Into the Depths: Treating Children with Existential Anxiety using Jungian Sandplay Therapy

Instructor:  Lorraine R. Freedle, PhD

Description
Children with existential anxiety have big questions about life, death, and purpose–leading to obsessive thinking and feelings of dread, isolation, and overwhelm.  If left untreated, it worsens.  Gifted children and those facing traumatic events, serious illness, or major life changes are particularly vulnerable to existential anxiety.  Without answers, their parents also struggle.

Through Play Therapy and Jungian Sandplay children can access psychocultural and archetypal resources in the depths of their psyche to address life’s big questions.  Symptoms of anxiety and trauma are expressed and reprocessed emotionally and neurobiologically–leading to functional and transformative change. In this workshop, a pediatric neuropsychologist and sandplay teacher will assess strategies for treating children with existential anxiety using Jungian Sandplay and Play Therapy.  Concepts and treatment approaches will be explored through didactic and experiential learning, and illustrated in two case studies:  Seven-year-old “Carter” whose anxiety is situated in the context of the high conflict divorce of his parents and the intensities associated with giftedness; and ten-year-old “Lehua” of Native Hawaiian ancestry who confronts existential anxiety in the context of historical trauma and the country’s racial and political divides during the global pandemic.

Learning Objectives

1. Distinguish Jungian Sandplay Therapy (sandplay) from other play therapy methods that use sand and miniatures.
2. Describe four symptoms associated with existential anxiety, along with the essential features, vulnerabilities and psychosocial consequences of the condition
3. Define archetype (Jung) and describe three ways to activate archetypal energy in sandplay and play therapy.
4. Define “asynchronous development” in gifted children and how it may affect their sense of self and belonging.
5. Assess how myth and cultural stories emerge during play therapy and sandplay to impact psychological well-being in children, particularly during times of crisis.
6. Distinguish symptom reduction from transformative change in the sandplay process.

Image credit:  Dreamstime.com