KJC Korea
Journal Central

The image of the jar has emerged in various cultural contexts. The purpose of our study is to understand its symbolic meaning. We examined it from the perspective of analytical psychology. This involved an analysis of the manufacturing procedure and function. We also studied stories of jars such as Sikjang Mountain folktale and the Marriage at Cana of the New Testament, and the architectural works related to Buddha’s Sarira. We find that it serves as a symbol of the space in which the psyche can achieve self-actualization.

In this study I analyzed the symbolic meaning of the toad houses made by clients in sandplay therapy. For this purpose, I explored toad houses created by four clients who are experiencing emotional and behavioral difficulties. They sang a lyrics of the song “toad, toad, I will give you an old house, give me a new house” while playing with sand. In order to analyze the symbolism of toadhouses, I examined counseling records that contained verbal and nonverbal expression of the children during the therapy session, sandplay images created by clients, and record of counseling with the mothers. As a result, Four clients were commonly not nurtured warmly in their early lives from their mothers. They were making toad houses at the ‘turning point’ in relation to the positive mother-child unity phase, when they were getting out of the negative mother-child relationships and attempting psychological independence. In conclusion the toad houses were represented as a symbol of transformation of death and rebirth of maternity in sandplay therapy.

Poverty has forced over a million children in Uganda to live on the streets. These children often come from families where they suffered violence and sexual abuse. Besides starvation and unhygienic conditions, street children face physical and sexual abuse. The perpetrators range from adults such as the police to other street children. For our study, we recruited sixteen former street children, eight boys and eight girls. They were living in a child welfare facility at the time of research. We used the mixed research method for our research design. For quantitative research, we used two measures: CRIES-13 (Children’s Revised Impact of Event Scale-13), CYRM-28 (Child & Youth Resilience Measure). We used a qualitative case research method to analyze the themes in the sandplay process. The quantitative results indicated that the group sandplay therapy improved PTSD Symptoms and resilience. The qualitative results revealed several common themes such garbage, salvation and big project.

This is a case study of sandplay therapy with a six-year-old girl with anxiety. It concerns her journey of overcoming emotional wounds and experiencing growth. We conducted 20 sessions with the client over 10 months from September 2018 to July 2019. We found that her unconscious processed family problems that nobody expressed in language. The client expressed this through symbolic play in her sand trays. Through the sandplay process, she started to overcome her psychological difficulties. We noted the link between the healing power of the unconscious and her psychological transformation. Thus, our study shows that even if only one child has sandplay therapy, it is possible to deal with family problems or members through it.

Korean-Chinese children living in China have to face the environment containing early education and admission examinations due to increasingly overheated education fever. As a result, many children suffer academic stress, psychological conflicts and maladaptive problem behaviors. Studies about these social and cultural phenomenons are ongoing and the need for psychological approach is increasing. Therefore, in this study, we will find out if sandplay therapy is effective in reducing academic stress of Korean-Chinese children in China and improving their academic self-efficiency. This study is total 8 sessions and conducted to 24 children. The results obtained from this study are as follows. The result shows that sandplay therapy is effective in reducing the academic stress of Korean-Chinese children and promoting their academic self-efficiency. Through the qualitative analysis of sand scenes, we can see characteristics of sand scenes and psychological characteristics of Korean-Chinese children.