Sand & Clay Therapy

06/02/2026

Kinders leer die beste wanneer hulle emosioneel veilig is.⛹️‍♀️🛝

Leer begin nie by boeke en toetse nie,
maar by ’n kind wat gesien, gehoor en verstaan voel.

Wanneer kinders emosioneel veilig is,
kan hulle waag, probeer, foute maak en weer opstaan.
Dan groei hul selfvertroue — en leer volg natuurlik.

Spel, verbinding en samewerking tussen huis en skool
bou die grondslag vir ware ontwikkeling.

🌱 Meer as punte — die hele kind tel.

04/02/2026

Jung in my everyday life🌿

This morning, while wondering what I need to learn from Jung today, I looked out of my office window and saw children playing.

They were busy with sand, water, and mud — forming their own little worlds, fully absorbed, negotiating, creating, destroying, rebuilding.

From a Jungian perspective, this is not “just play.”

For Carl Jung, play is where the psyche expresses itself freely — before logic, before explanation, before words.
In sand and mud, children work with the most basic elements of life: earth and water. Here they regulate emotion, explore control and chaos, and give shape to inner experiences they cannot yet explain.

Jung might not ask, “What are they learning?”
He would ask, “What is trying to come into form?”

“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect,
but by the play instinct.”
— C. G. Jung

Perhaps today’s reminder is simple:
When children are allowed to play deeply, the psyche already knows what it needs.

03/02/2026

After the call comes resistance.

Fear. Doubt. Practical excuses.
“I don’t have time.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“I should be grateful.”

From a Jungian view, resistance is not weakness.
It is the ego protecting what it knows.

But the longer the call is ignored, the louder it returns — often as anxiety, fatigue, or loss of meaning.

Resistance is not failure.
It is part of the journey.

03/02/2026

Jung in My Everyday Life 🌿

Today, a Medusa figurine appeared in my sandtray. I did not place her with intention—she arrived.

In analytical psychology, the Medusa (Virgin Mary) embodies the Great Mother archetype in her nurturing, protective, and containing aspect. She represents care without intrusion, love without demand, and presence without control. When this image enters the sandtray, the psyche may be asking for safety, gentleness, or a return to inner compassion.

In Jungian work, symbols surface when something essential needs acknowledgment. The Medusa often appears when the inner world seeks:

✔️Containment after emotional strain
✔️Repair of early attachment wounds
✔️Permission to soften, to be held rather than to hold everything alone

She may also signal the activation of the inner mother—the part of the psyche that can care for pain without fixing it, and witness suffering without turning away.

So the real question is not what is she doing in my sandtray?💕

""Where does the soul need gentleness right now?""

In sandplay therapy, such images are never random. They are precise, meaningful responses from the unconscious—arriving exactly when words are no longer enough.

02/02/2026

The Hero’s Journey always begins with a call.🌿👑
Not a loud decision — but a quiet disturbance.

From a Jungian perspective, this call comes from the unconscious.
It may arrive as restlessness, longing, sadness, or a sense that something no longer fits.

We often try to silence it.
But the psyche does not call without reason.

In everyday life, the call is not heroic.
It is human.

Jung reminds us: what we do not listen to consciously will insist on being lived unconsciously.

02/02/2026

Digital devices in the sandtray – reflection or symbol?💻📱

Today, a 7-year-old drew a picture in the sand of “home,” and what struck me were the laptops.

Children often include digital devices in their sandplay, which got me thinking: Is this a simple reflection of the digital world we live in."?

In sandplay, nothing appears by accident; the psyche doesn’t literally reproduce reality, but symbolises inner experience through the familiar.

A digital device in the sandtray can mirror the outer world, but symbolically it may represent much more :
- a mediator of connection,
-a barrier to direct relationship,
-a place where attention, identity, or safety resides,
- a container for thoughts, images, or unexpressed emotions.

For some, it’s about control and mastery; for others, withdrawal, protection, or emotional insulation. For children, screens may serve as a regulating object — something to soothe, distract, or hold overwhelming feelings.

Jung noted that symbols emerge when conscious adaptation is strained; when direct contact feels too intense, the psyche seeks an intermediary.

