Mark Pearson and Helen Wilkinson, co-directors of the Expressive Therapies Institute of Australia, have been invited to the UK by Early Education.
They will be holding courses in Blackpool and London in late October.
The courses, designed for early years practitioners, as well as counsellors, psychologists, social workers and health workers, aim to enable professionals to help children, particularly those with 'limited verbal capacity', to express their feelings through sandplay.
The therapy, which has been running in Australia and Asia for the past ten years, uses small symbolic objects either in a sand tray or in a drawing book and helps to release emotional stress. It can be allied to traditional counselling methods.
Mr Pearson and Ms Wilson described sandplay as 'a hands-on, expressive counselling and psychotherapy modality that has been in use for more than 50 years'. They added, 'It has been used with children, adolescents and adults, in schools, hospitals and private counselling practices. It forms a bridge between verbal therapy and the expressive therapies.'
They said they believed sandplay and symbol work was effective in exploring and resolving specific emotional crises. It also helped children to achieve cognitive clarity while supporting those with poor verbal skills.
For more information, contact Jenny Rabin at Early Education on 020 7539 5400.
