PRACTICE
Working With Children
and Adolescents:
The Case of Claudia
Claudia is a 6-year-old, Hispanic female residing with her
biological mother and father in an urban area. Claudia was born
in the United States 6 months after her mother and father moved
to the country from Nicaragua. There is currently no extended
family living in the area, but Claudia’s parents have made friends
in the neighborhood. Claudia’s family struggles economically and
has also struggled to obtain legal residency in this country. Her
father inconsistently finds work in manual labor, and her mother
recently began working three nights a week at a nail salon. While
Claudia is bilingual in Spanish and English, Spanish is the sole
language spoken in her household. She is currently enrolled in a
large public school, attending kindergarten.
Claudia’s family lives in an impoverished urban neighborhood
with a rising crime rate. After Claudia witnessed a mugging in her
neighborhood, her mother reported that she became very anxious
and “needy.” She cried frequently and refused to be in a room
alone without a parent. Claudia made her parents lock the doors
after returning home and would ask her parents to check the locks
repeatedly. When walking in the neighborhood, Claudia would
ask her parents if people passing are “bad” or if an approaching
person is going to hurt them. Claudia had difficulty going to bed
on nights when her mother worked, often crying when her mother
left. Although she was frequently nervous, Claudia was comforted
by her parents and has a good relationship with them. Claudia’s
nervousness was exhibited throughout the school day as well. She
asked her teachers to lock doors and spoke with staff and peers
about potential intruders on a daily basis.
Claudia’s mother, Paula, was initially hesitant to seek therapy
services for her daughter due to the family’s undocumented
status in the country. I met with Claudia’s mother and utilized
the initial meeting to explain the nature of services offered at
the agency, as well as the policies of confidentiality. Prior to the
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SOCIAL WORK CASE STUDIES: CONCENTRATION YEAR
meeting, I translated all relevant forms to Spanish to increase
Paula’s comfort. Within several minutes of talking, Paula noticeably relaxed, openly sharing the family’s history and her concerns
regarding Claudia’s “nervousness.” Goals set for Claudia included
increasing Claudia’s ability to cope with anxiety and increasing her
ability to maintain attention throughout her school day.
Using child-centered and directed play therapy approaches,
I began working with Claudia to explore her world. Claudia was
intrigued by the sand tray in my office and selected a variety
of figures, informing me that each figure was either “good” or
“bad.” She would then construct scenes in the sand tray in which
she would create protective barriers around the good figures,
protecting them from the bad. I reflected upon this theme of good
versus bad, and Claudia developed the ability to verbalize her
desire to protect good people.
I continued meeting with Claudia once a week, and Claudia
continued exploring the theme of good versus bad in the sand tray
for 2 months. Utilizing a daily feelings check-in, Claudia developed
the ability to engage in affect identification, verbalizing her feelings
and often sharing relevant stories. Claudia slowly began asking me
questions about people in the building and office, inquiring if they
were bad or good, and I supported Claudia in exploring these
inquiries. Claudia would frequently discuss her fears about school
with me, asking why security guards were present at schools. We
would discuss the purpose of security guards in detail, allowing
her to ask questions repeatedly, as needed. Claudia and I also
practiced a calming song to sing when she experienced fear or
anxiety during the school day.
During this time, I regularly met with Paula to track Claudia’s
progress through parent reporting. I also utilized psychoeducational techniques during these meetings to review appropriate
methods Paula could use to discuss personal safety with Claudia
without creating additional anxiety.
By the third month of treatment, Claudia began determining
that more and more people in the environment were good. This
was reflected in her sand tray scenes as well: the protection of
good figures decreased, and Claudia began placing good and bad
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PRACTICE
figures next to one another, stating, “They’re okay now.” Paula
reported that Claudia no longer questioned her about each individual that passed them on the street. Claudia began telling her
friends in school about good security guards and stopped asking
teachers to lock doors during the day. At home, Claudia became
more comfortable staying in her bedroom alone, and she significantly decreased the frequency of asking for doors to be locked.
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APPENDIX
7. What local, state, or federal policies could (or did) affect
this case?
Chase had an international adoption but it was filed within
a specific state, which allowed him and his family to receive
­s ervices so he could remain with his adopted family. In addition, state laws related to education affected Chase and
aided his parents in requesting testing and special education s­ ervices. Lastly, state laws related to child abandonment
could have affected this family if they chose to relinquish
custody to the Department of Family and Children Services
(DFCS).
