War of the Ancient Dragon: The Transformation of Violence in Sandplay

A six-year-old boy, nearly expelled from school for bullying, engages an eerily alchemical narrative in sandplay therapy, and through a torturous process, redeems his hostile attitude. “Randy” fights numerous bloody wars, dubbing one “the war of the ancient dragon,” which symbolically relates to his work with fire, ash, and water. He goes through a protracted burning process, and in several sessions tortures human and animal figures in the fire. His work with war, fire, and water allows his violent tendencies to burn themselves out and leads to the resurrection of a new, more related consciousness, indicated in his declaration of himself as “king of the bloodfire.” This account of the boy's process traces the recovery and redemption of the feminine realm out of his violent, arrogant attitude. Randy demonstrates, in a numinous way, how the psyche's ancient language and healing capacity are fully alive in the imagination of a contemporary child. We see how the unconscious offers itself to be brought into consciousness by way of the imaginal realm, and how transformation occurs via the symbolic dynamism at Randy's fingertips.