Book - Trauma Healing at The Clay Field - Compressed

CORNELIA ELBRECHT
Copyright © 2012. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. All rights reserved.
TRAUMA
HEALING
at the Clay Field
A Sensorimotor Art Therapy Approach
Fore wo rd b y Pro fe s s o r He i nz D e us e r
Elbrecht, C. (2012). Trauma healing at the clay field : A sensorimotor art therapy approach. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com
Created from lesley on 2019-05-15 07:29:28.
“Research has established the need to process trauma using a range of
modalities, importantly including those which activate sensorimotor
processing. In her book Trauma Healing at Clay Field, Cornelia Elbrecht
has written a comprehensive, insightful, and informed guide to practice
by highlighting one such technique, from the field of art therapy.”
—Dr. Cathy Kezelman, President, Adults Surviving Child Abuse
(ASCA) and Dr. Pam Stavropoulos, Consultant in Clinical Research,
ASCA; co-authors of Adults Surviving Child Abuse 2012
“Whenever methods and techniques in psychotherapy are founded in

the concept of trauma, psychology comes into contact with reality. This
book brings together the Clay Field technique and the idea that clients
can, in this way, deal more consciously with their split off trauma
experiences. It will be of immense value for the therapeutic process.”
—Professor Dr. Franz Ruppert, Professor of Psychology, University of
Applied Sciences, Munich, Germany, international speaker and trainer
in Trauma Constellations, author of Symbiosis and Autonomy
“This is a guidebook which details the processes of healing trauma

at the Clay Field grounded in trauma research and interpersonal
neurobiology. Congruent with a top down and bottom up approach in
therapy with traumatized individuals, Trauma Healing at the Clay Field is a
body-based intervention that offers clients experiences that address the
somatic dimensions and facilitates neural integration. In my experience,
this innovative art therapy approach offers a treatment intervention that

is profoundly transformative for the client living with trauma.”
—Liz Antcliff, psychotherapist in private practice, Queensland, Australia
“Work at the Clay Field is an important option for gaining access

to psychological processes through sensory experiences that could
otherwise scarcely be put into words. In particular, troubled children,
who are barely capable of self-regulation and restraint, experience
themselves in a new way at the Clay Field; they gain access to strata of
their psychological experiences that facilitates fundamental stability.”
—Dr. Michael Günter, M.D., Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
and Psychotherapy, Director of the Department of Child and Adolescent
Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Tübingen, Germany
“During my thirty year psychiatric career I have met thousands of
victims of post-traumatic stress disorder. Despite the valiant efforts of
numerous psychiatrists and psychologists many of these victims have
been left permanently and severely affected by their experiences. The
need for new and innovative techniques for the healing of this condition
is obvious. Cornelia’s work shows logically how the mind and body
can heal themselves if only they are guided in the right direction. This
book has much to offer contemporary psychology and psychiatry and I
commend Cornelia for her revolutionary work. This is a must-read for
all who work in this area.”
—Dr. Nigel Strauss, psychiatrist and author of
Apollo’s Lookout, Melbourne, Australia
“Work at the Clay Field is at the pulse of modern neuroscience. As a

neuroscientist, I like the precise descriptions around haptic perception.
It provides the basis for future directions in neuroscience. I would not
be surprised if future research will demonstrate that haptic perception
directly translates into the forming of new synapses in the brain.”
—Dr. Bernd Seilheimer, Head of Global Bioregulatory Development,
Medical Affairs and Research, Baden-Baden, Germany
“This is a full-bodied work covering an in-depth description of trauma

and early infant development. The metaphor of clay for attachment, the
use of the box as a container of emotions, and the water as a purifying
cleanser will all come together for the first time reader. Cornelia’s
sensitive and thorough approach to haptic connection fills a gap in
art therapy literature. This is a much needed book and will provide
inspiration and guidance for therapists who work with people who
have experienced trauma.”
—Maggie Wilson, RATh, senior lecturer, Masters of Mental
Health Art Therapy Program, University of Queensland
Trauma Healing
at the Clay Field
“Research has established the need to process trauma using a range of
modalities, importantly including those which activate sensorimotor
processing. In her book Trauma Healing at Clay Field, Cornelia Elbrecht
has written a comprehensive, insightful, and informed guide to practice
by highlighting one such technique, from the field of art therapy.”
—Dr. Cathy Kezelman, President, Adults Surviving Child Abuse
(ASCA) and Dr. Pam Stavropoulos, Consultant in Clinical Research,
ASCA; co-authors of Adults Surviving Child Abuse 2012
“Whenever methods and techniques in psychotherapy are founded in

the concept of trauma, psychology comes into contact with reality. This
book brings together the Clay Field technique and the idea that clients
can, in this way, deal more consciously with their split off trauma
experiences. It will be of immense value for the therapeutic process.”
—Professor Dr. Franz Ruppert, Professor of Psychology, University of
Applied Sciences, Munich, Germany, international speaker and trainer
in Trauma Constellations, author of Symbiosis and Autonomy
“This is a guidebook which details the processes of healing trauma

at the Clay Field grounded in trauma research and interpersonal
neurobiology. Congruent with a top down and bottom up approach in
therapy with traumatized individuals, Trauma Healing at the Clay Field is a
body-based intervention that offers clients experiences that address the
somatic dimensions and facilitates neural integration. In my experience,
this innovative art therapy approach offers a treatment intervention that

is profoundly transformative for the client living with trauma.”
—Liz Antcliff, psychotherapist in private practice, Queensland, Australia
“Work at the Clay Field is an important option for gaining access

to psychological processes through sensory experiences that could
otherwise scarcely be put into words. In particular, troubled children,
who are barely capable of self-regulation and restraint, experience
themselves in a new way at the Clay Field; they gain access to strata of
their psychological experiences that facilitates fundamental stability.”
—Dr. Michael Günter, M.D., Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
and Psychotherapy, Director of the Department of Child and Adolescent
Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Tübingen, Germany
Elbrecht, Cornelia. <i>Trauma Healing at the Clay Field : A Sensorimotor Art Therapy Approach</i>, Jessica Kingsley
Publishers, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/lesley/detail.action?docID=1035242.
“During my thirty year psychiatric career I have met thousands of
victims of post-traumatic stress disorder. Despite the valiant efforts of
numerous psychiatrists and psychologists many of these victims have
been left permanently and severely affected by their experiences. The
need for new and innovative techniques for the healing of this condition
is obvious. Cornelia’s work shows logically how the mind and body
can heal themselves if only they are guided in the right direction. This
book has much to offer contemporary psychology and psychiatry and I
commend Cornelia for her revolutionary work. This is a must-read for
all who work in this area.”
—Dr. Nigel Strauss, psychiatrist and author of
Apollo’s Lookout, Melbourne, Australia
“Work at the Clay Field is at the pulse of modern neuroscience. As a

neuroscientist, I like the precise descriptions around haptic perception.
It provides the basis for future directions in neuroscience. I would not
be surprised if future research will demonstrate that haptic perception
directly translates into the forming of new synapses in the brain.”
—Dr. Bernd Seilheimer, Head of Global Bioregulatory Development,
Medical Affairs and Research, Baden-Baden, Germany
“This is a full-bodied work covering an in-depth description of trauma

and early infant development. The metaphor of clay for attachment, the
use of the box as a container of emotions, and the water as a purifying
cleanser will all come together for the first time reader. Cornelia’s
sensitive and thorough approach to haptic connection fills a gap in
art therapy literature. This is a much needed book and will provide
inspiration and guidance for therapists who work with people who
have experienced trauma.”
—Maggie Wilson, RATh, senior lecturer, Masters of Mental
Health Art Therapy Program, University of Queensland
Trauma Healing
at the Clay Field
of related interest
Clayworks in Art Therapy
Plying the Sacred Circle
David Henley
ISBN 978 1 84310 706 4
eISBN 978 1 84642 318 5
Focusing-Oriented Art Therapy

Accessing the Body’s Wisdom and Creative Intelligence
Laury Rappaport
ISBN 978 1 84310 760 6
eISBN 978 1 84642 852 4
The Insightful Body

Healing with SomaCentric Dialoguing
Julie McKay
ISBN 978 1 84819 030 6
eISBN 978 0 85701 026 1
Speaking about the Unspeakable

Non-Verbal Methods and Experiences in Therapy with Children
Edited by Dennis McCarthy
Foreword by Priscilla Rodgers
ISBN 978 1 84310 879 5
eISBN 978 1 84642 796 1
Trauma, Tragedy, Therapy

The Arts and Human Suffering
Stephen K. Levine
Foreword by Shaun McNiff
ISBN 978 1 84310 512 1
eISBN 978 0 85700 193 1
Expressive and Creative Arts Methods for Trauma Survivors

