Sandplay Conversations 2025 -2026

Alchemy and Sandplay Therapy

The MSTG Sandplay Conversations for 2025-26

MSTG’s Conversations series from October, 2025 through April, 2026 will examine important themes of alchemy and how they appear in sandplay therapy. Each Conversation topic will include two sessions.

The first session of each pair will be a presentation of the material with clinical sandplay examples and some discussion. In the second session, a week later, we invite participants to bring clinical examples of their own for discussion and consultation. We will also have time to discuss the didactic material in more depth and to look at the sandplay images more closely.

Instructors:

Regina Driscoll, PhD, Certified Sandplay Therapist – Teacher; Jacquelyn Wiersma, PhD; Ellen Dona, PsyD; and other senior MSTG members.

Session 1: Alchemy and Sandplay Therapy: An Overview

October 9: Presentation and October 16: Discussion Group

CG Jung spent the last 30 years of his life on the study of alchemy. He came to believe that the alchemists were his brothers in describing the process of individuation, and that the science of alchemy was a metaphor for the transformation of the psyche through the individuation process. When Jung began to study alchemy, he realized that it was an archetypal process that reached back centuries and across cultures. It described a transformational process of separation and union with multiple stages that had the goal of the ultimate union of opposites.

In the first Sandplay Conversation, we will discuss some of the major concepts in alchemy and how they appear in Kalffian sandplay therapy and psychotherapy. These include the prima materia, the lapis or stone, solve et coagula [dissolve and coagulate], the spirit of Mercurius, and the vas or container, and how alchemy and individuation are related.

Session 2: Alchemy and Sandplay Therapy: Fire, Water, Earth and Air

December 4: Presentation and December 11: Discussion Group

In this Sandplay Conversation, we will review the four elements and their alchemical processes and how they manifest in Kalffian sandplay therapy and psychotherapy.

Fire is the process called calcinatio. It is the alchemical phase considered to be the heat of transformation. It burns out the emotional intensity of our complexes, bringing the complexes from the unconscious to conscious, leading to a new perspective.

Water is called solutio; it is the alchemical phase that involves the dissolution of boundaries, the softening of rigid ego attitudes, the return to the unconscious. We must soften or even dissolve the fixed, immobile parts of ourselves in order to change.

Earth is the process called coagulatio. It is the process of coagulation, the solidification and organization of life energies. It is the process of transforming the abstract into concrete, solidifying aspects of our personality. Katherine Bradway believed that all sandplay was a coagulation process.

Air is called sublimatio. It is the phase of ascension, or raising concrete, personal experiences to a higher level, a universal truth. Positive sublimatio can lead to an objective view; negative sublimatio can manifest as dissociation.

Session3: Alchemy and Sandplay Therapy: The Nigredo, Albedo and Rubedo

February 5: Presentation and February 12: Discussion Group

In this Sandplay Conversation, we will review the three main colors of Alchemy, the nigredo, albedo, and rubedo, and how they appear in Kalffian sandplay therapy and psychotherapy. Murray Stein, the Jungian analyst and teacher, calls these phases “states of minds.” The nigredo, the blackening, is a period of breaking down, of dissolution. It is a state of unconsciousness, of egolessness, a period of suffering, where painful things are broken down in order to be re-generated. The albedo, or whitening, emerges after the nigredo, is the ash and all that survives after the great suffering of the nigredo period. It is a period of purification, when there is no longer any contamination, when we withdraw our projections. During this period, one becomes quieter, more emotionally detached and objective. The rubedo, or reddening, is the period when life is returning. When albedo has been solidly grounded, the life-blood follows. It is a period of full consciousness, of fully-embodied experience.

Session 4: Alchemy and Sandplay Therapy: The Coniunctio

April 2: Presentation and April 9: Discussion Group

Psyche begins in a state of blissful union and throughout its development ego separates into conscious and unconscious states. Through the process of psychic maturation we call individuation, unconscious parts of the psyche become conscious when they are reintegrated and the conscious ego develops a relationship with the Self. This process is lifelong and allows the individual to achieve his greatest psych potential through multiple episodes of coniunctio or coming together of opposites. In this session, we will focus on the process of coniunctio, the alchemical process which is catalyzed by the Eros principle. We will discuss the greater and lesser coniunctio as well as the introverted and extraverted forms of the coniunctio.