Sandplay & Symbol Work

Professional Development Days

For Counsellors, Social Workers, Psychologists, Guidance Officers &

Others who work with Adults, Teenagers & Children

'One's role as therapist is to provide freedom, space, protection and empathy so that the twin urges toward health and growth can activate the process of healing and individuation.' Unknown

These Sandplay Workshops are experiential.  Participants will be engaging in Sandplay for their own interest, yet learning the process at the same time through experiencing it.  Dora Kalf, who pioneered and named this form of therapy, believed that it was important for Sandplay practitioners to be engaged in the process for their own personal development, thus learning about the process ‘from the inside’.

Most children and adults find Sandplay non-threatening and because of that they move into it easily. They soon begin to contact the deeper parts of themselves.

In these workshops, the method of using Sandplay and Symbol Work has evolved from the Jungian model.  It has incorporated Gestalt work and gained great freedom and further healing power through the methods of Transpersonal and Experiential Psychotherapy.

'A basic postulate of Sandplay Therapy is that deep in the unconscious there is an autonomous tendency, given the proper conditions, for the psyche to heal itself.  This work heals wound that have blocked normal development.  It is a prime facilitator of the individuation proves.'  Estelle Weinrib

Sandplay can be used to:

• Discover more of one’s potential;

• Explore and resolve a specific issue or crisis;

• Deal with hurts;

• Allow space to find a greater self-esteem;

• Provide an avenue for expressing inner feeling, hopes, challenges and directions.

Melissa L’Estrange is a Director of Training in Transpersonal and Experiential Psychotherapy (TEP) and runs a training in TEP as well as having her own private practice which includes the use of Expressive Therapies such as Sandplay in her work with adults and children.  She has a Graduate Certificate in Mental Health Practices with the University of New England and is registered as a Clinical Practitioner and Supervisor with PACFA.  Melissa attended Sandplay Training with Ruth Ammann in 2004 and with Dr. Alexander Esterhuyzen in 2009 after participating in three of Lynette Fox’s Sandplay Trainings at the Portiuncula in Toowoomba.  Prior to the, Melissa worked within the education department for 18 years in early childhood and primary levels.