Edited by Lois Carey
ISBN 978 1 84310 386 8
eIBSN 978 1 84642 499 1
Trauma Healing
at the Clay Field
A Sensorimotor Art Therapy Approach
Cornelia Elbrecht
Foreword by Profession Heinz Deuser
Jessica Kingsley Publishers

London and Philadelphia
All of the case details have been presented with kind permission from clients and all names have
been changed to protect identity.
All artwork has been reproduced with kind permission from clients.
The haptic object relations section, pp. 56–76, has been adapted with kind permission from
Brockmann and Geiss of the Institut für Haptische Gestaltbildung-Nord.
Max’s story, pp. 297–300, has kindly been retold with permission from Veronika Deuser and W.
Doering Verlagsgesellschaft.
The combined quotes from Geiss 2007, pp. 278–97, have been reproduced with kind
permission from Marie Luise Geiss of the Institut für Haptische Gestaltbildung-Nord.
The combined quotes from, Kirschmann 2009, pp. 294–297 have been reproduced with kind
permission from Verlag Tonfeld Anna Stutter.
First published in 2013

by Jessica Kingsley Publishers
116 Pentonville Road
London N1 9JB, UK
and
400 Market Street, Suite 400
Philadelphia, PA 19106, USA
www.jkp.com
Copyright © Cornelia Elbrecht 2013

Foreword copyright © Professor Heinz Deuser
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form
(including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not
transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission
of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency
Ltd, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Applications for the copyright
owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the
publisher.
Warning: The doing of an unauthorized act in relation to a copyright work may result in both a
civil claim for damages and criminal prosecution.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Elbrecht, Cornelia.
Trauma healing at the clay field : a sensorimotor art therapy approach / Cornelia Elbrecht.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-84905-345-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Clay--Therapeutic use. I. Title.
RM666.C545E43 2012
616.89’1656--dc23
2012014856
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 84905 3457

eISBN 978 0 85700 687 5
For Heinz Deuser
Without him there would be no Work at the Clay Field
And Ortrud Deuser
Who supported the conception of its method for decades
With gratitude
Contents
Foreword by Professor Heinz Deuser. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
The Author.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Part I: Understanding the Hands

Chapter 1 The Hands and the Brain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
The evolution of the human hand.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
The hands and the two brain hemispheres. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
The hands–brain–language connection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Chapter 2 The Language of Our Hands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
The core senses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Haptic perception. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
The skin sense. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Sense of balance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Depth sensibility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Haptic object relations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
The topography of the hands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
The therapeutic dialog with the hands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Kinesthetic messages of the hands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Part II: Setting the Scene for Work at the Clay Field
Chapter 3 The Work Set-up at the Clay Field. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
The clay. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
The water. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
The box. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Topography of the Clay Field.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Props.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
The accompanying human “you”.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Chapter 4 The Work Process at the Clay Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
The felt sense. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
The gestalt circle—the echoing touch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
The reafference principle—the echo.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Sensorimotor stages of gestalt formation.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Cognitive integration.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Chapter 5 Trauma Healing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
The psychophysiology of trauma.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Trauma symptoms.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Trauma client groups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Dissociation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
The body as a resource. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Handling trauma at the Clay Field I: Pendulation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
The bottom-up approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Art therapy resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Handling trauma at the Clay Field II: The
sensorimotor process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Part III: Working at the Clay Field with Adults

Chapter 6 The Nine Situations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
1. Reliability: being reliable to me. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
2. Reliability: relying on something other than me. . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
3. Finding orientation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
4. Reaching object constancy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
5. Reaching subject constancy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
6. Finding one’s own ground. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
7. Shadow integration.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
8. Destruction as self-realization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
9. Accepting one’s humanity.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Chapter 7 Your Story. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
1. “I am being held”.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
2. “Balance”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
3. “It’s all mine”.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
4. “I am precious”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
Part IV: Working at the Clay Field with Children

Chapter 8 The Differences between Accompanying Children
and Adults. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
Stages in children’s work cessions at the Clay Field. . . . . . . . . . . . 268
Children’s developmental phases.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Chapter 9 Working with Traumatized Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
Useful resources for working with children. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Transitional objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
Stages of trauma healing with children. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
Max’s story. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Tom’s story. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
Mia’s Story. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
Alicia’s Story. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
Subject Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
Foreword
Work at the Clay Field is a particularly efficient method by which

trauma-affected individuals can reconnect with their sensory and life
organisation and reintegrate it. Trauma consists in the life-thread being
ruptured and needing to be rejoined. Work at the Clay Field places us in
a gestalt circle of movement and action which mirrors ourselves and our
world. We touch and are touched, and we experience ourselves in the
provocation through our own movement. In this, in our movement, we
correspond to our physical motor impulses and in turn find ourselves
in our senses. The trauma lies not in what we have experienced but in
our having been halted in the intentions of our life movement. We have
frozen in our movement.
Work at the Clay Field returns us to our beginning, to the core
learning situations of touch, of haptic world experience. In order to
be able to express ourselves, we must first gain physical certainty to
ourselves. Touch offers an immediate experience of our basic senses.
In the counterpressure of our own hands and arms vis-a-vis the clay,
we can become aware of ourselves all the way into our bone structure.
Already the very first objectivation in the body creates identity. Then, if
we are sufficiently certain of and reliable to ourselves, we will go beyond

ourselves to our opposite. We relocate in our sensory organization and
our sensory needs and become involved in our world. This is where
children encounter the relational framework of the parents, and where
adults experience their opposite in their actional and movement
intention. The precept of one’s own movement issues a reafferent
challenge. Our very biological balance demands equalisation. We can
approach what moves us in our movement and what confronts us. In
haptics, our needs encounter reality. In our very hand gesture, urge and
inhibition unite. In the conflict, we realize ourselves, find hold within
ourselves and fulfil ourselves in our possibilities.
In Work at the Clay Field we fulfil ourselves from our primal
situation: something is there in graspable form—our hands want to
grasp—and there is a fellow human opposite, which focuses us on what
is present in our hands. In this therapeutic setting we can (re-)learn
11
12 Trauma Healing at the Clay Field
to create and generate ourselves in our anthropological needs and

conditions.
I am glad and profoundly grateful that Cornelia Elbrecht has had
a crucial involvement in my research into the perceptive event and the
phenomenologies of haptics, which has now been ongoing for 40 years.
My best wishes to her work.
Professor Heinz Deuser
Institut für Gestaltbildung, Hinterzarten, Germany
Acknowledgements
My heartfelt gratitude goes to Heinz Deuser, who communicated the

wealth of his ingenious knowledge with such generosity of spirit over
many decades. There would be no Clay Field without him. This book
has been conceptualized just as much by him as by me over many
seminars, via Skype interviews and supervision sessions and at various
campfires in the outback of Australia. A big thank you is also offered
to Ortrud Deuser, his wife, who has supported the Work at the Clay
Field through all the highs and lows of creation over what appears to
be a lifetime.
Thank you, Peter Levine, for encouraging me to write. Thank you,
Babette Rothschild, for your valuable feedback. I am grateful to all my
clients and students, who taught me just as much as my teachers. Thank
you especially to those who gave permission to use their process for
this book. Andre Bevs, much apprreciation that you found the time for
translations and corrections amongst work, family commitments, and
exams.
Thank you, my Australian art therapy colleagues, Liz Antcliff,
Elizabeth Kinnane, Robyn Pollock, Jennie Wragge and Elizabeth Lee,
for your contributions. I wish to express my gratitude to the German

