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Linda Cunningham, PhD

Because I have received so many questions about Relational Sandplay Therapy, I have decided to write about it in small, easily digestible bits. I hope that you find this information useful, and please feel free to leave a question or comment.

Note: I wrote these articles in 2010. I no longer update this blog, except for technical changes to keep it useful. I review comments from time to time, and I'll be glad to hear from you.

About Linda Cunningham

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The Four Archetypal Relational Fields: Field Four

    
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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.
   

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The Four Archetypal Relational Fields: Field Three

   

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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.
   

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The Four Archetypal Relational Fields: Field Two

   

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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

   

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The Four Archetypal Relational Fields: Field One

   

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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

   

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The Four Archetypal Relational Fields

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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.

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

    
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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.

    
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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