8. How would you advocate for social change to positively
affect this case?
Advocacy within the school system for early identification and
testing of children like Chase would be helpful.
9. Were there any legal or ethical issues present in the case?
If so, what were they and how were they addressed?
There was a possibility of legal/ethical issues related to the
family’s frustration with Chase. If his parents had resorted to
physical abuse, a CPS report would need to be filed. In addition, with a possible relinquishment of Chase, DFCS could
decide to look at the children still in the home (Chase’s adopted
siblings) and consider removing them as well.
Working With Children and Adolescents:
The Case of Claudia
1. What specific intervention strategies (skills, knowledge, etc.)
did you use to address this client situation?
Specific intervention skills used were positive verbal support
and encouragement, validation and reflection, and affect
identification and exploration. Knowledge of child anxieties/
fear and psychoeducation for the client and her mother were
also utilized. Child-centered play therapy was utilized along
with sand tray therapy to provide a safe environment for
Claudia.
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SOCIAL WORK CASE STUDIES: CONCENTRATION YEAR
2. Which theory or theories did you use to guide your practice?
I used theoretical bases of child- (client-) centered nondirective
play therapy.
3. What were the identified strengths of the client(s)?
Client strengths were a supportive parenting unit, positive peer
interactions, and the ability to engage.
4. What were the identified challenges faced by the client(s)?
The client faced environmental challenges. Due to socioeconomic
status, the client resided in a somewhat dangerous neighborhood,
adding to her anxiety and fear. The client’s family also lacked an
extended support system and struggled to establish legal residency.
5. What were the agreed-upon goals to be met to address the
concern?
The goals agreed upon were to increase the client’s ability to
cope with anxiety and increase her ability to maintain attention
at school.
6. Did you have to address any issues around cultural competence? Did you have to learn about this population/group
prior to beginning your work with this client system? If so,
what type of research did you do to prepare?
Language barriers existed when working with the client’s
mother. I ensured that all agency documents were translated
into Spanish. It was also important to understand the family’s
cultural isolation. Their current neighborhood and culture is
much different than the rural Nicaraguan areas Claudia’s parents
grew up in. To learn more about this, I spent time with Paula,
learning more about her experience growing up and how this
affects her parenting style and desires for her daughter’s future.
7. What local, state, or federal policies could (or did) affect
this situation?
The client and her parents are affected by immigration l­egislation.
The client’s family was struggling financially as a result of their
inability to obtain documented status in this country. The client’s
mother expressed their strong desire to obtain legal status, but
stated that lawyer fees, court fees, and overwhelming paperwork
hindered their ability to obtain legal residency.
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APPENDIX
8. How would you advocate for social change to positively
affect this case?
I would advocate for increased availability and funding for
legal aid services in the field of immigration.
9. How can evidence-based practice be integrated into this
­situation?
Evidenced-based practice can be integrated through the use
of proven child therapy techniques, such as child-centered
nondirective play therapy, along with unconditional positive
regard.
10. Describe any additional personal reflections about this case.
It can be difficult to work with fears and anxiety when they
are rooted in a client’s environment. It was important to help
Claudia cope with her anxiety while still maintaining the ­family’s
vigilance about crime and violence in the n
­ eighborhood.
Working With Children and Adolescents:
The Case of Noah
1. What specific intervention strategies (skills, knowledge, etc.)
did you use to address this client situation?
I utilized structured play therapy and cognitive behavioral
­techniques.
2. Which theory or theories did you use to guide your practice?
For this case study, I used cognitive behavioral theory.
3. What were the identified strengths of the client(s)?
Noah had supportive and loving foster parents who desired to
adopt him. He quickly became acclimated to the foster home
and started a friendship with his foster brother. He started to
become engaged in extracurricular activities. Noah was an
inquisitive and engaging boy who participated in our meetings.
4. What were the identified challenges faced by the client(s)?
Noah faced several challenges, most significantly the failure
of his mother to follow through with the reunification plan.
He has had an unstable childhood with unclear parental role
models. There may be some unreported incidences of abuse
and trauma.
101
Scripts in the Sand: Sandplay in
Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy with Children
Cinzia Chiesa
Abstract
This article discusses sandplay as a therapeutic tool in clinical work with children.
The origins of sandplay are described and
its possible use within the theoretical and
methodological approach of transactional
analysis are described. Several clinical examples illustrate how sandplay can be used
within the child-therapist relationship to
highlight certain aspects of script and its
transformation.
