Sandtray treatment is an helpful intervention with adolescents (Flahive & Ray). Relying on the age of the adolescent, therapists may possibly have to have to modify the processing section of sandtray mainly because many adolescents are not equipped to imagine abstractly. As a common rule of thumb, fifteen is approved as an age at which most adolescents have reached Piaget’s official operational stage of improvement (Wadsworth, 1996). With older adolescents, sandtray therapist must be able to use a lot of of the facilitative responses that they use with grown ups but with younger adolescents, they may possibly want to react in a more concrete fashion. For illustration, when I do sandtray with an more mature adolescent, I typically ask, “What is it like to consider about that appropriate now?” This response assists clientele to target on emotions and remain out of their heads. But youthful adolescents could not be able to reply to these types of a dilemma for the reason that it is also abstract. A reflective reaction these as, “You appear to be unfortunate when you assume about that,” would most likely be considerably extra beneficial to more youthful clientele.
With youthful adolescents who appear to be in the concrete operational stage of growth, I would propose the pursuing.
· Pay near notice to gestures, facial expressions, and tone of voice. Nonverbal cues are even extra critical with this age than verbal material for the reason that little ones this age commonly categorical their feelings nonverbally. As I talk about during the e-book, staying able to examine nonverbal cues is extremely important in the humanistic method to sandtray remedy.
· The processing time is a lot shorter with concrete operational young children. Therapists ought to not expect a deep processing encounter.
· Communicate a nonjudgmental perspective. Even though this is significant with any age, I think that it is especially important with this age. Young children require to truly feel secure right before they will truly feel cozy enough to explore inner thoughts or problems.
· Focus additional on the physical layout of the scene and comment on distinct objects and their locale and relation to other objects. “This just one is over listed here by itself.”
· Stay with the metaphor or image. If the consumer suggests, “The dog is about in this article by alone,” respond by indicating anything about the puppy. I may say, “The pet dog seems lonely.” Make it possible for the boy or girl to have the symbol or sustain the security of the symbol. The youngster isn’t going to have to talk about how any of the symbols relate to her. Do not be in a hurry to shift the focus from the image to the little one.
Counseling with young adolescents is very similar to enjoy remedy: activity tends to be extra vital than words. A lot of youthful adolescents will be considerably a lot more comfortable talking if they are carrying out anything at the exact time.
Most more mature adolescents are capable of lengthier sandtray processing and lots of are quite cozy conversing at length with therapists if the therapeutic romantic relationship is solid. Like grown ups but possibly additional so, rely on is pretty vital in the romance. If the connection is powerful, a lot of older adolescents are willing to converse about and aim on core issues, which is not usual of more youthful adolescents. This willingness enables humanistic sandtray therapists to facilitate recognition substantially like they would with older people.
No matter of age, a good therapeutic connection is much a lot more important than any technique or facilitative response. Exploration plainly demonstrates that regardless of theoretical orientation, the excellent of the romance is more essential in shopper outcomes than specific strategies. Humanistic sandtray therapists worry a deep and trusting romance and a local weather that encourages expansion. If adolescents experience like they can be themselves, it is a great deal extra very likely that they will increase and adjust in therapy. Sandtray can be 1 modality that is a aspect of this progress procedure.