A Case Study on Sand Play Treatment for the Relief of Old Age Anxiety - Focusing on Jung's Analytical Psychology – Hyeyoung Lee Department of Counseling Psychology(ph.d) Westminster Graduate School of Theology The purpose of this study is a qualitat...
A Case Study on Sand Play Treatment for the Relief of Old Age Anxiety - Focusing on Jung's Analytical Psychology – Hyeyoung Lee Department of Counseling Psychology(ph.d) Westminster Graduate School of Theology The purpose of this study is a qualitative case study that explores the process of individuation through sandplay therapy in a group counselling programme for elderly people in their 70s with high anxiety. The aim of this study was to analyse the unconscious symbols and archetypes in the elderly people's sand artworks and to help them recover from anxiety in old age through the nature and content of the individuation process. For this purpose, the researcher analysed the elderly people's sand artworks using Carl Gustav Jung's(1875-1961) analytical psychology. The research methodology was a qualitative case study, applying Jung's analytical psychological theory to explore the archetypal symbols and individuation processes in sandplay therapy for the elderly. The participants of this study were five elderly people in their 70s who participated in a welfare programme for the elderly at a general social welfare centre and had group counselling and eight sessions of individual sandplay therapy. The results of the study were as follows The symbols expressed by the participants in sandplay therapy represented various processes of individuation. Each participant used their own unique symbolic language to express their inner world, which was interpreted as a reflection of their unique characteristics and experiences in the individuation process. The symbols contained elements of the collective unconscious and archetypes, indicating that the participants shared a common life experience of old age and cultural background. Through sandplay therapy, the study participants reflected on who they really were and how they had lived their lives so far, addressing retrospective self-awareness, original archetypes, possession of totality, and death awareness and anxiety in old age. The significance of this study is, firstly, that it presents a new approach to treating anxiety in the elderly through the process of sandplay therapy by applying the theory of Jungian analytical psychology, secondly, by exploring the various individualised experiences and characteristics that appeared in their unconscious symbols and archetypes, it contributes to other studies on sandplay therapy for the elderly by providing evidence of the effectiveness of sandplay therapy as an intervention. * Key words: old age, old age anxiety, death anxiety, sandplay therapy. individuation, spirituality.