Sandplay Bridges and the Transcendent Function

Based on a paper presented to a meeting of sandplay therapists in Zollikon, Switzerland, in 1982, this short study by Kay Bradway, a founder of both the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco and the International Society for Sandplay Therapy, explores how sandplay brings opposing parts of the self into confrontation and union. Given a tray of sand, water, and a wide selection of miniatures in a “free and protected space,” the sandplayer can begin and sustain a transforming process guided by the unconscious. Bradway shows how bridges in the sand trays express Jung’s transcendent function, the process through which opposites are reconciled in a new symbol, leading toward centering and an experience of wholeness.