Clay Field therapists for their permission to quote from their work:
Karin Kirschmann, Anna Dorothea Brockmann, Marie-Louise Geiss
and Veronika Deuser. And not to forget the wonderful women at
Jessica Kingsley Publishers for their competent midwifery to deliver
this book, in particular Emily McClave and Victoria Nicholas. You have
been amazing!
A giant hug goes to my daughter Sophie, who so gracefully and
competently took on all the daily tasks and duties to give me the free
head space I needed to write. Without her gift of talent and time, this
book would not have been written.
And thank you, Bill, for your love and companionship here and
over there.
13
The Author
Cornelia Elbrecht B.A., M.A., AThR, was born in Germany. She

now lives and works in Apollo Bay in Victoria, Australia, where she
is Director of Claerwen Retreat, Centre for Contemplation, Healing
and Creativity, School for Initiatic Therapy. She also works in private
practice in Melbourne. She lectures in art therapy nationally and
internationally.
Contact details for Cornelia Elbrecht and Heinz Deuser:
In Australia:
Claerwen Retreat
School for Initiatic Therapy
480 Tuxion Road
Apollo Bay VIC 3233
Millswyn Clinic
466 Punt Road
South Yarra 3141
Victoria, Australia
cornelia_elbrecht@claerwen.com.au
www.arttherapy.net.au
www.claerwen.com.au
In Germany:
Institut für Gestaltbildung
Prof. Heinz Deuser
Sonnenbühlweg 17
D-79856 Hinterzarten
www.tonfeld.de
14
Introduction
The Clay Field is a rectangular box measuring about 36cm by 42cm

and 3cm deep (these dimensions are not strict). This Clay Field will
hold roughly 15kg of smooth, non-gritty clay. A bowl of warm water
is nearby. Individuals will explore the material with their hands, either
with eyes closed or with eyes open. The hands are encouraged to follow
every impulse, every urge to touch, poke, dig, squeeze, knead, pound,
push, pull, take out, pile up—to hit, to caress, to hide, to bury…
Due to the texture, weight and resistance of the clay, the material
demands physical effort. Very quickly the head—and with it our
cognitive conditioning—is pushed aside to make way for the more
“ancient” urges of our libido.
There will be no finished product, no art work to show to friends,
no sculpture to be fired in a kiln. At the end of a Clay Field session,
only intense body memories will be taken home. The kinesthetic motor
action combined with sensory perception will have lasting therapeutic
benefits, especially in cases of developmental delays and trauma healing.
Touch is the most fundamental of human experiences. The first
year of our life is dominated by the sense of touch. Tactile contact is
the first mode of communication we learn. Our earliest stages in life are
dominated by oral and skin contact between infant and caregiver. Our
earliest body memories and our core attachments were formed when
we relied on sensorimotor feedback to feel safe and loved. Love as well
as violence is primarily communicated through touch. Our boundaries
are invaded through inappropriate touching. Sexual experiences are
overwhelmingly ruled by the sense of touch—and so are medical
procedures, as well as all other events that happened to our bodies.
Work at the Clay Field involves an intense tactile experience—it
can link us to a primordial mode of communication, to a preverbal stage
in our life. This is the truly beneficial quality of clay in a therapeutic
context. Its regressive qualities will allow a therapist to address early
attachment issues, developmental setbacks and traumatic events in a
primarily nonverbal way, contained in the safety of the setting.
15
Toddlers may pile simple building blocks on top of each other and
then enjoy knocking them down over and over again, thus learning
creative destruction as a way to achieve object constancy (Winnicott
1971). Such play prepares children to cope with the real world as a
continuum of constant change, of encounter and separation, of comings
and goings of loved ones and events, of endings and beginnings. Trust
is gained from the ability to survive such changes intact. Work at the
Clay Field involves a continuous process of destruction and creation,
because the material is both limited in its amount and unlimited in its
possibilities. We can create at the Clay Field only if we dare to destroy
the smooth surface and continue to have the courage to take something
apart that we have put together before. We can learn to survive change;
to grasp and handle it. In this manner the work can assist in dealing
with the emotional injuries we suffered from overwhelming change and
destruction in the past.
Preschool children learn primarily through touching and handling
objects. During the evolution of mankind the cognitive brain was
shaped through skilled hand movements; with our hands we learned
to understand the world (Wilson 1998). These innate language skills
become reactivated through handling things and through observing
the hand-gestures of our caregivers, as a recent study at the University
of Chicago showed (Rowe, Pan and Ayoub 2005; Rowe 2008).
Schoolchildren will create three-dimensional representations in the
clay—“real objects,” figures, scenes and landscapes that have meaning
and emotional values attached to them. At the Clay Field adults and
children alike weave these developmental layers into a complex web

of biography, formative kinesthetic body memories, frustrated or
traumatized internalized patterns of behavior and the search for more
authentic impulses and holistic structures.
Every movement of the hands leaves an imprint in the clay.
Every impulse destroys and creates simultaneously. To create requires
the courage to destroy. Individuals who have been overwhelmed by
destruction lose their ability to create. They freeze in terror; they
dissociate, sometimes for decades to come.
Our life movements are mirrored by every imprint the hands
leave in the clay. These life movements tell our story. They tell of the
movements we were taught, those that were forbidden and those we
shied away from in fear.
Introduction 17
However, the same life movement, our libido, will always strive
to heal and rebalance the psyche, especially if unhampered by the
“shoulds” of social conditioning.
The rectangular box filled with clay, the Clay Field, becomes a
representation of “the world.” It is a safe place for the hands to explore
and tell their story. To touch the clay—this primal material that plays
a role in almost all creation myth—reconnects us with our learned
ways of understanding and dealing with the world, but also with our
instincts and with our ability to heal.
Clay products have been created since prehistoric times. Fire could
burn clay and turn it into vases, pots and devotional objects. In the
Book of Genesis, God shaped Adam from earth and his divine breath.
The Hebrew word for earth is adama. Earth is the life-giving substance
from which everything grows. Planting a seed into the earth will
generate food; without earth and water there is no life. Adam is the
first mythological man entrusted with the power to grow life from
the earth, but once Adam sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, he
introduced death to the world and was sentenced to return to the earth
from which God created him.
This mystery of life and death has inspired the creation of fertility
goddesses over thousands of years, the majority of them shaped from
rock or clay and charged with vast powers to ensure the continuation
of the life cycles (Neumann 1974; Jung 1972). Archeological sites
reveal that every culture on this planet has created such archetypes—
symbolic forms that express the spiritual dimension of its peoples.
Their particular ritual significance might be lost, but the link between
symbolic clay products and the mental-spiritual realm of humankind is
central, as it is to art therapy.
Amongst the Australian indigenous peoples clay still holds sacred
powers. I quite literally encountered this when I met a group of
Aborigines in the outback for a Clay Field workshop. All of a sudden,
the humble clay I had purchased from a Melbourne pottery supplier
aroused great suspicion. I learned that different shades of clay were
used as ceremonial body paint. Men could only use clay from certain
locations, and women could not touch the men’s clay and vice versa.
For them, clay had ritual and magical significance of which I had been
totally unaware.
A clay object created in an art therapy session, however, can
have a similar effect on a client. Such an object can be charged with
intense psychic energies. Individuals will project their personal and
transpersonal body memories into a lump of clay until they believe it

can ensure their survival. Such ritual meaning becomes the link between
motor impulses executed with the hands, sensory awareness, cognitive
insights, symbolic clay products and the mental-spiritual dimension.
The sense of touch is called “haptic perception.”
The science of the human sense of touch, also known as “haptic,”
has a long tradition in the Vedas and in ancient China; the Greek
philosopher Aristotle, as well as medieval theologians and philosophers,
wrote about it, and it has been researched by a range of European
scientists for the past 150 years.
Max Dessoir (1867–1947), a Berlin philosopher and psychologist,
suggested that the teaching of the sense of touch be called “haptic.” The
contemporary debate of the time was about:
• temperature sense
• sense of pressure
• skin sense
• sense of locality
• general sensations as bodily feelings
• contact sense
• sense of pain. (Grunwald 2008 pp. 15–22)
Louis Braille (1809–1851) developed the raised-dot alphabet for
the blind (Grunwald 2008 p. 57). Geza Révéz (1878–1955), who is

considered the father of the blind, came to “the conclusion that human
haptic underlies an organization which is formed wholly independent
of the principles of visual perception” (Grunwald 2008 p. 24).
Dismissed as rather insignificant while western society went through
half a century of visual communication overload, haptic perception has
recently gained new significance. Today it is researched in the context
of neurophysiology, physiology, psychology and neuropsychology. It
has gained importance through the development of human robotic
systems in medicine, in the virtual-reality environments of video games,
for the visual–haptic interfaces in car design, banknotes, interior and
industrial design, also in aids for the blind and those suffering from
Alzheimer’s disease, to just mention a few (Grunwald 2008).
Introduction 19
Martin Grunwald, professor at the University of Leipzig, is the

head of the currently first Institute for Brain Research and a Haptic and
EEG-Research Laboratory.
Haptic perception, the process of recognizing objects through
touch, connects us to a primary way of communicating, much older
than visual communication. Clay work based entirely on our sense of
touch has the ability to reconnect us with the core of our identity.
Professor Heinz Deuser invented Work at the Clay Field and has
been developing it for the past forty years. I have known him since his
beginnings in the early 1970s. At the time, we both lived in a large
therapy center in the Black Forest in Germany. I was his “guinea pig”
in those days, when he was experimenting with his first clay therapy
sessions. Initially he used an empty box—until he discovered the
mysteries of the full box. Since then, we have remained in contact, and
he has at all times generously shared his growing knowledge with me.
Deuser later became professor and course coordinator for one of
the first university courses in art therapy in Nürtingen, Germany. Today,
Work at the Clay Field is a registered trademark recognized as a therapy
form in its own right. It is taught at the Institut für Gestaltbildung in
Germany and in several other European countries. It is used in a wide
range of mental health settings, in women’s shelters and in schools; it
has proved to be particularly beneficial for children and adolescents
with disabilities or challenging behavior.
I have felt the need to write this book for a long time, especially
because Heinz Deuser does not speak English. In the past decade, my
work has led me to an increasing understanding of trauma; innumerable