______
Figure 1
Figures in the Sand
(Used with the permission of Kal Khogali)
The Birth of Sandplay
Describing the origins of sandplay in child
psychology means talking about two women:
Margaret Lowenfeld, an English pediatrician
who conceived the idea, and Dora Kalff, a
Swiss psychotherapist and pupil of Jung who
promoted its dissemination.
Vol. 42, No. 4, October 2012
W e owe the idea of using sand as a therapeutic tool to the pioneering and visionary work of
Margaret Lowenfeld. In 1928 she founded a
psychology clinic for children in London that,
in a few years, became a meeting place for
psychotherapists from all over the world. She
dedicated herself to researching tools for understanding those fantasies and experiences of children that cannot be expressed with words.
In contrast to the prevailing interpretational
approach in the psychoanalytic world at that
time, Lowenfeld understood play as a natural
function of the child’s being and connected play
with emotional development in children. She
recounted, in a piece published for the first
time 6 years after her death, the birth of her approach in the use of play in therapy with children:
My own approach to the use of a toy apparatus with children derives from a memory
of H. G. W ells’ Floor Games (1911), the
first edition of which had made a deep impression upon my youth. W hen, therefore,
I came from orthodox pediatrics to the associated study of emotional conditions in
childhood, I began to put this memory to
use. I collected first a miscellaneous mass
of material, colored sticks and shapes,
beads, small toys of all sorts, paper shapes
and match boxes, and kept them in what
came to be known by my children as the
“W onder Box.” (Lowenfeld, 1979, p. 3)
The next step was the construction of two
metal sandboxes in which children could play
with dry or wet sand and place objects in the
“magic box.” Thus was born the method that
Lowenfeld studied and deepened for the rest of
her life: the world technique. Here is how Lowenfeld (1979) described it:
There is a gap between a child’s world and
that of the adults of his environment, and
thus a lack of mutual understanding. . . .
Further, . . . many things are more easily
“said” in pictures and actions than in
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words. It is explained to the child that this
is a natural way of “thinking” and that this
is what we would like him to do for us
here. The W orld apparatus is then introduced and the child invited to make “whatever comes into his head.” (p. 5)
Lowenfeld believed that in constructing their
world in the sand, children gained the ability to
observe and transform certain aspects of their
emotional world, thoughts, and memories. From
this emerges a vision of the child as a competent and active subject in the regulation of
his or her own psychic processes. This is now
a widely shared vision, thanks to studies conducted in the field of infant research, but they
were groundbreaking when Lowenfeld began
her work.
Equally innovative was the role that Lowenfeld (1993, 2008) attributed to the therapist.
Along with the child who is in the process of
constructing his or her world, the psychotherapist is called to discover, together with the
child, that which slowly emerges. The attribution of meaning through interpretation is
avoided. Instead, the therapist is invited to capture the sense and emotional quality that the
objects have for the child who uses them.
Dora Kalff met M argaret Lowenfeld in Zurich in 1956 during one of her conferences on
the world technique. She was struck by the
technique and, maintaining its methodological
system, described the processes observed in the
sand, making use of concepts from Jung’s analytical psychology. Kalff (1966) called this
therapeutic tool sandplay and contributed to its
promotion and awareness around the world, including by founding the International Society
for Sandplay Therapy in 1985.
Sandplay Today
Presently, sandplay finds its application even
in therapeutic contexts that have theoretical
models that differ from a Jungian approach. It
is done now with children and adults, in groups
or with individuals. Even in transactional analysis we can find examples of the use of this tool.
Romanini (1997/1999a) discussed it in her clinical work with children, and Kottwitz (1993)
and D ay (2008, 2010) have described using it
with adults.
286
In this article I present the way in which I, as
a transactional analyst, perceive and use sandplay in psychotherapy with children. I think
that this therapeutic tool fits well into the childtherapist relationship and can be used to work
on various core points of the script as well as to
bring survival conclusions into focus.
The script model I use is the one conceptualized by English (1977, 1988, 2010). I use the
concept of survival conclusions in a developmental perspective, as conceived by English
and later referred to by Rotondo (2001). English emphasized the function of the script in
infant development, with the child needing to
give structure to time and space, to provide
meaning for relationships with caregivers and
meaningful others, and to make sense of reality
(English, 1977, p. 290). During its formation,
the script organizes itself in temporary gestalts,
that is, in shapes that transform themselves over
time into survival conclusions.
