The purpose of current research is to find the effect of sand play therapy on anxiety, attachment relation, and interpersonal stress of children with alcoholic father.
For this research, among children of low-income group under the protection of l...
The purpose of current research is to find the effect of sand play therapy on anxiety, attachment relation, and interpersonal stress of children with alcoholic father.
For this research, among children of low-income group under the protection of local children’s center, 20 children with alcoholic fathers were suggested by the teachers of local children’s center from 2 centers located in Chung-chung Namdo Chun-an City, and 2 centers located in Kyung-gi Do Pyung Taek City. With the suggested children as subjects, Korean version of Children of Alcoholics Test (CAST-K) was done, and among children with 12 points or above, 10 children were chosen as the experimental group and 10 children were chosen as the control group. With these children as subjects, sand play therapy was only done to the experimental group. The duration of the counseling was from November 2012 to March 2013, once a week, and 40 minute session including pre-and-post test was conducted with total of 12 sessions. Sand play therapy program was done through individual counseling by 2 sand play therapists.
Instruments used in this research is The Korean Version of the Children of Alcoholic Screening Test (CAST-K) originally developed by Jones (1981) and reformed by Mi Rye Kim, Hwan Il Jang, Kyung Bin Kim (1995) to fit the situation of Korea, and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAIC) originally developed by Spielberger (1973) and adapted by Soo Cheol Cho and Jin sook Choi (1989). To measure the relationship with the father, The Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment-Revised (IPP-R) developed by Armsden and Greenberg (1987) and adapted by Ok Hyun Choi (2006) was used. To measure interpersonal stress, questions related to interpersonal relationship were selected and modified by Min Cheol Shin (2010) among child stress criterion developed by Mi Hyun Han and Ahn Jin Yoo (1996) was used. Furthermore, to see the difference in the child’s sandbox, Sandplay Categorical Checklist (SCC) was used to make qualitative analysis. To analyze the effect of the current research, SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science) 18.0 program was used to make statistical analysis. In statistical analysis, Cronbach’ s α coefficient was calculated. To verify the changes of pre-and-post level of anxiety, attachment relation, and interpersonal stress of experimental and control group, non-parametric test of Mann-Whitney’s U test and Wilcoxon’s signed rank test was done.
The following is the result summary of the current research.
First, the result of whether sand play therapy could reduce the anxiety of children with alcoholic father is as follows. After carrying out sand play therapy, anxiety of the experimental group reduced significantly, while there was no significant difference in the control group. This result indicates the effectiveness of sand play therapy in reducing the state anxiety and trait anxiety of children with alcoholic father.
Second, the result of whether sand play therapy could improve the attachment relation of children with alcoholic father is as follows. After carrying out sand play therapy, significant difference was seen in sub domains of attachment relation such as trust, communication and sense of alienation in the experimental group, but no significant difference was seen in the control group. This result indicates the effectiveness of sand play therapy in improving the attachment relation of children with alcoholic father.
Third, the result of whether sand play therapy could reduce interpersonal stress of children with alcoholic father is as follows. After carrying out sand play therapy, significant reduction of interpersonal relationship stress was seen in the experimental group while no significant reduction was seen in the control group. This indicates the effectiveness of sand play therapy in changing the interpersonal relationships.
Fourth, by looking at the procedures of sand play therapy, it is seen that subjects feel confused while making sandbox, and sometimes resisted and showed aggressive behaviors. Furthermore, acknowledged the difficulties in the real life situation, and resolved negative emotions by expressing through sandbox. Subjects showed actions to make relation with ‘self’ through sand play therapy, and further created positive self-image through strengthening the ego. By decorating the sandbox, subjects looked back on their own emotions and faced those emotions through freely expressing their inner negative emotions, and with processes of reestablishing their emotions, reduction of anxiety, improvement of attachment relation with their fathers, and improvement in interpersonal relationship was seen.
Therefore, the result of the current research indicates the effectiveness of sand play therapy in reducing anxiety, improving attachment relation and reducing interpersonal stress, and the potential of being an effective instrument for therapy.