clients have taught me how trauma can be lastingly resolved through
Work at the Clay Field. Especially the work of medical physicist,
psychologist and innovative trauma specialist Peter Levine, his approach
to Trauma Healing, which he calls Somatic Experiencing, became
instrumental for me. The connection between Trauma Healing and
Clay Field therapy happened on a number of personal and professional
levels. Peter Levine and Heinz Deuser eventually met, and they even
facilitated a workshop together, but they did not share a spoken
language. To assist communication between these two eminent men,
I initially became the translator of texts each of them had written. In
August 2008 I finally met Peter Levine in person, and he urged me
to write about the Clay Field, so it could be made accessible to an
English-speaking audience. Heinz Deuser and I have since met on a
number of occasions and have been in regular contact via Skype and
email in order to write about Clay Field therapy.
Whenever I refer to the Clay Field in this book, it will be a
reference to Heinz Deuser. Everything I know about this unique
therapeutic approach I have learned from him and others who have
studied with him. This book has emerged out of my own practice as an
art psychotherapist and Clay Field therapist, which has been informed
by an ongoing forty-year-long dialog with him. Heinz Deuser lives and
breathes the Clay Field. He assures me that even his dreams happen in
it! I have known him as my therapist, as my trainer and my supervisor—
and as a very dear friend. My utter gratitude goes to him and his art
therapist wife Professor Ortrud Deuser, who has supported this process
over just as many decades with admirable dedication.
Like many, I know the world of trauma from personal experience.
For those growing up in post-war Germany, trauma was the norm
rather than the exception, though it was not until after the Vietnam War
that the existence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) entered the
collective consciousness. My first 25 years of life were spent in the grip
of irrational terror. I know the overwhelming fear of seemingly normal
things such as telephones and dogs. As a young woman, I had no idea
what trust could feel like, so I randomly feared and trusted everybody.
And I know the hopeless effort of trying to communicate such states
to anybody, especially through words. I studied fine arts, because my
cognitive function seemed to hover in a haze and was certainly not a
reliable means for making sense of the world, whereas working with
my hands, painting and sculpting, gave me some sense of self. I was

lucky and intuitive enough to find therapists in the early 1970s who
would not medicate me for my drug-related psychotic episodes, but
who would offer me art and body therapies.
This was the beginning of a long journey. My training to become
a therapist was greatly shaped by these early personal experiences. The
approaches that had been the most beneficial and reliable for me as
a client became my tools. Thus I studied for another decade: body
work, naturopathy, martial arts, meditation, bioenergetics, art therapy,
music therapy, dance therapy and gestalt therapy alongside a long-term
Jungian and later Freudian-based analysis.
The creative arts, combined with a body-focused approach, became
the cornerstones of my art therapy practice. The incorporation of
kinesthetic, sensory, visual and tactile experiences was initially intuitive.
Over the years I have gradually found structures and explanations to
Introduction 21
underpin my phenomenological approach. The recent advances in

neuroscience have opened up exciting possibilities to refine the art
therapy tools I have applied with thousands of clients over the past
four decades.
As art therapists, we work with the hands. We actually encourage a
dialog between the clients’ hands and their world on a sheet of paper, a
canvas, in sculpture or in manipulating clay. Especially while facilitating
sessions with clay, I have learned to observe clients’ hands and read
what they want to express. This ability has been enhanced by many
hours of supervision with Deuser, where we would videotape clients’
hands in action and then watch the same movements many times over
in slow motion, to gradually develop diagnostic tools. This has been
fascinating learning.
This discussion has been enhanced by several encounters with
Levine. The basis of his approach is that trauma is a physiological event,
something that is deemed life-threatening to our body; it is primarily
not a psychological event, even though long-term trauma will affect the
psyche severely. Levine studied animals, which do not suffer from PTSD,
and realized that animals, just like humans, respond to trauma with the
innate fight–flight response. If the occurrence is too overwhelming,
animals, just like humans, will “freeze” and be involuntarily
immobilized. In psychology we call this process “dissociating.” Levine
developed his trauma healing around an acute awareness of the “felt
sense” and based it on a specific version of sensorimotor therapy called
“Somatic Experiencing.” He observed that traumatized clients were
often incapable of remembering and verbalizing the trauma and that

a cognitive emphasis on the story of “what happened” produced often
distorted and retraumatizing results.
Because trauma shuts down part of the prefrontal cortex and impairs
our cognitive function, the recall of a traumatic experience is often not
possible. In addition, many traumatic events happen in early childhood,
before language skills have even developed. Thus trauma is primarily
stored in our body memories. We react to trauma foremost with our
survival instincts—and only to a small extent with our intellect and
social conditioning.
Thus, instead of focusing on the “terror of memory,” the dissociated
fragments of memory, Levine emphasized “re-membering” in the sense
of putting the lost and split-off parts back together. This, as he had
observed, is what animals do in the wild, and what shamans have done
for centuries. Animals experience trauma on a regular basis but do not
suffer from PTSD; animals shake the moment they realize they are safe
and the predator has left. In their shaking—slow motion shows—they
complete the fight–flight impulse that was interrupted through the
immobility response, thus resetting the equilibrium.
My personal focus has been on how the hands, in the context of art
therapy, are capable of undoing trauma by completing the movement
the client wanted to do at the time of an overwhelming event.
Levine observed Clay Field sessions and confirmed that a
kinesthetic, sensorily aware, psychodynamic art therapy approach was
most beneficial in the context of trauma healing. My training
• to trust the hands more than the head
• to rely on motor impulses in the hands rather than on cognitive
concepts and
• to harness the vast power of the libido to reshape learned
behavior
has proved invaluable in hundreds of art therapy sessions. The hands are
connected through the spinal cord to our libido and the central nervous
system, and consequently to the survival instinct that will always aim to
rebalance, heal and live.
Rather than beginning this exploration by focusing on this
particular art therapy technique, I would like to begin by looking at
the enormous role our hands play in the shaping of cognitive functions.
I will later explore in detail the core structures of Work at the Clay
Field, in particular in the context of trauma healing.
Part I
Understanding
the Hands
Chapter 1
The Hands and

the Brain
In its form and structure the human hand is far more than merely a
grasping mechanism. It is a highly developed, extremely adaptable
tool with which humans care for their own bodies and interact
with the environment. The hand is also a highly sensitive organ of
touch… It can compensate for the loss of eyesight.
Its capacity for gestures makes it an important element in
interpersonal communication. In writing, music and art, it acts
as a means of expression for the human mind. Precise cerebral
control of the hand’s movements permit a wide range of composite
motions that may be executed with strength, speed, or precision as
required by the specific situation.
Approximately 66 percent of humans are right-handed; 4
percent left-handed; 30 percent ambidextrous to varying degrees.
Dominance of one hand influences the size and structure of the
brain hemispheres, just as in turn the brain determines the hands’
capability in terms of structure and functional differentiation.
(Schmidt and Lanz 2004 p. 1–2)
The evolution of the human hand

I have been fascinated by the emerging scientific research about the
vast overlapping worlds of sensorimotor and cognitive functions. Since
Work at the Clay Field involves continuous, intricate observation of the
movements of the hands in the clay, in the symbolic world of the field, I
would like to begin this discussion by briefly looking at the astounding
evolution of the hand. The anthropological and evolutionary history of
the development of our hands reads like a neurological thriller.
Without much scientific evidence, but by following my intuition,
I would suggest for many years to clients sitting in front of a sheet of
paper or at the Clay Field: “Follow your hands! Your hands know the
way; in your head you will just stay in the known; in order to explore
24
The Hands and the Brain 25
the unknown and find new ground, you need to trust your hands and
follow the impulses in them.” This approach had always worked for
me as an artist. To begin a process, I experimented with my hands
and then came to emotional and cognitive insights. Whenever I had a
rational plan and then sat down to paint or draw it, I was blocked and
ended up frustrated. So I learned to trust my hands. We now hear from
neurologists, paleoanthropologists and hand surgeons that the hand
has been instrumental in shaping the human brain; that our capacity
for language and human culture stems from the use of our hands. These
scientists expose the hidden physical roots of the unique human capacity
for passionate creative work (Deuser 2009; Donald 1991; Schmidt and
Lanz 2004; Wilson 1998). I had actually intuitively followed the age-
old evolutionary steps.
The human use of the hand is unmatched in the animal world.
And yet the human hand continues to exhibit a number of primitive
characteristics. The hand evolved from the pectoral fin and its origin
antedates that of the arm. The “primeval hand” is therefore older than
man, its form and structure dating back approximately 250 million years.
The unspecialized hand is also older than the human brain. Only the
evolution of the central nervous system as a control organ during the
last 500,000 years has turned the hand into the human hand in its
present form (Schmidt and Lanz 2004).
According to current knowledge, the prehensile hand of the
primates, including humans, developed from the mobile hand of semi-
tree-dwelling insectivores about 100 million years ago (Napier 1956).
A distinctive feature of primate evolution has been the development of