I think of survival conclusions as creative responses: the best that could possibly be found
in a certain moment of development. Led by
the Little Professor, they organize themselves
as a form of “mediation between the vital needs
of the child and what he perceives as environmental demands” (Rotondo, 2001, p. 17). Because of their role in this process, and therefore
survival, these conclusions may become, over
time, self-restricting and repetitive, precluding
exploration of new approaches to experience.
I think that the representations children create in sandplay may be observed through the
theoretical frame of this script model, with particular reference to survival conclusions. The
scenes created in the sandplay can be conceptualized as organizations of the internal and external reality that the child experiences in that
particular moment. Through these representations, the child’s survival conclusions find expression, within both the space of the play and
the relationship with the therapist.
A Play Space Between Protection and
Permission
Lowenfeld suggested using a sandbox of 57
x 72 x 7 centimeters, with a blue bottom that
can represent water when needed. These dimensions are related to the child’s potential field of
Transactional Analysis Journal
SCRIPTS IN THE SAND: SANDPLAY IN TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS PSYCHOTHERAPY WITH CHILDREN
vision at a distance of a half meter. The sandplay technique uses dry or wet sand and a
variety of small objects with which the child is
invited to construct a scene inside the sandbox.
I will describe each of the elements that make
up this therapeutic tool: the sand, the objects,
and the sandbox.
Sand is a natural, malleable material that is
capable of preserving the traces of even a delicate gesture when it is dry and of assuming a
definite and complex form when wet (Marinucci, 2003; Montecchi, 1993). These characteristics make it a sturdy but modifiable medium,
capable of embodying polarity and opposites.
According to the quantities of water with
which it is mixed, sand can be dry as powder or wet and heavy. When pure and clean,
it can conjure up order: each grain of sand
is found in a precise place. Sand, however,
can also be muddy and dirty and represent
chaos. Sand can be suitable for construction, but as quicksand it can suck down
anything that is solid. . . . Images made of
sand are easily altered and yet their destruction offers the possibility of new uses.
(Pattis Zoja, 2010, p. 97)
W e can associate the idea of this material
with the idea of transformation that characterizes the child’s psychological development,
with the evolution of subsequent representations of his or her being in the world that can
lead to the structuring and restructuring of script.
Sand and psyche have many things in common:
movement, moving in search of a new form, and
having reached the new form, beginning to
flow again. The plasticity of sand gives threedimensional expressivity to children through
involvement on a kinesthetic level (touch and
movement) and the use of the visual channel.
The centrality of the corporeal and sensory
activation renders the use of this material in the
therapeutic field fit to energize the child.
I link the importance of this therapeutic
intervention with the hypothesis developed by
Romanini (1991/1999b, 1997/1999a) that the
Child ego state holds a central position during
the whole of childhood. She (1991/1999b) introduced the concept of the real ego to represent
the ego state that is more consistent with the
chronological age of a person. During infancy,
Vol. 42, No. 4, October 2012
the ego state energized as the real ego is the
Child ego state. Romanini stated that a child is
a product of his or her environment (external
recognition). For these reasons, she represented
a diagram of the ego states during childhood in
an unusual way, with the Child ego state in the
middle referring to the location of the real ego.
“Plotting in a diagram the Child between the
Parent and the Adult seems a better expression
of the childhood personality. It marks the function of the real ego that makes the contamination between those two ego states more difficult” (Romanini, 1999b, p. 58). W ith adolescence begins the transition of the real ego into
the Adult ego state that becomes central in the
usual ego state diagrams.
The child who plays with the sand can choose
between many miniature objects set out on
shelves: human and imaginary figures, animals,
trees, houses, vehicles, stones, shells, and pieces of wood. The objects offer a representational
system to draw on and, as Romanini (1997/
1999a) emphasized, allows for the use of fantasy even in very young children. The objects
used in sandplay perform an analogous role to
that of the transitional object described by
W innicott (1971). They are positioned, in fact,
in that area of intermediate reality that allows
for a connection between the internal and the
external, between inside and outside. For this
reason, I am interested in the meaning that a
certain object has for the child who is using it
in that moment and in the relational field in
which both therapist and child are involved. I
do not see the objects as being specific symbols
to decode.
