Countertransference as Mystical Experience

    
Ring: Previous | Next

In these times, many of our clients suffer from deep anxieties.  Frequently, these anxieties reach into the psychic territory of unsymbolized experience: thoughts that cannot be thought, and feelings that cannot be felt. Use of countertransference as a clinical tool was developed so that psychotherapy could reach a broader range of people, to include the unsymbolized aspects of experience common for those who have suffered early relational trauma.

Even so, in the world of countertransference the therapist is always a beginner. The meaning of countertransference is not truly, definitively knowable. It is ephemeral—a momentary flicker from implicit realms. We can only seek to put fluid symbolic meaning onto the somatic or emotional points of light.

In doing so, we may come to think of countertransference as a form of mystical experience.  Jungian analyst Andrew Samuels explores the similarities between mystical experience and countertransference:

"First, mystical states are ineffable; that is, they cannot be fully described to one who has not experienced something similar.  Second, mystical states lead to knowledge and insight, often delivered with a tremendous sense of authority.  Third, mystical states are transient.  Fourth, mystical states happen to a person; even if he or she prepared him/herself, he or she is gripped by a power that feels quite foreign.  Fifth, there is a sense that everything is connected to everything else, an intimation of purpose.  Sixth, the mystical experience is timeless.  Finally, the familiar ego is sensed not to be the real ‘I.’"  (1989, p. 166)

Even “mundane,” ordinary countertransference  may be experienced as mystical as it delivers understanding in an ineffable, timeless way.

Samuels, A. (1989). The plural psyche: Personality, morality and the father. London: Routledge.

    
Ring: Previous | Next

---

Please visit www.SandplayTrainingWorldwide.com for full current information and to register for training.

Thank you for visiting Relational Sandplay Therapy. 

---

The Four Archetypal Relational Fields: Field Four

    
Ring: Previous | Next

Field Four: The Numinous Field of the Transcendent Function

Image by Eric Cheng

Sometimes, Field Three leads us into Field Four (O’Connell, 1986), The Numinous Field, the heart of the transcendent function. The essence of Field Four is a dramatic shift in attitude accompanied by a sense of awe and the constellation of the Self that is so familiar to Jungian sandplay therapists. Field Four is a shared, transcendent, relational experience of the union of conscious and unconscious, and it is an experience completely void of anxiety. In the diagram below, the Field Four area is the outer layer of the Self In Relationship circle. This represents an ever present, numinous psychic holding. The therapeutic goal, within this timeless container of shared psychic experience, is to gradually move into embodied, emotionally connected self-reflection, and to establish fluid oscillation between all four fields. Field Four is the ever present, numinous container.
   

Ring: Previous | Next

---

Please visit www.SandplayTrainingWorldwide.com for full current information and to register for training.

Thank you for visiting Relational Sandplay Therapy. 

---

The Four Archetypal Relational Fields: Field Three

   

Ring: Previous | Next

   

Field Three: The Field of Differentiated Oneness/ Transitional Space

Image by Eric Cheng

Field Three is characterized by the meaningful use of the symbol and deep relational connection. It holds the experience of fluent empathy where the unconscious minds of patient and therapist are aligned. It is a field of rich symbolic meaning, full associations, or meaningful silence. This is the secured-symbolizing field of transitional space (Goodheart, 1980). It is also the field that is most often described in sandplay, and it is usually experienced as a field of fluid, symbolic understanding. Experiences of meaningful resonance with the movement of psychic energies are common in this field. Dreams and sandplay often activate this field of deep meaning and connection. In the diagram below, the Field Three area is represented by the third ring from the center in the Self In Relationship circle. This represents the integrated somatic/ emotional/ symbolic-relational aspect of the Self. The therapeutic goal is to gradually move into easy connection with this field of embodied, emotionally connected self-reflection, and to establish fluid oscillation between all four fields.
   

Ring: Previous | Next

 

---

Please visit www.SandplayTrainingWorldwide.com for full current information and to register for training.

Thank you for visiting Relational Sandplay Therapy. 

---

The Four Archetypal Relational Fields: Field Two

   

Ring: Previous | Next

Field Two: The Field of Twoness/ Rupture

When we find ourselves in Field Two: The Field of Twoness/Rupture, also a field of relational trauma and presymbolic experiencing, our subjective experience is that of intense affective turmoil and discontinuity. In this field we feel “held captive” in relational conflict. We find ourselves embroiled in a struggle with disturbing unconscious contents, intense affect, and mutually activated complexes. It is a field of discomfort, conflict, and difficulty, and often entails a visceral, extremely disturbing experience. A therapist may feel taken over by feelings of anxiety, terror, shame, dread, or physical illness. “Rupture” refers to the ambient anxiety in this field that empathic rupture is imminent. We fear that no matter how hard we try, we will somehow fail to provide holding in a way that avoids this rupture. Yet the sheer dynamic aliveness of this field lends itself to profound transformation. Therapeutic work in this field often requires that the therapist look to her own complexes’ involvement in the field in order to move from, a “feeling against” to a “feeling with.” (The terms “feeling with” and “feeling against” were coined by Kay Bradway (1991; 1997), but she used them in a different context.) The goal is to find within ourselves our own resistance, and to surrender into deep empathy for the primitive, traumatized places we may share with the client.