prehensile hands and feet in adaptation to living in treetops; hands and
feet that could grasp things and handle simple tools. These progressive
adaptional changes have been accompanied by structural changes in
the brain. The eyes of the ape moved inward to the front of the face.
The resulting binocular vision allowed the visual fields to overlap
and produce a perception of depth. Stereoscopic vision has been
instrumental in refining primates’ ability to negotiate movement from
branch to branch up in the trees and enabled them to grasp objects.
At the same time, the jaw moved backward and was no longer the key
combat tool (Wilson 1998).
Of the first “southern apes” that walked upright, “Lucy,” who lived
3.2 million years ago in Hadar in eastern Africa, is the best known.
Her discovery created a sensation in the anthropological world. She
was the first bipedal human ancestor to be discovered, and she had an
un-ape-like hand and a chimpanzee-sized brain (Wilson 1998). Lucy’s

hand still can’t turn the wrist, nor can her thumb meet her fingertips.
The erect posture, however, acquired by the first Australian human
ancestors approximately three million years ago, was a milestone in
adaptation. Gradually the hand was freed from the task of locomotion.
Wilson speculates that we may have turned into kangaroo-type creatures
with withered upper extremities once the knuckle-walk and hanging
from branches was no longer required. If this did happen, such species
did not survive.
These hominids were the earliest gourmets. They had become
used to a varied diet of meat, fruits, flowers, nuts and honey in the
then abundant treetops. When climate change forced them out into the
open, they would have had little inclination for a boring grazing diet.
Survival in the savannah, though, was tough and required new skills.
The strong arms that had developed for weight-bearing in the treetops
were now encouraging the use of tools. Lucy’s descendants had to learn
to control extended objects as utensils and weapons; the use of stones
and sticks to throw, to hunt, to spear, to dig out roots and to open nuts.
Over another million years, the grip became more refined through
the growth of the thumb, and increased dexterity was also gained
through the use of the pinkie and the wrist and a loosening of the
shoulder joint that allowed better balance of movement. This hand
could now hold a round object in a three-point-grip, which the one-
dimensional hold of the ape could not achieve. This hand could aim
and let fly a projectile with speed and accuracy. Aided by an advanced
visual system, an upright walk and the ability to firmly hold a good-
sized rock or a spear, Homo erectus developed the ability to hunt animals
with weapons rather than running them down. Our ancestors no longer
had to live on scraps of food left by other predators.
Frank R. Wilson, a neurologist and medical director of a Health
Program for Performing Artists at the University of California School
of Medicine in San Francisco, argues convincingly in his book The Hand
(1998) that the use of increasingly complex tools caused the brain to
develop from Lucy’s size of 400–500cc to today’s capacity of 1350cc
over the course of 3.5 million years. He explains the disproportionate
representation of the human hands and face in the brain by the fact
that the brain had to become larger in order to store the growing
knowledge discovered by the hands of our predecessors. Two-thirds
of the central nervous system is taken up by the heavy computational
demands of refined hand control and mouth movements! How did it
happen that the hand and the mouth came to occupy such a huge
territory in the human brain? Wilson states that our prefrontal cortex
developed through the need of Lucy’s descendants to communicate
skills they had acquired to others in their social group using gestures
and mimicry accompanied by sounds.
The survival of these early hominids depended upon group
cooperation. In the animal world, the size of the neo-cortex is directly
proportional to the size of the tribe. For example, vampire bats,
which are highly social creatures, have a large neo-cortex, while those
carnivores that are solitary hunters have a small neo-cortex (Wilson
1998 p. 39). Complex social structures require communication. How
else would our ancestors have communicated with each other but
through signing with their hands, through mimesis and accompanying
sounds? Our first language was most certainly gestural—and still is.
We would have pointed at things. We would have repeated a certain
movement to show it to others, which would have required conscious
storage and remembering of an action our hands had discovered. This
need to store information in a mental database stimulated the growth
of our ancestors’ brain.
To produce a tool, invent it, manufacture it and teach its use to
others requires complex cognitive skills. Erectus already had a rather
elaborate social life and engaged in seasonal hunting and nomadic
migration, used fire, cooked food and evolved a brain that reached
80 percent of the volume of the modern human brain (Donald 1991
pp. 163f.).
Improvisational problem-solving and tool-making is the beginning

of intelligence. An individual may trap an animal thousands of times
without resulting in established weapon‑ and tool-making, unless
the individual who “invented” a tool could remember and re-enact
or reproduce the operations involved and then communicate them to
others (Donald 1991 p. 179).
This is the dawning of homo sapiens. Here we find the cognitive
basis for language; the cognitive basis to reflect our own action.
Merlin Donald calls erectus’ ancient social structure a mimetic
culture. Mimetic skill is fundamentally different from imitation and
mimicry in that it rests on the ability to produce conscious, self-
initiated, representational acts that are intentional but not linguistic.
Mimesis involves invention of intentional representations, the sharing of
knowledge without every member of the group having to reinvent that
knowledge. In this way our earliest ancestors passed on survival and
social skills about child-rearing, tool-making, cooperative gathering

and hunting, the sharing of food and other resources, constructing
shelter and expressing social hierarchies and custom. All would have
involved visuomotor behavior (Donald 1991 pp. 169–177).
In evolutionary terms, this describes an interdependent relationship
between the hands and the brain: the brain prompts the hands to do
new things or to improve the way they know. In turn, the hands inform
the brain about new skills and improved possibilities of handling and
defining the world.
All the while, however, touch remains the core sense for orientation.
Optical illusions could distort distance, size, texture and location of
an object, whereas touch would consistently give solid, trustworthy
information.
The evolution of the primate hand to become a grasping and tactile
organ has significantly expanded the hand’s precision and range of
motion. However, once erectus enters his mimetic phase and begins to
communicate his actions to others, this evolutionary drama is taken to
quite another level. Now, after millions of years, hand control begins
to involve, for the first time, a coming together of visual, tactile and
proprioceptive feedback on the same action system. “Proprioception”
refers to the awareness of position in space and arises in the body through
the action of special sensors in muscles, joints, tendons, ligaments and
skin (Wilson 1998 p. 47). Proprioception is self-perception; it allows
me to perceive that I am present in a space and that my actions have an
effect on the environment around me. It describes the human ability to
reflect on one’s actions, to be conscious; how action becomes thought

and thoughts become action.
In the Work at the Clay Field we reconnect with these evolutionary
stages. Touch connects us with the most ancient memory banks. Every
movement of the hands in the clay will leave an impression. Every
imprint has an echo; the clay is a pliable mirror that reflects every
action of my hands. Proprioception will assure that I will continue the
discovery of our ancestors; that I will not just leave marks behind like
a dog running on the beach, but that I will be able to look at these
marks and realize that my doing has created these imprints. How would
Lucy, at the dawn of consciousness, have reacted when she turned
around and saw her footprint in the volcanic ashes of Tanzania for the
first time? She would have known the marks and trails left behind by
others, but what was it like to recognize her own? A vivid childhood
memory of mine is the awe of lying down in virgin snow and pushing
my outstretched arms into it

around me; and then standing
up and looking at the “bird” I
had created. What really happens
at this moment? The imprint I
created, is this me? The question
is not only “Did I do this?” It is
also “How is this me and not me?”
No animal asks this question. The
imprint has been created with my
body, by me; but this is different
to me; it is outside of me. It looks
1.1: Prehistoric Aboriginal and feels different to me. And still
handprint in a cave in far North it is me. All of a sudden I perceive
Queensland, Australia. Photo by myself in a space–time continuum.
Ortrud Deuser I lose and find and recognize
myself in the other. Prehistoric
handprints in caves might have had
this significance (1.1). And just as this awakening of consciousness was
ground-breaking for our ancestors, it is of immense significance for
every discovery an individual makes at the Clay Field.
Deuser recites the story of a five-year-old boy, who needed to
use the bathroom during a Clay Field session. He quickly wiped his
hands and left. After a significant while he returned quite disturbed.
“There was someone there,” he announced. There was no one else in
the building. The therapist knew this for certain. So the marks the boy
had seen on the door were his own, but he had not perceived himself
as making them. Thus he referred to them as being created by someone
else. The revelation of his identity came to this boy as a confusing
insight. It was his first taste of self-awareness, of response-ability to
himself and his actions. The intricate interaction between the boy’s
hands and his mind had leapt to a new level.
The hands and the two brain hemispheres

