Mango Ego

Just forked out another $900 to attend Level 3 of Sandplay Therapy and Symbol Work. Got to pay another $900+ this December to go through Level 4 before obtaining a certificate from the Expressive Therapies Institute of Australia. To complete this course we, the Singaporean participants may have to travel to KL as the lecturer may not conduct Level 4 in Singapore if there are insufficient participants here. This institute conducts courses only in KL, Singapore and HK. In the class which I just attended there were only 11 participants out of which 3 are caucasians (counsellors from International schools here) and one participant from Bangkok. Incidentally the registration for Level 4 in KL (without including us) stands at 26 already! It seems that this course is not very popular with Singaporeans and the lecturer jokingly ascribes it to Singaporean's adversion to the word "Play" in the name of the course.

After going through 3 days of theories as well as practice on each other, many of us concluded that if not for anything just gaining insight into our inner psyche and the inner work/healing is well worth the $900. Treat it as money paid to a therapist and is most well spent. The most awesome experience for me was learning how with the help of symbols to understand our dream so much of my shadow is revealed. Integration between the unconscious and conscious is also brought about to some extent. To give a glimpse into what actually happened, we were asked to remember a dream or a scene of it and then select symbols (figures and miniatures) to recreate it in the sandtray. We then use active imagination to see how the dream will progress. We were also asked to imagine and assume being the symbols and role played with them (ie. let the symbols talk and express feelings). In my dream I was fighting with several people under my employ over some mangoes. I was terribly upset and furious that none of them could even spare me a single mango though they have several. I berated them for being ungrateful and fired all of them. Then I felt guilty (for firing them over a mango), upset and frustrated and in my dream I ended with a hollow laugh and remarked to myself "Mango Ego". In class, my partner and I laughed over such a frivolous dream and I doubted anything serious could arise from  the exercise. Low and behold when I entered into the mango (can you believe being a MANGO!), loads of feelings and thoughts flowed. The mango craved for being popular, craved for love and enjoyed being fought over for. To cut the story short, resolution comes in the form of realising such craving is not really necessary.

Well this is just one exercise. Another very revealing insight is gathered when in another exercise we had to pick a symbol each representing the persona, the shadow as well as the 'thinking', 'feeling', 'sensation' and 'intuitive' aspects of ourselves arranging them in the sandtray.

I truly enjoyed this course.  Speaking to one foreigner who is the school counsellor in an international school in Singapore, she described how she used sandplay therapy intensively in her school and finds it so powerful. My own experience using it in school has also been heartening but there is too much restrictions in our school environment (like time and space constraint, focus on prompt behavioural change etc). I feel hampered. Maybe after I have obtained a full certificate I can seek out other places where people appreciate emotional and inner healing as the first step towards regenerating positive energies and "restoring the psyche to its natural functioning".