Sandspace with Adolescents

The adolescent brings his or her world to the therapy situation and we, as therapists attempt to collaboratively, with our adolescent clients, create a framework of meaning which supports the process and purpose of therapy. The guiding principle of this collaborative construction is the client’s meaning-making, which promotes discovery of capability, agency, personal power and connectedness with the interpersonal world.

Sandspace is a unique Gestalt approach to working with adolescents which supports healing and insight, offering a dynamic mode of relating which enriches contact process between aspects of self-experience which are often compartmentalised in the adolescent’s developing awareness. The adolescent’s lifespace and contact boundary development become visible, tangible and three-dimensional within the Sandspace. This dynamic way of working also creates additional richness and depth to therapeutic contact.

During the training, we will explore theoretical, clinical and practical aspects of Sandspace with adolescents including:

• An introduction to Sandspace

• Initiating Sandspace with adolescent clients

• Gaining practical experience of creating & facilitating Sandspace

• Exploring the healing & transformative potential of Sandspace

• Trauma & Sandspace: making meaning of the unspeakable

• Understanding the richness of symbolic representation for the adolescent

Date: Monday 08 November 2021

Venue: Blackfort Therapy Centre, Omagh

Fee: £160

CPD Points: 6

To book a place on the workshop, please contact Bronagh directly: bronaghstarrs@gmail.com

About The Presenter:

Bronagh Starrs is Programme Director for the MSc Adolescent Psychotherapy in Dublin Counselling & Therapy Centre in partnership with University of Northampton and Founder & Director of Blackfort Adolescent Gestalt Institute. She maintains a private practice in Omagh, Northern Ireland, as a psychotherapist, clinical supervisor, writer and trainer, specialising in working with adolescents, emerging adults and their families. Bronagh is an adolescent development specialist and has considerable experience as a trainer in adolescent development and therapy throughout Ireland. She also teaches and presents internationally on the developmental implication of trauma on the adolescent journey. Her recent publication Adolescent Psychotherapy - A Radical Relational Approach (Routledge, London) has received international acclaim.