Therapeutic Approach and Treatment
The Therapeutic Process: How Do We Work at Tranquilamente?
Sandplay treatment at Tranquilamente is carried out under a rigorous, ethical clinical framework with profound emotional containment, structured in the following phases:
Phase 1: Initial Assessment and Welcoming
We conduct a detailed clinical interview to validate your suffering, understand your needs, and establish the precise indication for sandplay therapy within your comprehensive mental health plan.
Phase 2: Creation of the "Free and Protected Space"
In the therapy room, the patient has the sandbox (which evokes safe boundaries) and an extensive collection of three-dimensional figures (people, animals, mythological creatures, vegetation, structures, natural elements). The person is invited to mold the sand and position the elements without judging the result.
Phase 3: Projection and Symbolic Elaboration
The therapist maintains an empathetic and neutral presence, observing the process without hasty interpretations. The visual representation allows the patient to dialogue with their own symbols, externalize the conflict, and gain distance from emotional pain.
Phase 4: Integration and Clinical Transformation
Throughout the series of sandtrays built in different sessions, a spontaneous reorganization of the symbolic world is observed. This transformation translates directly into the patient's daily life: reduction of symptoms, greater affective self-regulation, trauma processing, and a profound sense of personal reintegration.
Specialists in the treatment of Sandplay Therapy
Overview
What is Sandplay Therapy at Tranquilamente?
At the Tranquilamente clinic, we understand that there are experiences, traumas, and emotions that are difficult to express with words alone. Sandplay Therapy is a profound, rigorous, and innovative psychotherapeutic intervention, based on projective techniques that allow unconscious psychic content to be brought into consciousness through symbolic play and three-dimensional creation.
Our methodology is an adaptation of the renowned technique developed by Swiss psychotherapist Dora M. Kalff, grounded in analytical psychology. By using a specifically dimensioned tray with sand and a carefully selected collection of miniatures, the person can give tangible shape to their inner world in a controlled and safe environment.
At Tranquilamente, in addition to conducting individual sessions (for both children and adults), we specialize in the application of the sandplay technique in group formats. This tool acts as a powerful catalyst for the positive evolution of treatment, facilitating non-verbal expression, emotional catharsis, and the resolution of complex internal conflicts.
Main Symptoms
When is Sandplay Therapy Recommended?
This therapeutic discipline is especially transformative in cases where there is an emotional blockage or when conventional verbal therapy proves insufficient. It is clinically indicated for the following symptoms and conditions:
- Difficulty expressing emotions (Alexithymia): Feeling "disconnected" from one's emotions or inability to put psychological suffering into words.
- Psychological trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): Traumatic experiences, abuse, or unprocessed childhood experiences that remain fixed in implicit memory.
- Anxiety, distress, and panic attacks: States of hypervigilance, persistent muscle tension, or intense fears without a clear conscious cause.
- Unresolved grief: Experiences of profound loss or frozen mourning that prevent continuing with life development.
- Psychosomatic manifestations: Recurrent physical pain or bodily discomfort linked to emotional stress without an organic medical cause.
- Emotional and behavioral difficulties in childhood: Impulsivity, aggressiveness, isolation, enuresis, or school adaptation problems.
- Low self-esteem and feeling of emptiness: Constant feeling of insufficiency, disconnection from one's "Self", or existential crises.
Common Types
Modalities of Sandplay Therapy at Tranquilamente
In our clinic, we adapt the approach to the particular characteristics and life stage of each patient:
1. Individual Sandplay Therapy (Children and Adults)
An intimate and protected space is established where the patient, accompanied by the therapist, builds their world in the sand at their own pace. In children, it enables the development of curative play; in adults, direct access to the unconscious without intellectual filters.
2. Group Sandplay Therapy
One of Tranquilamente's distinctive specialties. In group sessions, the sandtray becomes a medium to explore interpersonal dynamics, foster empathy, emotional mirroring, and collective processing of shared experiences.
3. Family or Couples Therapy
Modality in which members of the family system interact jointly in the sandtray. Allows making visible underlying roles, limits, alliances, and tensions in a non-destructive and non-confrontational manner.
4. Non-Directive vs. Semi-Directive Approach
Depending on clinical need, we apply the classic non-directive Kalffian model (where the psyche self-regulates what it projects) or semi-directive prompts focused on a specific symptom, dream, or conflict to be resolved.