How The Body Keeps the Score Meets Dora Kalff’s Sandplay Therapy
In recent years, many therapists and parents have turned to The Body Keeps the Score to understand why trauma does not respond easily to talk, logic, or reassurance. What is less often discussed is how closely Van der Kolk’s early chapters align with Jungian Sandplay Therapy, as developed by Dora Kalff—decades earlier and in a very different language.
When these two perspectives are placed side by side, something important becomes visible:
Sandtray work offers a direct, embodied way for the nervous system to reorganise itself after trauma.
Trauma Is Not a Memory Problem (Chapter 1)
In Chapter 1, Lessons from Vietnam Veterans, Van der Kolk reframes trauma as a physiological imprint, not simply a psychological memory.
He shows that:
- trauma is stored in the body and brain
- traumatic events are re-experienced as if they are happening now
- the nervous system remains locked in survival mode
Trauma is not about what happened, but about what the body had to do when escape or protection was impossible.
From a sandplay perspective, this explains why traumatised children often cannot talk about what they feel, but instead show it—through action, play, space, and symbol.
Dora Kalff understood this intuitively. She observed that the psyche expresses itself symbolically when words are unavailable or unsafe. What Van der Kolk describes neurologically, Kalff described symbolically:
the psyche speaks through images when the ego cannot.
Trauma Reorganises the Brain (Chapter 2)
In Chapter 2, Revolutions in Understanding Mind and Brain, Van der Kolk explains that trauma reshapes the brain itself.
Key insights include:
- the brain is plastic and reorganises around threat
- integration between brain systems breaks down:
- the thinking brain (cortex)
- the emotional brain (limbic system)
- the survival brain (brainstem)
- trauma lives below language, in sensation, movement, and impulse
This is a crucial meeting point with sandplay therapy.
Sandplay does not ask the child to explain or interpret. Instead, it works directly with:
- sensory experience (sand, touch)
- spatial organisation (tray, boundaries)
- movement and stillness
- symbolic imagery
In Kalff’s terms, this allows the self-regulating capacity of the psyche to emerge when the ego is overwhelmed. In neurobiological terms, sandplay works bottom-up, engaging the same brain systems trauma has disrupted.
The Brain Organised Around Threat (Chapter 3)
Chapter 3, Looking into the Brain, shows that trauma shuts down:
- language
- time awareness
- reflective capacity
Instead, the brain becomes organised around threat detection, not meaning.
Van der Kolk introduces the idea of fixed neural patterns—automatic responses that activate without conscious choice. These patterns form the basis of the well-known trauma responses: fight, flight, and freeze.
This explains why traumatised children often:
- repeat the same play themes
- appear “stuck”
- move between intense action and total stillness
From a sandplay perspective, these are not failures of imagination or resistance. They are neural survival patterns made visible.
Fight, Flight, Freeze — Seen in the Sandtray
Fight
In the brain:
- sympathetic nervous system activation
- hyper-arousal and control
In the sandtray, this may appear as:
- battles, weapons, attacking figures
- crowded trays
- rigid or dominating placements
Flight
In the brain:
- sympathetic activation focused on escape
- scanning and restlessness
In the sandtray, this may appear as:
- figures moving toward edges
- roads, exits, pathways
- scattered or frequently rearranged scenes
Freeze
In the brain:
- parasympathetic (dorsal vagal) shutdown
- dissociation and collapse
In the sandtray, this may appear as:
- minimal use of the tray
- buried or hidden figures
- caves, water, enclosed spaces
- stillness and silence
Freeze responses are especially common in children, for whom fighting or fleeing was often impossible.
Trauma as Neural Pathways — Why Repetition Matters
Van der Kolk explains trauma as repeated neural firing patterns:
Neurons that fire together, wire together.
These pathways:
- are non-verbal
- are sensory and spatial
- repeat automatically until a new experience rewires them
This is why sandplay repetition is not regression.
It is the nervous system replaying what it knows, waiting for a safer outcome.
Kalff trusted that, within a free and protected space, the psyche would gradually reorganise itself. Neuroscience now confirms that this happens through new embodied experiences of safety.
Why Sandtray Works Neurobiologically
Sandtray therapy:
- bypasses language (which trauma blocks)
- engages sensory, motor, and visual systems
- allows bottom-up nervous system regulation
- creates contained experiences of agency and safety
In Jungian language:
the psyche self-regulates through symbol and image
In neurobiological language:
the nervous system rehearses safety and flexibility
They are describing the same healing process, using different maps.
Regulation Before Insight
One of the most important implications of this integration is that regulation comes before understanding.
Children do not regulate emotions by being told to calm down.
They regulate when their bodies repeatedly experience:
- safety
- containment
- choice
- symbolic distance
Only after this foundation is laid do:
- breathing exercises
- reflection
- verbal processing
become possible.
Sandplay does not replace these tools—it prepares the nervous system so they can work.
Conclusion: Seeing the Architecture Beneath the Symbols
When Van der Kolk and Kalff are read together, sandtray becomes more than symbolic play. It becomes a living map of nervous system organisation and re-organisation.
- Trauma shows itself as neural survival patterns
- These patterns appear symbolically and spatially in the tray
- Sandplay offers embodied experiences that slowly re-pattern the brain
You are not “reading into” sandtray work when you notice this.
You are seeing the architecture beneath the symbols.