In the diagram below, the Field Two area is the second ring from the center of the Self In Relationship circle. This represents the emotional core of the Self. The therapeutic goal is to gradually move into embodied, emotionally connected self-reflection, and to establish fluid oscillation between all four fields.

Image by Eric Cheng

   

Ring: Previous | Next

---

Please visit www.SandplayTrainingWorldwide.com for full current information and to register for training.

Thank you for visiting Relational Sandplay Therapy. 

---

The Four Archetypal Relational Fields: Field One

   

Ring: Previous | Next

   

Field One: The Field of Original Oneness/Merger

In Field One the therapist’s subjective experience is often a sensory, presymbolic one. Symbolic meaning is difficult or impossible to find, and boredom, confusion, or emptiness are often the predominant countertransference states in this field. This sensory rather than emotional or thinking experience may include a focus of sensation in one’s head; dizziness; confusion; a sense of deadness; a watery feeling; a feeling of dissolving into space; a sense of being disconnected; being unable to think; a distortion of objects or people in space; or feelings of being controlled, empty, or paralyzed. The therapist will often feel held at bay, ineffective, and completely useless. It is the hallmark of the field of Original Oneness/Merger to feel boredom, anxiety, or dissociation. Therapeutic work in this field requires that the therapist tolerate, contain and digest presymbolized experience. This takes time, patience and a full use of the therapist’s reverie, including countertransference images and body sensations. This field takes us into our bodies—or out of our bodies— but always involves sensory experience. In the diagram below, the Field One area is in the center of the Self In Relationship circle. This represents the somatic core of the Self. The therapeutic goal is to gradually move into embodied, emotionally connected self-reflection, and to establish fluid oscillation between all four fields.

Image by Eric Cheng

   

Ring: Previous | Next

---

Please visit www.SandplayTrainingWorldwide.com for full current information and to register for training.

Thank you for visiting Relational Sandplay Therapy. 

---

The Four Archetypal Relational Fields

Ring: Previous | Next

Image by Eric Cheng

This diagram of Self in Relationship shows the Four Archetypal Relational Fields, from Field One in the center, moving outwards through Field Two, Field Three and Field Four. These fields represent the somatic, emotional, symbolic, and spiritual realms of human relational experience.

All of these relational fields are normal aspects of human experience, and may be experienced fleetingly or at any time in life. Experience in these fields follows a developmental path. In health, one experiences an easy oscillation between all fields.

In psychotherapy, the fields become “constellated” between therapist and client. The first two fields arise from early relational trauma, and may present as "stuckness" in the clinical relationship. These early fields normalize and provide a framework for working with confusing or disturbing countertransference experience.

The Four Archetypal Relational Fields are:

Field One: The Field of Original Oneness and Merger

Field Two: The Field of Twoness and Rupture

Field Three: The Field of Differentiated Oneness/ Transitional Space

Field Four: The Numinous Field of The Transcendent Function

I will describe each of these fields in depth in the next three posts.

Important note: Please do not use this field theory for pathologizing clients. We speak of the nature of the field that is co-created between therapist and client, i.e., "a feeling of field one," "a field one experience," and not "a field one client."

Also, these fields move in an out, or may be layered, and are rarely found in pure form. However, with early relational trauma, the therapist may encounter a more pervasive experience of the field.

Ring: Previous | Next

---

Please visit www.SandplayTrainingWorldwide.com for full current information and to register for training.

Thank you for visiting Relational Sandplay Therapy. 

---

Theoretical Understanding of the Sandplay Process

Ring: Previous | Next

Relational sandplay therapy embraces all of these Kalffian theoretical principles:

Unconscious processes are expressed in concrete, visible form.

“Energies in the form of ‘living symbols’ are touched upon in the personal and collective unconscious, and healing then happens spontaneously at the unconscious level” (Lauren Cunningham, 2004).

Contact with archetypal energies results in a change in relationship between inner and outer worlds. There is then a return to a more integrated state.

The Jungian individuation process leading to Wholeness is visible in sandplay.

Neumann’s stages of development are foundational.

The freeing up of blocked psychic energy may be visible in the tray.

Sandplay facilitates a regression to the mother-infant unity and healing on the matriarchal level of consciousness.

The recovery of the Feminine is profoundly healing.

Play is the mediator between conscious and unconscious and the avenue to the expression of preverbal material.

Healing is implicit in the union of opposites and the transcendent function.

