometown?
I'm curious because I think I'm in the right here.
(03:14):
My mom disagrees,
my brother's on my side.
I want to hear from you,
brenna@thekidcounselor.com.
These are the things that swirl in my brain,
y'all.
This is,
this is what occupies my time
when I'm not thinking about CCPT,
which is rare,
but it,
it happens.
OK,
so back to the beach.
Clearwater Beach,
my hometown as I claim it anyway.
I always,
always,
(03:35):
always,
always top 10 beaches in the whole world.
Like if you look at the beach ratings,
Clearwater Beach always makes top 10 rankings.
So if you are in a frigid area of the country or the world
and it's winter
and you would like to come to sunny beachy,
beautiful palm tree laden Florida.
(03:56):
Even though Laura does not want any sand on her,
but if the rest of you are interested in that,
come hang out with me.
We will go to Clearwater Beach.
It'll be a great day.
All right,
I'm back on track,
I promise.
So,
I abhor.
I can't even say that word.
Why would you abhor sand?
Oh my gosh,
I can't fathom it.
OK.
I abhor the texture of sand on my skin,
(04:16):
so I have avoided buying sand for my playroom.
I understand that sentiment.
Additionally,
I'm in a shared office space.
The playroom I have set up is one of many rooms
that other interns can reserve for use with their clients.
But in case a different therapist needs it needs it right after me,
I have to be able to clean everything up in a timely manner,
which has also scared me away from sand.
But I just started working with a 13 year old,
(04:39):
which is my first older child that I'll be doing CCPT with.
She has really intense anxiety in addition
to perfectionism and anxiety related to school performance
that she and her mom have reported,
I saw manifestations of her anxiety in our first session
where she spent the whole session meticulously organizing the room.
Sounds about right.
Something tells me that a sand tray might appeal to her.
(05:01):
Yes,
I would like to have that as an option in my playroom for her and other kids.
Double yes.
do you have any tips on how to set up a sand tray and
the essential miniatures to have obviously for use in the context of CCPT?
Thanks so much.
I appreciate the work that you do.
All right,
Laura,
so not only am I going to make you a sand therapy convert,
you might actually not hate the the feeling of sand on your skin at some point.
(05:25):
It's a possibility.
So here are my thoughts on sand work.
I've been getting a lot of questions lately actually about.
Having a sand tray in a CCPT playroom.
So this is a really helpful question.
I'm glad we're talking through this.
My first thought,
that this is kind of just brain dump for you all.
My first thought is,
if you have to have quick cleanup,
(05:46):
if you don't particularly like the feel or texture
of sand and or you're worried about the mess,
you have two main go to options.
You can either buy kinetic sand,
which is far easier to clean up,
doesn't stick to things,
doesn't make near as much of a mess,
and you can typically have smaller
areas
in which kids can use kinetic sand.
In other words,
you don't need a massive sand tray with kinetic sand.
(06:09):
Because it functions differently,
so the container can be far smaller.
So kinetic sand is going to be one option.
Jurassic sand
is another.
That's the only sand I've used for years in my center.
All of my therapists have Jurassic sand.
There's all different grains,
all different colors,
all different styles,
but why I love it,
(06:30):
it's dust-free #1,
it's washable #2,
and number 3,
it
does not stick to things and
it
is just high.
quality,
better sand.
I used to go to like Home Depot or Lowe's,
which for my international people,
that's home improvement stores in the states,
and just get there literally,
(06:50):
it's called play sand.
So it was designed to go in outdoor sandboxes most of the time.
But
it
was more like beach sand,
to be honest with you,
and it stuck to everything
and it was not washable,
and it was dusty,
and there were just all,
it started to smell bad after a while after it had been
wet and dried and wet and dried and wet and dried,
(07:10):
it starts to stink.
Long story short,
we switched to Jurassic Sand,
and we've been really happy with that.
I don't have any affiliation with them.
You know what,
I'm gonna see if maybe I could get you all a coupon code
for all my listeners.
So let me see what I can work that out.
But what I'm trying to say is I'm not pushing them,
plugging them.
I'm not gonna get a kickback from it.
(07:31):
I just use it myself and I really think that they are,
to me,
what I have found to be my favorite sand product for sand work.
So,
those are your two options there.
Here's another thought,
with an older girl,
13,
especially an anxious one.
You are far less likely to have a mess made
with sand work.
So your younger kids
(07:52):
likely to make messes either accidental or on purpose.
Older kids,
you typically don't have as much of a concern of the
sand getting spilled or thrown or making a huge mess.
So I think for your first one,
it's probably a pretty safe bet,
Laura,
that a 13 year old,
especially an anxious one,
is likely not going to make a mess if you add sand to your playroom.
(08:14):
So what do you need
to make this happen?
You need a small container,
ideally with a lid.
And you want to have it on a table or on a stand.
Either one,
it can even be on a rolling cart and you can push it out of the way when you don't want
to use it and you can roll it out when a child wants to or you wanna have it available,
but it needs to be on something that is about at
(08:36):
stomach height,
give or take.
So you don't want it really low on the floor,
you don't want it really high,
you kind of want it at stomach or so level.
And it can be portable or not portable,
whatever,
it just needs to sit on something.
And here's why sand work
is really important.
It's very self-s soothing.
The kinesthetic nature of it,
(08:57):
the repetitive nature of it,
it's tactile,
it's sensory,
it's all this stuff.