Given this way of perceiving the objects, I
have developed a variation of the technique as
originally conceived by Lowenfeld. I allow the
child to construct an object (with paper, wood,
or clay) that can then be placed in the scene
that he or she is creating or to bring a small
object from home and put it in the sandbox The
child’s Little Professor (Berne, 1972) is thereby stimulated to look creatively for a shape or
object that will render his or her emotional
state expressible and externally visible. I use
this variation with some children, particularly
when I perceive that the youngster’s Free Child
energy, within the dynamic of the play, seems
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CINZIA CHIESA
suppressed by worry about making mistakes or
by the desire to please the therapist’s expectations. In these cases, asking a child to be active
in creating or bringing an object into the scene
helps to reestablish an atmosphere within the
therapeutic relationship of double OKness, a
definition that Romanini (1997/1999a) used to
underscore the intersubjective, unique, and creative exchange between persons in the OK/OK
position. This supports the permission that “it
is OK to be yourself, to express your ideas and
desires.”
For example, during our first meeting, and
before choosing the objects she wanted to use
in the sand tray, Sophia asked if she was supposed to depict the real world or the world that
she wanted. W hen I told her that she could
choose whatever she preferred, she decided to
create her desired world (Figure 2). This involved a place in which she could play in the
company of people she was connected to: her
mother, her father, her brother, and her friends.
I suggested that if she thought that something
was missing in the scene she had built, she
could create it using the available materials.
Sophia enthusiastically accepted my proposal
and constructed a border, which represented
something that was missing for her. To make
the border of her world safe and protective, she
created some waves out of blue and white
paper.
Figure 2
The Desired World
288
The use of sand and objects takes place in a
container that defines, by means of its borders,
a horizontal space, inside of which the child is
free to play and create what he or she wants.
For this reason, I think of the sandbox as a
creative space that is developed within an
atmosphere of protection and permission. I use
the terms protection and permission as described by Crossman (1966) because I think
that within the play space of the sand tray, the
child can experience some permissions within
a protected relational frame, for which the
therapist is in charge. I will propose some arguments for this hypothesis.
Offering the child the chance to play in the
sand in our “company” (Alvarez, 1992, p. 184)
means transmitting the permission “It’s OK to
be a child,” a central therapeutic tenet in the transactional analysis approach in child psychotherapy (Romanini, 1997/1999a). Protection is
linked to the size of the container, which embraces the visual field and offers a contained
view of the contents expressed by the child in
the sand, shared and equally observable by the
child-therapist pair. To appreciate the significance of the protection offered by the confines
of the sandbox, it is useful to reference the
image of an empty frame, with which Milner
(1952) correlates containment and creativity in
the therapeutic process:
I said that in conditions of spontaneous
action in a limited field, with a malleable
fragment of the external world, it seemed
that an internal force, capable of organizing and creating, was released. . . . In order
for this to happen, there needed to be an
empty space, an empty frame. . . . I believe
that the frame demonstrates that that which
is inside must be perceived and interpreted
in a different way than that which is outside; it marks an area in which that which
we perceive must be considered a metaphor. (p. 105)
In the empty frame created by the sandbox,
the child can access that portion of experience
that Winnicott (1971) defined as potential space,
a place of play and creativity in which reality
and fantasy are mixed but never completely lose
their boundaries. Real objects are overlapped
by a fantasy dimension, which transports them
Transactional Analysis Journal
SCRIPTS IN THE SAND: SANDPLAY IN TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS PSYCHOTHERAPY WITH CHILDREN
into an area in which the illusion created by the
play temporarily suspends reality without eliminating it. As the therapist, I participate in what
is happening in this area of play inside the
child-therapist field. Together, in the area of
the sandbox, the objects, and the sand, the child
and therapist share a space that I define as
transactional in that it is an organizer and activator of verbal and nonverbal transactions from
inside to outside. I agree with Kottwitz (1993),
who, when speaking of her work with sandplay,
wrote, “I do not see myself as an analyst who
interprets symbols, but as a partner in a verbal
and non-verbal transactional process” (p. 77).
The therapist uses empathic transactions
(Hargaden & Sills, 2002) aimed at the reality in
which the child finds himself or herself in the
moment and at sustaining and stimulating qualities that the child cannot recognize or that have
not yet developed. In the presence of the therapist, children can dialogue with the images that
they have created in the sand and enter into
contact with their emotional world, relive certain distressing situations without being overwhelmed, and activate possible transformations. The space and time of the play are different from the ones in real life. By playing in the
presence of the therapist, the child has access
to an intermediate portion of experience between subjective and objective, between the
internal and external worlds. W ithin the boundaries of this imaginative experience, similar to
an immersion in the world of fairy tales, some
distressful experiences can become more immediate and observable but at a safe distance.