The constellation/manifestation of the Self, “this inner order, this pattern of wholeness” (Kalff, 2005, p.6) is the most important moment in development of the personality and in healing.

The relativization of the ego to the Self is crucial.

The clinician holds a developmental perspective of any given series of trays (Rogers & Mitchell, 1994).

The transference may be recognizable in the sandplay itself.

This is an excerpt from an article that appeared in The Journal of Sandplay Therapy, Volume XVI, Number 2, 2007: But is it Kalffian? by Linda Cunningham

Ring: Previous | Next

---

Please visit www.SandplayTrainingWorldwide.com for full current information and to register for training.

Thank you for visiting Relational Sandplay Therapy. 

---

The Clinical Attitude in Sandplay

Ring: Previous | Next

Relational sandplay therapy embraces all of these Kalffian principles:

Provision of the free and protected space.

Loving maternal holding of the temenos.

Receptive openness to the patient and to the unconscious as it emerges.

Allowing the emergence of the material in its own time and in its own way, without interference with the creative process.

A belief that the psyche, given the right conditions, is self-healing.

A focus on the archetypal meaning of symbols within the personal context of the patient.

The importance of the therapist’s understanding of the symbol, the patient and the patient’s flow of symbolic images in the sand.

A living connection to the Sacred.

Deep empathic connection with the client.

Emphasis on the positive transference as indicative of an intact free and protected space.

Emphasis on the nonverbal, symbolic work in the sand, and an understanding that it is    the experience itself which heals.

This is an excerpt from an article that appeared in The Journal of Sandplay Therapy, Volume XVI, Number 2, 2007: But is it Kalffian? by Linda Cunningham

Ring: Previous | Next

---

Please visit www.SandplayTrainingWorldwide.com for full current information and to register for training.

Thank you for visiting Relational Sandplay Therapy. 

---

Relational Sandplay Therapy and Preverbal Trauma

Ring: Previous | Next

Relational Sandplay Therapy is an advanced, post-Kalffian[1] theory for working with preverbal trauma. This kind of trauma is usually due to early maternal deprivation, and is also called early relational trauma.

Kalsched (1996, p. 1) defines this kind of trauma as

"any experience that causes the child unbearable psychic pain or anxiety. Trauma of this magnitude varies from the acute, shattering experiences of child abuse to the more ‘cumulative traumas’ of unmet dependency needs that mount up to devastating effect in some children’s development (Khan, 1963), including the more acute deprivations of infancy described by Winnicott as ‘primitive agonies,’ the experience of which is ‘unthinkable’ (1963:90). The distinguishing feature of such trauma is what Heinz Kohut (1977: 104) called ‘disintegration anxiety,’ an unnameable dread associated with the threatened dissolution of a coherent self."

Early relational trauma may be the result of abuse, neglect or a consistent lack of attunement between infant and early caregiver.

Many believe that preverbal trauma may make itself known most immediately through  emotional and bodily resonance with another person (Dahlenberg, 2000). In other words, the therapist may actually have difficult countertransference experiences that indicate the unconscious communication of preverbal trauma. These kinds of experience, to be discussed further, are likely to happen in what I refer to as Field One or Field Two.

References

Dalenberg, C. (2000).  Countertransference and the treatment of trauma.  Washington, DC:  American Psychological Association.

Kalsched, D. (1996). The inner world of trauma: Archetypal defenses of the personal spirit. London: Routledge.

---

[1] “Kalffian” refers to “sandplay” as created by Dora Kalff, as opposed to the more generic term “sandtray,” which includes a variety of other approaches and techniques.

Ring: Previous | Next

---

Please visit www.SandplayTrainingWorldwide.com for full current information and to register for training.

Thank you for visiting Relational Sandplay Therapy. 

---

Relational Sandplay Therapy: Expanding Our Capacities for Holding in the Free and Protected Space

    
Ring: Previous | Next

Image by Eric Cheng

I discovered the four archetypal relational fields by accident. I was curious about certain kinds of sandplay work that did not seem to meet the classical Kalffian criteria. These sandtrays were difficult to understand, and like Kohut’s self state dream, did not seem to hold symbolic meaning. Sandplay therapists seemed baffled by these sandtrays, and were also quite self-critical, assuming that they “weren’t holding” the process “well enough.” Kalffian ideas about the free and protected space emphasize the therapist’s unconditional positive regard for the client. The Rogerian stance of warmth, genuineness, and unconditional positive regard are, of course, givens in any therapeutic situation. However, when we attend to unconscious processes, other feelings and experiences may arise within this loving psychic embrace. These “other” perhaps more negative experiences often indicate the therapist’s resonance with the client’s preverbal trauma. This resonance provides an important avenue toward healing that is supported by findings in neuroscience.

