This study aims to examine the effects of sand play therapy on behavioral problems and cerebral blood oxygen saturation in adolescents. This study organized individual single-sample pre-post experimental designs of a sand play therapy program targetin...
This study aims to examine the effects of sand play therapy on behavioral problems and cerebral blood oxygen saturation in adolescents. This study organized individual single-sample pre-post experimental designs of a sand play therapy program targeting ten middle school students to verify the effects on behavioral problems and organized single-sample pre-intermediate-post repeated measurement experimental designs to verify the effect on cerebral blood oxygen saturation. This study set the following research questions.
1. Can sand play therapy reduce behavioral problems in adolescents?
2. Can sand play therapy change cerebral blood oxygen saturation in adolescents?
3. What contents are expressed in the sand play therapy process?
For this study, ten middle school students living in "C" city, Chungcheongnam-do, who wished to participate in counseling and received parental consent, were selected as subjects. Counseling was conducted twice a week from July to August 2022, with a total of 8 sessions of 30 minutes once a week. Three sand play therapists conducted individual counseling in the sand play therapy program. This study used the Korean version of the Adolescents' Behavioral Assessment Scale for Self-Report (K-YSR) before and after sand play therapy, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was used during the sand play therapy program over a total of 8 sessions for measurement. The data collected in this study were analyzed using the SPSS 26.0 program. The data analysis method of this study is as follows.
First, we analyzed sand play therapy's effects on adolescents' behavioral problems with a single group pre-post experimental design, so since the sample size was small and normality was not assumed in this study, Wilcoxon's signed rank test, a non-parametric statistical method, was performed.
Second, descriptive statistical analysis examined the average and standard deviation of cerebral blood oxygen saturation by measurement period. One-way repeated measures ANOVA was conducted to examine the effect of sand play therapy on cerebral blood oxygen saturation in adolescents. In addition, the Excel 2010 software was utilized to show the change in cerebral blood oxygen saturation for each measurement period as a time-series profile graph.
Third, to examine the sandbox's expressed contents, a qualitative analysis was conducted centering on the content theme of Turner (2005).
The summary of the results of this study is as follows.
First, sand play therapy's effect on reducing adolescent behavioral problems was investigated. Significant changes were found in the total score of anxiety-depression, withdrawal-depression, somatic symptoms, social immaturity, thinking problem, attention problem, rule violation, aggressive behavior, internalization, externalization, and behavior problem through a single sample pre-post test and sand play therapy reduced behavioral problems in adolescents. Sand play therapy positively reduces adolescents' behavioral problems by expressing their inner feelings and suppressed energy in a positive way.
Second, this study divided the frontal lobe into 8 Brodmann areas and measured the change in cerebral blood oxygen saturation (HbO2) concentration in each area to examine whether sand play therapy could change cerebral blood oxygen saturation (HbO2) in adolescents. When we look at the results in detail, the values were higher in most periods than at the baseline, except for some periods. From this, we could confirm that as sand play therapy progressed, it was continuously effective in activating the right FPC in the prefrontal cortex of adolescents. These results show that various emotional expressions based on a sense of security in sand play therapy stimulated adolescents to play roles such as rational thinking, judgment, behavior, and emotion control.
Third, sand play therapy showed a meaningful internal process related to emotional and behavioral problems in the process of sand play therapy for adolescents.
In the initial stage (sessions 1 to 2), subjects go through the honeymoon phase; the number of brain activations increased rapidly as a therapeutic relationship was formed between the therapist and the client and the expectation that it would gradually improve.
However, as the session progressed in the mid stage (sessions 3 to 7), the subjects began to discuss their thoughts, feelings, worries, and conflicts in detail. They also increased cerebral blood flow changes while dynamically revealing the areas where they felt the change in their emotions. However, in session 5, which showed a sharp decrease in brain activation, the subjects dealt with their problems, such as avoiding (reality) emotions, treasure, peer relationship desire, dream story, fighting, competition, negative emotions, or trauma, causing regressive inner conflict. Furthermore, in session 7, they focus on fighting, conflicts, confusion, and negative emotions and show that they are confused. It is speculated that their brain activation levels decreased because they expressed depression, loneliness, and negative feelings of "I have neither feelings nor thoughts."
However, in the later stage (session 8), the subjects expressed their emotions, shared their plans for the future with the researcher, and expressed hopeful themes by gradually facing and overcoming their problems through unconscious tasks. It was observed that the ability of the subjects to recognize past feelings of sadness and anger and to look at themselves improved, and withdrawal, nail-biting from anxiety, concentration of attention, rule-breaking, and aggressive expressions decreased. The subjects recognized and reported their changed appearance and emotions through the treatment process up to that point, and this can be seen as their satisfaction and the increase in brain activation levels again from the satisfaction.
From Jung's point of view, this result shows that in adolescence, good and evil are clear even among friends, and everything is clearly divided into good and evil. However, just as our mind is composed of opposite poles and all mental phenomena are formed in tension, conflict, and integration of opposites and become a unity of opposites, the middle school students in this study also show this process. These results show that adolescents with emotional and behavioral difficulties are approaching with a new mind, showing a pattern of collective unconsciousness common to humankind in the inner mind.
When we summarize this study's results, it is of great significance that the study was conducted by conducting sand play therapy for middle school students in the lack of previous studies. In addition, sand play therapy induces changes in brain activity, and the fact that it was possible to confirm changes in brain activity measurable through fNIRS objectively verified the effectiveness of sand play therapy in terms of neuroscience.
Key words: sand play therapy, adolescents, behavior problems, cerebral blood oxygen saturation