There's self soothing
when a child just does repetitive behavior in sand.
I think it would be really ideal for this client that you're describing,
Laura.
And that's why I do actually think that
when you have highly anxious kids in your playroom,
having a sand tray is just so powerful for them.
(09:19):
So to move on to your question about what miniatures would you want to have?
The simplest answer is you want to think about
the three categories of toys in a child-centered playroom,
and you want to represent those three categories well
in your miniatures.
You have acting out aggressive toys,
you have emotional,
creative,
artistic toys,
(09:40):
and you have real life toys.
Therefore,
your miniatures,
you wanna have animals,
you wanna have people,
you want to have
nature related items,
anything for real life.
Buildings and structures,
fantasy elements.
Bridges
(10:02):
If you don't have a sand tray with a blue bottom,
you want to have something that can be representative of water.
Ideally,
what you're doing is
Presenting a child with all kinds of different options to create
out of those three categories what they need.
And
you really ideally don't ever just want one animal,
(10:24):
for example.
If you're going to have a zebra,
you want to have 2 or 3 zebras because it needs to be able to make a family.
If you're going to have an elephant,
you want 2 or 3 elephants.
So try not to just get one figure at a time.
I mean,
here and there,
it's no big deal.
If you do have animal families,
you can have some individual animals as well,
but you don't want 75 individual animals
(10:46):
and no family units made up of animals.
Similarly,
you can have random people figurines,
but you certainly want
people figurines that make up a family as well.
All kinds of nature elements,
so trees,
bushes,
flowers,
rocks,
sticks,
pine cones.
Anything you would find in nature really
(11:07):
fake or real,
and
structures,
you know,
hospitals,
jails,
schoolhouses,
all kinds of things, little wishing wells,
those are really popular.
Kids love wishing wells.
Anything that's a structure in the world.
Bridges,
very powerful symbol and sand work,
(11:27):
ladders,
think about,
you know,
if a child's creating a world,
what would they need in the world?
I have a little metal mailbox.
I love it.
So just think about things that a child could use to create a world,
real life stuff,
food,
drinks,
plates,
pots,
and these are all small scale,
right?
And some of that's going to be hard to find,
(11:48):
so just do what you can.
And
here,
here's the,
the blessing and the curse of sand work.
You will never have all the miniatures that you want,
even when you have too many.
So,
here's your,
here's your fair warning right now.
You get into sand work,
you will
forever be buying miniatures even when you have more than
(12:10):
you need because there are always more that you want.
It's a never ending
money drain,
but
it's put to good use,
I suppose.
So just start with basics.
Just like with toys,
kids will use what they have.
So just because you don't have 700 miniatures,
if you have 70,
(12:30):
they will use what is available to them
and they'll creatively figure it out.
Just
have as much as you can 3 categories of toys represented.
And here's my final thought on a sand
tray
in a CCPT playroom.
Much of santray training
is Jungian or Adlerian.
(12:51):
When we have sand trays in our CCPT playrooms,
we are not following Jungian and Adlerian theory for how to do sand work.
We're not telling them to choose a character for each person and their family.
We're not telling them to name their world.
We're not telling them to,
we're not asking them to tell us what they would change about their world,
(13:12):
what they would add to their world.
That is not CCPT.
When we have a sandtray in a CCPT playroom.
We treat it just as any other toy option.
So they can choose to play with it or not play with it,
and if they choose to play with it,
we respond exactly the same way we would to them playing with
the army men
(13:33):
or the stuffed animals,
or the puppets or anything else.
We reflectively respond.
You put that there.
Oh,
that guy,
you chose that one for there.
Oh,
you got it.
You found a spot for it.
You're going to use the exact same
interaction
that is adherent to CCPT
even when a child is doing something in the sand.
(13:55):
We don't ask questions,
it's not directive,
it's not projective.
It's not anything other than CCPT all the way.
So if they choose to do something with miniatures in the sand.
That's the same thing as if they choose to play a board game,
or they choose to throw the darts against the target.
It's just another option.
So we do not deviate or change our CCPT approach,
(14:19):
it just becomes another option for kids.
So Laura,
thank you so much for the email.
I hope that that was helpful to you,
but to everyone as well.
Maybe you haven't
put a sand tray in your room yet because
you didn't really know how you could integrate that.
I hope that it gives you the courage and the excitement to
think about it because it really does add
a special element
to our work with kids.
(14:40):
All right,
I love you all.
If you want to get in touch with me,
brenna@thekidcounselor.com,
as I mentioned,
only 2 podcasts for these 2 weeks in November that I'm in Australia.
I'm fine.
Don't be alarmed.
I always do appreciate it when I don't release a podcast and
I get a whole bunch of people reaching out and saying,
Is everything OK?
So I promise you I'm fine.
And if you have been thinking about joining the Collective,
(15:03):
we would love to have you our online community for CCPTs. www.CCPTcollective.com.
Check it out.
We've had so many new members join and
really excited about what's happening in there.
So
if you've been kind of on the fence,
please dive in,
give it a trial and see what you think.
We'd love to have you.
OK,
love you all.
We'll talk again soon.
Bye.
(15:23):
Thank you for listening to the Play Therapy Podcast with Dr.
Brenna Hicks.
For more episodes and resources,
please go to www.playtherapypodcast.com.
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