In my interviews with sandplay therapists, I found that they actually experienced a full range of countertransference experience, from emotions to experiential states and body sensations, to memories, thoughts, images, fantasies and dreams. The diagram below illustrates this full range of subjective experience of the therapist, superimposed on colored bands that each represent one of the four archetypal relational fields.

Relational sandplay therapy was created to help the sandplay therapist expand her/his capacities for holding within the free and protected space.

    
Ring: Previous | Next

---

Please visit www.SandplayTrainingWorldwide.com for full current information and to register for training.

Thank you for visiting Relational Sandplay Therapy. 

---

Current Trends: The Expansion of Sandplay Theory and Practice

Ring: Previous | Next

Sandplay therapy is expanding. The trends of expansion are:

• A continuing effort to deeply understand particular symbols. Articles researching particular symbols have a central place in the Journal of Sandplay Therapy.

• A continuing effort to understand the sandplay process through case studies.

• Publication of new research that provides an evidence-based grounding for sandplay.

• Exploration of work with new populations and diverse cultures.

• Documentation of the history of sandplay that provides grounding for expansions of theory.

• The integration of other theoretical stances and modalities. Many writers attempt to integrate concepts from other theories into sandplay work. Sometimes these concepts are named and cited, other times they are left implicit.

• An emerging, more explicit recognition of issues of transference/ countertransference and the nuances of the clinical relationship.

• A more explicit use of countertransference experience to understand preverbal/nonverbal material.

• More emphasis on difficult countertransference experience

• Illuminating examinations of the therapist’s internal struggle to  understand the sandplay process when working with preverbal trauma.

Relational Sandplay Therapy addresses the last four areas of expansion.

This is an excerpt from an article that appeared in The Journal of Sandplay Therapy, Volume XVI, Number 2, 2007. Cunningham, L. But is it Kalffian?

Ring: Previous | Next

---

Please visit www.SandplayTrainingWorldwide.com for full current information and to register for training.

Thank you for visiting Relational Sandplay Therapy. 

---

What is Sandplay Therapy?

Ring: Previous | Next

Sandplay is a powerful depth psychotherapy method for accessing and giving concrete form to  unconscious patterns and energies while simultaneously promoting healing. Through work in the sand, clients dissolve blocks to psychological growth, unearth and resolve trauma, integrate shadow and move forward on their own unique path of individuation.

Children are immediately drawn to sandplay. By playing in sand and water and using figures that play through and heal their traumas, without ever putting words to these experiences, without even needing to understand them consciously. Play is the language of childhood. Sandplay invites spontaneous and “serious” play.

represent every aspect of the world, they are able to

Adults, too, may find sandplay quite helpful in healing from early relational trauma, or moving forward on the path of individuation. Sandplay with adults is usually done within the context of an ongoing verbal therapy or analysis. In this way, two levels of healing and individuation occur simultaneously:   the more conscious verbal dialog between therapist and client invites affect and insight, and the process of working in the sand heals on an unconscious maternal, preverbal, somatic level.

Sandplay work includes the use of a sandtray, sized 28½ x 19½ x 3 inches (72.5 x 49.5 x 7.5 cm). It is painted blue on the inside, and half filled with sand. Water may be added as the sandplayer wishes. Shelves of figures—representing every aspect of the world—are nearby, waiting for the sandplayer to choose and place them in the sand.

For more information on sandplay, see www.sandplay.org, “About Sandplay.”

Relational Sandplay Therapy is an approach designed for the seasoned sandplay therapist. Before using this approach, clinicians should receive training in the basic principles of Jungian sandplay therapy.

Ring: Previous | Next

---

Please visit www.SandplayTrainingWorldwide.com for full current information and to register for training.

Thank you for visiting Relational Sandplay Therapy. 

---

An Introduction to the Four Archetypal Relational Fields

The first book to focus on the clinical relationship in sandplay, Relational Sandplay Therapy provides both beginners and experienced sandplay therapists with a new perspective on the healing power of sandplay. This perspective is relational, intersubjective, and deeply explores the interwovenness of mutual unconscious processes and how they may be harnessed in the service of healing. In a creative synthesis, Linda Cunningham, Ph.D. brings to the forefront the importance of the transference/countertransference relationship in sandplay, and also explains in detail how to work within the relationship. Focusing on the therapist's subjective experience, she describes four archetypal relational fields:

Field One: The Field of Original Oneness/Merger

Field Two: The Field of Twoness/Rupture

Field Three: The Field of Differentiated Oneness/Transitional Space

Field Four: The Numinous Field of the Transcendent Function

Readers will be able to

•   Identify and understand the nature of the four archetypal relational fields

in both verbal and sandplay therapy

•   Understand how trauma affects the relational field

•   Gain tools to understand barren, disturbing or "uninterpretable" sandtrays

•   Use your own subjective experience as a royal road to the

unconscious and as the other source of the symbol