So, in sandplay, the question isn’t “Is this good or bad?” but “What role does this object play in the inner world?”

We don’t remove the symbol; we let it speak and watch how the relationship with it evolves over time — because it’s that change, not the object itself, that tells the story.

01/02/2026

Clay Therapy for Women
A Hero’s Journey through Image, Symbol, and Form

In Jungian psychology, the Hero’s Journey does not begin with bravery or action.
It begins with a call — often quiet, often uncomfortable, often without words.

This clay therapy process offers a contained space for women to work with that call through image, symbol, and form.

Using clay as a symbolic medium, participants are guided over four sessions toward creating a vessel — a form that expresses their own inner journey and capacity to hold what is emerging.

This is not a pottery class.
There is no focus on skill, technique, or “getting it right.”
The work unfolds through presence, slowness, and symbolic meaning.

Practical details:
🗓 Saturdays, 9:00–11:00
📅 20 February – 14 March 2026
👥 Only 5 women
💰 R400 per session
🔥 Firing included | Clay excluded

If something in you recognises this, that is enough to begin.

📞 Rina Louw – 076 227 1578

31/01/2026

Clay Therapy Process for Women
A Hero’s Journey through Image, Symbol, and Form

You are invited into a small, facilitated clay therapy process for women who feel an inner calling for change, transition, or deeper listening.

Using the Hero’s Journey as a psychological framework, we work with clay as a symbolic medium — moving from
image → symbol → form.

Over five sessions, participants are guided toward creating a form that expresses their own inner journey — without pressure, without analysis, and without the need for prior clay experience.

This is not a pottery class.
It is a therapeutic, process-based space.

Dates & Time:
🗓 Saturdays, 9:00–11:00
📅 20 February – 14 March 2026

Practical details:
• Group size: only 5 women
• 5 sessions
• R400 per session
• Clay excluded | Firing included

If you feel drawn, that is enough to begin.

📞 Contact: 076 227 1578

31/01/2026

🌱 When a child feels safe enough to play

Many parents worry:
“Is my child emotionally secure?”
“Am I doing enough?”

In my latest blog, I explore secure attachment through the lens of The Body Keeps the Score, Chapter 7, where Bessel van der Kolk reminds us of something deeply reassuring:

Secure attachment is not about perfect parenting.
It is about consistent emotional presence — being seen, heard, and responded to most of the time.

In the blog, I explain:
✔️ What secure attachment really is
✔️ How it develops in a child’s nervous system
✔️ What secure attachment looks like in everyday behaviour
✔️ Why play is such a powerful sign of emotional safety
✔️ How Sandplay Therapy can support children when safety or attachment has been disrupted

Secure attachment allows a child to say, without words:
“I can play because someone is holding the background.”

👉 Read the full blog here: https://rinalouwclinical.co.za/secure-attachment-when-a-child-feels-safe-enough-to-play🛝⛹️♀️/

If you’re wondering whether your child needs extra support, you’re not alone — and help is available 🌿

Learn what secure attachment is, how it develops, and how play and Sandplay Therapy support emotional safety in children, based on Van der Kolk.

28/01/2026

✨ A New Arrival in My Sandtray Playroom ✨
dragon can be:
🔥 Danger and protection
🔥 Destruction and creation
🔥 Instinct and wisdom
🔥 Fear and transformation

It guards treasure, yet challenges us to face what we fear most in order to reach it. In this way, the dragon often appears when the psyche is working hard to hold two opposing truths at the same time— strength and vulnerability, aggression and care, chaos and order.

For children and adults alike, the dragon offers a safe symbolic way to explore:
• big emotions
• inner conflicts
• power and boundaries
• courage in the face of fear

In the sandtray, the dragon does not need to be explained. It simply takes its place — and allows the psyche to speak in images rather than words.

I’m curious to see how this dragon will be used, moved, feared, befriended, or transformed over time. 🐉
Because in Jungian work, symbols arrive exactly when they are needed.

— Rina Louw🌿

27/01/2026

“The psyche knows the way to healing.”
— Dora Kalff

In sandplay, we don’t force answers.
We create a free and protected space
and trust the psyche to reveal what is ready —
in its own time, through image and symbol.

✨ Healing unfolds from within.

22/01/2026