The following passage is an excerpt from the book, Dibs in Search of Self, by Virginia Axline.
To set the scene, Dibs, a six-year-old boy, is in therapy with Virginia Axline. They are in Virginia’s office and Dibs is playing in the sand tray. His father is currently alive, but as you can see from the excerpt below, Dibs is very angry with his Father.
Dibs picked up the metal shovel and quietly and intently dug a deep hole in the sand. Then I noticed he had selected and set aside one of the toy soldiers. When he had finished digging the hole, he carefully placed that soldier in the bottom of the hole and shoveled sand on top of it. When the grave was filled in he slapped the top of it with the back of the shovel. “That one just got buried”, he announced. “This one did not even try to get a chance to climb to the top of the hill with the other soldiers. He wanted to try but he didn’t get a chance, he got buried.” That one was Papa”, he said quietly climbing out of the sandbox.
Sand tray therapy allows children to express their feelings through play. If you were Dibs’ therapist, what are some follow-up questions you would ask Dibs regarding the scene he created in the sand box?