Neurologist Frank Wilson (1998) investigates an aspect that I
found fascinating in this context: the development of the two brain
hemispheres. He discusses the biomechanical and physiological
perspective from an engineer’s point of view. Once the forelimb was
no longer used for locomotion or for weight-bearing as by apes in
trees, the strength in the upper arms became useful in the control
of external objects. Evolution supported the refinement of the grip
through the growth of the thumb; dexterity in the fingers and the
wrist and a loosening of the shoulder joint now required a skillful
cooperation between both hands to achieve maximum results. When
one hand throws a spear, the other needs to counterbalance the
movement; otherwise the hunter will fall over. Erectus must have
acquired some practice for this during his time in the canopy; to
negotiate balance on the ground, however, would have pushed him
to refine this skill.
Then, perhaps, one hand would hold the nut; the other would use
a stone and hammer on it to get to the nutritious kernel. Today, when
cutting, one hand will hold the bread and the other will make sawing
movements with the knife to cut it (1.2a and b); one hand will hold
the fabric, the other will sew and mend; one hand will hold the jar, the
other will apply a twisting movement to open it.
1.2a 1.2b
While the forelimbs were still being used for locomotion, both hands
performed the same movement. Now the two hands share tasks in
which each hand has a very different function. One hand, the non-
dominant hand, “frames” the movement—it holds the bread, the nail,
the piece of fabric. This then allows the dominant hand to perform a
skilled movement, such as cutting, hammering, sewing.
Thus, while the non-dominant hand is used for clamping,
stabilizing and providing or assessing the space, the dominant hand
is used for the appropriate action, which usually requires a faster
repetition rate than that of the non-dominant hand. While the action
of the dominant hand’s performance is rehearsed, and for the most
part internally driven, pre-programmed, the non-dominant hand is
improvisational and externally driven by factors in the environment.

While the dominant hand knows how to hammer on a nail, the non-
dominant hand will deal with the surface structure of the wall, the
angle, the height—all the factors the particular situation requires to
complete the task. The result is one of complementary action, of a
skillful cooperation between the two sides (Wilson 1998 p. 160).
The rehearsed, repetitive, skilled hand movements of the dominant
hand relate to one brain hemisphere; the improvising, spatially and
externally aware actions of the non-dominant hand relate to the
opposite brain hemisphere.
The modern experience is illustrated by neuroanatomist Jill Bolte-
Taylor (2008), who refers to the brain hemispheres as separate, totally
different personalities: “The we inside of me.” She compares the right
brain hemisphere with a parallel processor, always operating in the
present here-and-now; it takes information in as a sensory collage of
“energies,” pictures and kinesthetic impressions. It feels connected in
a perfect and holistic way to its surroundings: the environment, the
human family, the universal life force. The left brain hemisphere is a
serial processor. It processes information in a linear, methodical fashion.
It picks out details from the sensory complexity the right brain has
collected and sorts them, categorizes them, associating them with the
past and projecting them into the future. It is a calculating intelligence
that creates our sense of identity as a separate, unique, single being.
Here we say “I am.”
And while research shows that people don’t always use the same
hand, that writing, drawing and throwing by right-handers are almost

invariably done with the same hand, among people who write and
draw with the left hand, approximately half throw with the right arm
or prefer the right foot for kicking (Wilson 1998 p. 159). Research
also shows that the aspect of cooperation between the hands is more
important than the question of left- and right-handedness. The hands
need to complement each other’s actions; we will see later how trauma
can profoundly impair the partnership between the hands, and how
Work at the Clay Field can significantly improve cooperation between
them and thus between the brain hemispheres.
The hands–brain–language connection

This leads to the most interesting part of this discussion. How did
erectus move to sapiens? How did we learn to think and speak? How
did language develop? I find this exciting in so far as my observation

at the Clay Field has been that the hands will, if need be, repeat all
the evolutionary stages in order to resolve whatever—consciously or
unconsciously—is troubling a client.
The brain hemispheres were formed by survival strategies based
on a division of labor between the upper limbs for hunting and tool-
making—earliest human-like behaviors shaped the modern human
brain itself.
Professor Greenfield’s work reminds us that any credible
explanation for human intelligence and language must fit both the
evolutionary and neurological facts as we know them. She seeks to
meet that test in two ways: first, by identifying brain mechanisms
common to human language and skilled tool use and then arguing
that this association is not accidental; second, by finding procedural
analogies in human language and skilled tool use and then arguing
that evolution has created in the human brain an organ powerfully
predisposed to generate rules that treat nouns as if they were stones
and verbs as if they were pulleys. (Wilson 1998 p. 169)
We have extended the tool use of our ancestors to how we treat
language. The noun is a thing, and the verb is what we do to it.
Developmental psychologist William Stern uses the example of first
words. The childish “Mama” does not translate as “mother” but rather
represents a sentence such as “Mama, pick me up,” “Mama, help me,”
“Mama, come here” (Wilson 1998 p. 191).
A recent study at the University of Chicago (Rowe et al. 2005;
Rowe 2008) showed that the more hand movements parents made as
they communicated with their toddlers, the greater was the vocabulary
of these children two years later.
The “mirror neuron system” in the motor cortex “translates what
it sees through the eyes into the equivalent of doing and is structured
to absorb and prepare itself for what we may not yet have mastered”
(Orbach 2009 p. 35).
The attainment of language takes place in tandem with the
attainment of very specific motor skills. I learned through Moshe
Feldenkrais’ work the intricate connection between early childhood
movements and brain function. Children, for example, who do not
crawl before they begin to walk upright will miss out on activating
very particular neurological connections between the spine and the
brain hemispheres. Usually there is also only a very short window in
time for the activation of these functions. It is hard to go back in the

evolution of a person’s life and to recapture missed opportunities, even
though this is just what we attempt to do as psychotherapists, especially
with the hands-on Work at the Clay Field.
What is fascinating is that all the motor skills that are particularly
associated with the development of language are related to the ontogeny
of the hands. Let us for a moment look at the developmental aspects in
our attainment of very specific motor milestones that prepare our brain
to learn about the world.
• Intrauterine life is characterized by thumb-sucking and kicking.
• A newborn baby reaches for and touches the mother; it searches
for the breast to suck.
• Touch will very soon turn into a grasp. And anything that can
be held in one hand will be moved towards the body and into
the mouth.
• Next the infant will be able to stop and look at objects; it will
be able to babble, coo or smile, and then look back at the
mother. It will develop mimetic skills.
• At one year a child can hold a small object between thumb and
index finger and move it from one hand to the other. It can also
pick up an item and bang with it and then let go of it. And at
this moment so-called “baby talk” begins. Again the use of the
thumb represents a core leap in the evolution of consciousness.
This is the child’s first discovery of objects and its hand is

just dexterous enough to hold objects and to manipulate them,
similar to the tool use of our earliest ancestors.
• The moment a child begins to stand up and walk it will, in
proportion to the expansion in its environment, name its
environment with real talk. Between the age of 18 months and
two years it will make the magical discovery that everything
can have a sound attached to it.
• From then on, a child takes possession of the world by labeling
everything it encounters.
• For older children, words become like objects. They can be
increasingly manipulated and combined, just like tools, just like
real objects. The brain treats words as objects and, to the extent
that our hands learn to manipulate objects, the brain will be

able to add verbs.
• And further on we will expand in widening circles of complexity
in our manipulation of tools and handling of language. (Wilson
1998 p. 190)
The basis for language is the same in all cultures, including the deaf.
All have the same language center in their brain. The deaf will just
require a different input/output channel, which in this case will be sign
language with the hands, rather than words.
Quite remarkably Wilson states that from the neurological
perspective children do not learn language through practice and
hearing; they learn language through the development of specific motor skills
with their hands. These motor skills activate particular areas in the brain
where language is stored; a process rather more like remembering or
reawakening our language skills than learning them anew. Children
learn language through playing with building blocks, fitting one
into the other, creating rows, creating patterns, creating increasingly
complex designs. They do not learn language through speech! The
heard language only guarantees that the child of English-speaking
parents will not respond all of a sudden in Japanese.
Language in this understanding relates to the awakening of dormant
patterns and connections in the brain. And these patterns become
activated through hand movements; through the intricate connection
between the hands and the brain.
Literacy, after all, can be taught to illiterate hunter-gatherer tribes

