Sand Tray Therapy

in Tempe, AZ

What is Sand Tray Therapy?

When difficult memories or emotions feel too overwhelming to express verbally, talk therapy alone may not be enough. Sand Tray Therapy offers a powerful, creative pathway for healing by allowing clients to explore their inner world through images, symbols, and storytelling—without needing to find the “right words.”

Sand Tray Therapy is a nonverbal, experiential approach in which clients use miniature figures, objects, and sand to create scenes that reflect their thoughts, emotions, and experiences. Through this process, clients access a deeper layer of understanding, healing, and integration. Over time, stuck emotions begin to soften, insights emerge, and clients experience greater clarity, self-acceptance, and emotional relief.

How Does Sand Tray Therapy Work?

Sand Tray Therapy provides a safe, contained space where clients can externalize their inner world. Using sand, figurines, and symbolic objects, clients build a “tray” that represents their current experience, past events, internal conflicts, or hopes for the future.

During the session, the therapist guides the client in exploring the scene—with curiosity, not judgment—helping them process difficult emotions and experiences held beneath the surface. Sand Tray Therapy is grounded in the belief that the mind and body hold deep wisdom, and that healing emerges organically when clients are empowered to express themselves in a nonverbal, creative way.

This modality is supported by ongoing research demonstrating its effectiveness in addressing trauma, anxiety, grief, childhood wounds, attachment struggles, and emotional challenges that may feel hard to articulate. Many trauma-informed clinicians use sand tray techniques alongside EMDR, CBT, or somatic practices because of how deeply and quickly it accesses the healing process.

Who Can Benefit From Sand Tray Therapy?

Sand Tray Therapy is especially helpful when words fall short—such as when clients feel overwhelmed, disconnected, shut down, or unsure how to talk about painful experiences. It is effective for both children and adults, including:

Trauma survivors
Individuals with anxiety, panic, or chronic stress
Those grieving a loss
Clients with depression or low self-esteem
Highly sensitive individuals
Clients processing relationship or family challenges
Children who struggle to express emotions verbally
Adults who feel “stuck” in talk therapy
Clients healing attachment wounds or inner-child pain

Because Sand Tray Therapy uses symbols and imagery rather than verbal processing alone, it can reach parts of the brain talk therapy doesn’t always access. For many clients, this opens up new pathways to healing, emotional regulation, and self-understanding.

What to Expect in Sand Tray Therapy

Your first session involves meeting with a Sand Tray–trained therapist to understand what brings you in, what you’re hoping to explore, and what emotional or relational patterns may be contributing to your distress. After establishing safety and rapport, your therapist will introduce the sand tray, miniatures, and the process.

When you’re ready, you’ll begin selecting figures and creating a scene in the sand that feels meaningful or symbolic. There’s no “right way” to build a tray—your intuition leads the way.

Once your scene is complete, your therapist will guide you in reflecting on

What stands out?
What emotions arise?
What patterns or themes do you notice?
How does this tray speak to your internal experience?

From there, the healing process unfolds naturally. Over time, clients often notice improvements in emotional regulation, self-awareness, relief from trauma symptoms, and greater internal clarity.

Why We Love Sand Tray Therapy

Sand Tray Therapy is one of the most powerful tools we use for trauma, emotional overwhelm, and inner-child work. It offers deep healing without requiring clients to re-tell painful stories or relive trauma in detail. Instead, clients express, process, and resolve emotional material symbolically, which often feels safer, more intuitive, and more accessible.

Our therapists take an eclectic, integrative approach and may incorporate Sand Tray Therapy alongside modalities such as EMDR therapy, Internal Family Systems (IFS), somatic practices, or DBT skills—depending on a client’s needs and goals.

We’ve seen Sand Tray Therapy help clients break through emotional blockages, reconnect with themselves, and uncover insights that were inaccessible through talking alone. It is a deeply grounding and transformative modality that we trust and use regularly in our trauma-informed practice.

Sand Tray Therapy at Find Your Shine Therapy in Tempe, AZ

Sand Tray Therapy has been part of our work for many years. Many of our clinicians have completed advanced training in trauma-informed sand tray approaches, symbolic processing, and experiential modalities.

We believe in the power of Sand Tray Therapy wholeheartedly, because we’ve seen the profound healing that can occur when clients are given a safe, creative, nonverbal space to explore their inner world.

Whether you’re navigating trauma, anxiety, grief, or emotional overwhelm, Sand Tray Therapy can help you reconnect with safety, resilience, and your sense of self.

Find Out How Sand Tray Can Support Your Healing

To learn more about Sand Tray Therapy in Tempe, AZ, please visit our contact page or call (480) 815-3211 to schedule a free 10-minute consultation with one of our therapists. We’d love to help you take the next step toward healing.