Meanwhile, because of the actions that the child
can concretely put in place within the play field
(i.e., move some objects, take out others) and
the sharing process with the therapist, some
psychological content can be reorganized into
new shapes.
I think back to a child who placed a bridge in
the sand (Figure 3). This image is particularly
evocative of the relational significance that
sandplay acquires in therapeutic work. W e can
consider it as a communication tool, a bridge
that allows for a connection between the therapist and the child. I included this image here
thinking of Resnik (1996), who referred to the
bridge as a metaphor of the bond: It is a
Vol. 42, No. 4, October 2012
conjunction, a connection, and, at the same time,
it allows movement from our own point of view
to that of another.
Figure 3
The Bridge
Traces in the Sand: The Script in Action
In sandplay, the child creates in the presence
of the therapist a physical and visual story,
made up of objects, that can be considered to
be three-dimensional “words” in which the
arrangement is regulated by rhythm, gesture,
and movement. W e can imagine that there is a
link between the body, emotions, images, and
words. Each one of these expressive outlets can
be seen as an access door that allows the child’s
experience to be expressed. I have worked with
children who began with words as they recounted a story, others who touched the sand in
silence, and still others who stared for a long
time at the objects, as if to compose an image
in their mind before creating it.
Constructing a scene in the sand is a creative
experience connected to the way in which the
child connects his or her feelings with external
reality. Using W innicott’s (1971) words, we
could say that it depends on how this child
“encounters reality.”
The process of creating a scene in the sand
can begin from any of these points: from gesture, expression of an emotion, a visual portrayal, or verbal communication. In looking at
the gestures with which children construct their
scenes in the sand and the forms that these
creations assume, I have to make reference to
the methodological approach suggested by art
therapist and psychoanalyst Mimma Della
Cagnoletta (2010). Starting from Ogden’s (1986)
theoretical conceptualization of the different
ways in which an individual gains experience,
Cagnoletta identified three possible methods
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CINZIA CHIESA
with which objects and materials are approached
within the creative process in a therapeutic
environment:
• Body concentration: a form of sensory experimentation by way of touch, movement,
and the rhythm of the body
• Formal resolution: order and structure are
given to the elements with which one
interacts
• Symbolic narration: seeking a form through
which to tell about oneself and one’s own
experiences
The hypothesis is that these three modalities
follow an evolutionary path and correspond to
growth transitions. Even when symbolic narration has been achieved, the other two modalities can continue to be present and usable at the
same time. I have observed that children begin
by predominantly using one of these modalities
and then transform to an expressive-communicative level over the course of the therapeutic
process.
A good example of this is the case of a 5year-old child whom I will call “Tommaso.” I
worked in therapy with him for a serious sphincter retention disorder accompanied by a state of
anxiety that caused him to abandon any type of
experimentation (food, new activities) because
he was afraid he would not succeed. Tommaso
used the sand only at the end of our therapy. In
doing so, he approached this experience with
his body, exploring the wet sand, touching it
gently, and molding several forms without
using objects and without speaking. W atching
him stroke the sand, I was aware that his body
was slowly but surely abandoning its tensions
and that an old need for contact and sensory
experimentation (somatic Child/C 0) was reemerging. It was not yet time to use words. Little by
little, the forms that he constructed in the sand
became more defined, organized, and accompanied by comments until, in one of our meetings, he began to tell me the story of some
seeds that wanted to be planted in order to
sprout. He chose a few pieces of colored corn
and planted them in the sand, asking me to
water them and await their flowering with him
(Figure 4).
In working with Tommaso and watching his
flowering, I thought several times of physis,
290
Figure 4
Seeds in the Sand
which Berne (1972) described as an innate
drive toward life that allows us to activate possibility and change, a positive force of spontaneity and creativity. The relationship between
physis, creativity, and lucid activity during
development has also been highlighted in recent neuroscience research, which sees play as
a function of self-regulation and spontaneous
psychic processing (Tronick, 2007).
Through play, guided by his or her fantasies,
a child can experiment with new behaviors and
express his or her own emotional world. It might
be considered a way to practice being script
free (Berne, 1972). Some children have tro