in a single generation, and there is no way the whole tribe could
develop a gene for a reading module in that time. A child today, when
it learns to read, recapitulates the stages humanity went through.
Thirty thousand years ago humanity learned to draw on cave walls,
which required forming and strengthening links between the
visual function (which processes images) and the motor function
(which moves the hand). This stage was followed in about 3000
B.C. by the invention of hieroglyphics, where simple standardized
images were used to represent objects—not a big change. Next,
these hieroglyphic images were converted into letters, and the
first phonetic alphabet was developed to represent sounds instead
of visual images. This change required strengthening neuronal
connections between different functions that process the images of
letters, their sound and their meaning, as well as motor functions
that move the eyes across the page. (Doidge 2010 p. 292f.)
From the art therapy perspective I find these insights astounding

and thoroughly exciting. They offer entirely new possibilities to the
profession. As art therapists we have the ability to evoke the ancient
memory bank of touch, the age-old learning that comes from handling
things. Since touch allows access to all developmental stages from
prenatal to adolescence, art therapy can encourage the hands to close
developmental gaps and inform the brain of necessary or revised
learning steps. The hands will know what to do and will negotiate
their needs. As long as the art therapist supports the client’s sensory
perception that a motor stimulus triggers, awareness will grow and
lasting solutions will be found.
Such stimulation of patterns in the brain may also explain how
the cognitive function in the prefrontal cortex, when it has been shut
down due to trauma, can be reactivated through sensorimotor hand
movements in the Clay Field; how touch, in combination with a
sensorimotor approach to psychotherapy, not only connects us to the
earliest architecture of the brain but also allows us to tap into the vast
healing potential that is stored beyond our cognitive functions.
Wilson (1998) contemplates the learning difficulties of children
who have been hindered in developing their innate motor skills
and who as a consequence suffer from a wide range of intellectual
disabilities and psychological problems. He also discusses some of the
neurological difficulties of his clients, mostly top performing musicians,
who have been forced by ambition and social pressure to develop
motor skills way beyond their innate capacity and whose neurological
make-up at one stage breaks down. So here are two groups who have
either underused or overused their motor skills and have thus failed to
cooperate successfully with their brains.
Kiese-Himmel researched children who experience difficulties
with natural language acquisition. She found a clear link between
these and language processing being affected by a deficit in conceptual
development during infancy. “Besides tactile perception, haptic
perception involving the integration of cutaneous and proprioceptive
information is a link between linguistic symbolic representations
(words) and non-linguistic symbolic representations” (Grunwald 2008
p. 328).
“The research so far suggests that many language-impaired children
fail to organize their haptic experiences of the world and have basic
conceptual deficits, which are related to higher language processing”
(Grunwald 2008 pp. 330–331).
Wilson also interviews a number of highly successful adults—a

violinist, a rock climber, a puppeteer, a chef, a car mechanic, a surgeon—
and comes to the conclusion that all these individuals knew by the age
of ten what they liked to do with their hands, found mentors to teach
them further manual skills, and that by the age of 14 these individuals
had a clear vision of their future as professional adults. They had been
fortunate to be allowed to fully explore and develop their innate gifts;
thus they could achieve the coordinated interaction between their
motor skills, their brain and their environment in a passionate, creative
interchange.
In one of Deuser’s seminars he suggested the experiment of giving
the hands a task, rather than allowing them to explore their own
impulses in the clay. From the optical perspective all participants could
complete the task. However, we videoed the process and observed the
hands that had been told to “make an ashtray” in slow motion. It was
astounding to witness the struggle that happened, how the hands were
stiff, appeared forced and disconnected. The hands of the participants
would only relax and really be able to connect with the clay if these
individuals could negotiate a subtle mental detour, such as “giving
myself permission” to redesign the ashtray to their liking as boat or
bowl or other shape that allowed them a small degree of individuality
and creativity. What does this say about the learning environment we
grow up in and most work places, where we spend the majority of our
creative energy? The current approach is that we are almost at all times
forced to complete given tasks, rather than being allowed to trust the
flow of impulses that originates within. And only those of us who are
encouraged as children and adults to negotiate a successful compromise
between individual creativity and environmental demands will find
satisfaction and fulfillment in our lives. Thus the next question is how
Work at the Clay Field can support individuals to connect their libido
with their brain and hands.
Chapter 2
The Language of
Our Hands
I was hesitant at first, it looked cold, heavy and uninviting. Then I

touched it…the clay instantly absorbed my feelings, merging with
my hands, taking with it the imprint of my life’s experiences, my

suffering and my wounds. It is from this place where the doorway
opens to experience compassion and healing towards oneself.
The “ah ha” moments arise from this communion. The clay asks
only that we hold her, no words are needed.
Kim, Sydney
The use of the hands as perception tools is called haptic perception.
This chapter attempts to explain the psycho-physiological basis of
haptic perception, whereas later chapters investigate the interactive
process in which haptic perception takes place.
Haptic perception is fundamentally different from visual perception.
Touch, as a proximal sense, is close, direct, intimate, and provides reliable
information, whereas the eyes perceive what is distant, and what, to the
primitive eye, potentially could be an optical illusion. The sense of
37
touch is much older in evolutionary and developmental terms than the

sense of sight. Our infancy is dominated by touch; our earliest sense
of identity derives from touch, at a time when our eyes still struggle to
adjust, to focus, and to process what they see. What I see does not need
to “touch” me—I can distance myself, whereas touch will always have
an impact on my body and thus on my mind.
Touch is the most fundamental of human experiences. Before
we can suckle, before we can see, we are enveloped in our mother’s
womb and then in her arms. Her heartbeat, her body, her hands, her
touch accompany our infancy. The first year of our life is dominated
by the sense of touch. Without touch, infants die or suffer most serious
developmental setbacks, even if they are fed well and are kept clean.
Tactile contact is the first mode of communication we learn (Winnicott
1964, 1971, 1986; Rothschild 2000, 2003; Levine and Klein 2007;
Orbach 2009; Wilson 1998; Grunwald 2008). Our earliest stages in life
are dominated by oral and skin contact between infant and caregiver.
Touch synchronizes body rhythms, body temperature and emotions
between mother and child, between family members and between
lovers (Orbach 2009 p. 43).
Sexual experiences are intensely tactile. Loving, social or threatening
contact with another individual happens through touch: we hug each
other, we shake hands and we physically hurt each other. The violation
of our skin boundaries occurs through inappropriate touching, through
hitting and hurting the skin boundary in fights, through medical
procedures, or through accidents. Trauma always involves something
that has happened to our bodies.

Work at the Clay Field initiates an intense tactile experience—
it can link us to a primordial mode of communication, to a preverbal
stage in our life. It can awaken earliest body memories, where our core
attachments were formed, where we relied on sensorimotor feedback to
feel safe and loved (Hinz 2009; Lusebrink 2004; O’Brien 2004; Orbach
2009). It will evoke the haptic memories stored in our body–mind, how
we learned to touch the world, how to handle life, how we acquired
manual skills and competence; or how we were discouraged from doing
so. The contact with the clay in the field will make us remember how it
feels to be loved or to be hurt; but also how to fight back, conquer what
is rightfully mine, and how to love and nurture the self.
As an artist I am a visual person, and it took me years to understand
the different perspective that comes with haptic perception and to learn
not to be seduced by the look of something that had appeared in the
The Language of Our Hands 39
Clay Field, but to become aware of the relationship of the hands with
the material or the object they had created. Were the hands relaxed and
in full contact with the clay? Or were they tense, fearful, overstretched,
or not even able to touch the material at all?
My insights are based on thousands of hours observing clients at
the Clay Field. They are also based on having worked for 15 years as a
Shiatsu body therapist, while my art therapy practice developed. These
years of experience have heightened the sensitivity in my hands and
sharpened them as accurate perception tools. I know intensely what it
feels like to “see with my hands,” to sense and communicate with the
life movement underneath the skin of a client.
Art therapy and body work have both provided me with a map of
the hands. Many times I worked with art therapy clients who could
not speak and verbalize their problems. I witnessed almost daily how
their hands found astounding solutions that equally surprised them
and me; solutions that they could never have thought up or invented
and that turned out to be emotionally and cognitively satisfying; that
transcended the problem area psychologically and opened up new ways.
Deuser’s approach was to film every session in one frame: the field
and the pair of hands in it. For decades he dedicated his studies to
the phenomenology of haptic perception; how the hands develop the
necessary skills to make contact with the world around them; how
such actions lead to communication and self-perception; how action,
perception and contact need to be anthropologically and structurally
gained in developmentally necessary steps. Deuser could at times appear
almost dismissive of the person whose hands were in the field. One of
his core rules was that as long as the hands could handle the clay, the
individuals could handle the situation, could handle the problem at
hand, no matter how tearful, doubtful or angry they felt. We will look
later at therapeutic encounters where the hands cannot move due to
a traumatic immobility response. Those endless sessions of observing
hands in the Clay Field, however, have taught me a fundamental
confidence in the power and wisdom of our hands and have sharpened
my awareness of their language.
The following series of drawings by one and the same boy (2.1a–
d) illustrate the healthy developmental stages of the hand–brain–body
connection. Many kindergarten and primary school teachers will
witness the same process in the art work of their students on a daily
basis. Initially the hands extend from the head: brain, body and hands
are one. Gradually body-awareness grows, and thus spatial awareness;
balance through the outstretched arms develops. Now the hands are
connected to the body. It takes another year for legs to appear, and
another one for this boy to actually “fill” his body. Gradually he develops
a connection with the ground, with gravity itself, and simultaneously
he gains competence to handle the world.
Self-perception at this stage is radiant and

centered around the face. Arms and legs
extend from the head just like the hair. The
hands and feet are emphasized. Both hands
are handling objects.
2.1a: Boy aged 3½
A year later a “cell-division” between head

and body has occurred. The arms are now
marked as extensions from the body. The
crossing lines that define the hands express
tension between the creative impulse and
its frustration.
2.1b: Boy aged 4½
His legs have now emerged as separate

extensions. The hands are emphasized.

Hands and feet still have only three digits.
2.1c: The same boy aged

5½ years…
Legs and body have gained color, weight

and importance. The hands have five
fingers. This figure stands his ground in
his world.
2.1d: …and at 6½ years
The core senses

Just as this boy had to become aware of himself and his capacity to
act and handle his world, I had to become aware as a therapist of the
sensorimotor messages a client’s body and hands would communicate
in a session. Much of my training in bioenergetics in the 1970s, also
in transpersonal bodywork, yoga and Zen meditation, sharpened my
senses to the “body (that) speaks its mind” (Keleman 1975). Both the
haptic experts and neurology define core senses that act as perception
tools.
Body-awareness is determined by exteroceptors: touch, taste,
smell, sound, sight; and interoceptors: connective tissue, muscles and
viscera (Rothschild 2000 p. 40f.). Body memories are stored in the
interoceptors.
Exteroceptors are designed to perceive the environment around
us. They are the most familiar senses, highly tuned to pick up even
minute changes in the space outside of the body. The proximal senses
of touch and taste are those closest to the body, while smell, sound and
sight are designed to assess external events further away from direct
contact. Most of us have developed heightened awareness in one or
two senses and lesser abilities in the others. People with a damaged
sense, such as the vision-impaired, are often capable of compensating
with an increased ability in another sense, such as acutely sensitive
hearing.
Interoceptors are designed to perceive stimuli emanating
from inside the body. We have two major types of interoceptors:

proprioception and the vestibular sense of balance. Proprioception is
further comprised of the kinesthetic sense, which enables us to locate
all the parts of our body in space, and the internal sense, which gives
feedback on body states such as heart rate, respiration, internal
temperature, muscular tension and visceral discomfort (Rothschild
2000 p. 40). The internal sense often becomes overactive in
traumatized individuals, communicating anxiety through increased
heart rate, cold sweat or hot flushes, and muscular tension. PTSD
clients evaluate their exteroceptors on the basis of their interoceptors.
Their inner sensation overrules reality; it defines their external reality.
Intense anxiety can diminish the exteroceptors to the extent that
the here-and-now reality of the outside world becomes seriously
distorted. Such clients lose their ability to assess fear and danger
externally, which makes them susceptible to retraumatization.
The kinesthetic sense is instrumental in how we organize

movement in space; how we learn and then remember to do
something in a certain way—getting up from a chair, walking, bike
riding, playing a ball game or the piano. With our kinesthetic sense
we execute a huge range of motor tasks and behaviors. In our active
hours the kinesthetic sense functions automatically and we are not
conscious of it. This implicit memory, however, becomes conscious
effort whenever a practiced routine is compromised, for example
through injury: we may now need to handle a fork and eat with the
other hand, or walk on crutches, or need to reorganize the way we
get up from a chair. Sportspeople and musicians will also know how
certain routines can be memorized without outwardly moving at all
in order to enhance their performance. We can run and act in a dream,
while we appear motionless in our sleep.
Haptic perception
Both exteroceptors and interoceptors find their particular expression
in the hands and significantly contribute to what is called haptic
perception, the perception of touch. Our hands are extraordinarily
complex sense organs. On our fingertips every square inch of skin
has about 16,000 touch sensors that communicate with our brain. No
other part of our body has as many touch sensors (Murphy 2010 p. 40).
Haptic perception distinguishes between three core experiences in the
hand: the skin sense, the sense of balance, and depth sensibility. Deuser
relates these core senses to our primary experiences with the mother,
child and father archetype.
Whenever clients, regardless of their age, come into contact with
developmental needs while working at the Clay Field, they will activate
these early patterns until the need is satiated. This allows a therapy that
can address earliest, nonverbal attachment issues and developmental
setbacks, including disabilities.
With the skin sense we learn touch and contact. Here we are touched
physically and emotionally. It is the basis of human development.
Skin contains and surrounds the entire human being. If we can gain
trust through touch and contact, we begin to experiment with the
relationship of the hands with each other and acquire coordination
through movement and touch, and it is this coordination that develops
the body sensation of physical balance in the spinal axis. With increasing
strength in the joints and muscles we begin to be able to coordinate
movement within the wrist and in the body, and learn how to apply
pressure with depth sensibility. These three developmental steps are the
basis for haptic self-realization.
If the sensory and motor basis remains fragmented due to biography
or social circumstances, hand actions remain unstable and fragile. The
lack of a haptic and bodily basis will then be substituted through the
activation of fantasies and imaginations, which lack the vital intensity
of the physical, in order to gain stability (Brockmann and Geiss 2011
p. 71).
The skin sense

The skin is the largest organ in our body. It surrounds and contains the
physical self completely. Our skin divides the inside from the outside.
As a sensory organ our skin is highly tuned through subtle motor
impulses which touch and communicate outer perceptions to the inside.
Here, hands in the Clay Field are:
• searching for contact
• searching for a tangible supportive base on which they can rest
• looking for a felt boundary whereby the skin becomes a layer
of contact to feel oneself and the other.
The skin sense, not only in the Clay Field, connects us with the infantile
experiences in our physiological development. It awakens the body
memory of our earliest contact with the mother or primary caregiver. It

connects us to our experiences with the mother archetype. Here we are
in a state of being. We become part of “her,” of something that is there;
we remember the participation mystique that once was.
Children and adults regress to various stages of the skin sense
whenever a developmental need has remained unfulfilled or neglected,
or has been traumatized and was therefore interrupted in its healthy
development. The hands will unerringly find exactly that developmental
stage that requires attention. (See 2.2g and h.) In such cases even the
hands of adult men look like the hands of small infants as they explore
and retrieve the lost and necessary.
As we mature and grow up, for older children and adults the skin
sense becomes an important sensory organ. With every pore of the skin
we perceive what we find in the field. Such hands can “see.” The skin
sense is linked to our sensory awareness. Through this feeling function
we can distinguish physical qualities in the clay such as soft or hard,

dry or soggy, but also projected emotional qualities such as loving or
disgusting. Increasingly, the physical qualities of the clay connect an
individual with the projected emotional messages in the material; thus
the clay can become broken, hurt or upset—or fertile, reliable, light-
filled and loving.
The hands are here in a relationship. The clay at this stage is
frequently associated with skin, evoking memories of a sensual and
sexual nature. Since virtually all trauma affects an individual’s skin
boundary, traumatic body memories are easily provoked through the
skin sense, but can also be discharged and healed through such touch.
(See 2.2i.)
The skin sense is instrumental in fine-tuning the perception of
the hands in the Clay Field—it quite literally gives the hands eyes,
ears, taste and smell. Through this sensory ability the skin sense is
instrumental in revealing images and meaningful events in the clay. It
makes sense! Every phase of motor action in the Clay Field is followed
by movements with the flat hand, using the skin sense to explore and
understand what has happened. (See 2.2f.) Motor action needs to be
completed by sensory perception, which will determine what is “there”
in the clay, what has been created: something soft or hard, something
alive or dead, something trustworthy or terrifying. And out of these
perceptions emerge associations to images: is there a landscape, a body,
a tree, a precious pearl? The connection between motor activities,
sensory perception and cognitive understanding happens through the
skin sense.
The use of water tends to enhance the skin sense, and the therapist
may suggest the addition of water in order to heighten a client’s
awareness of this sense. (See 2.2a and b.)
Skin sense: This ten-year-old girl

was shy. This was her first session.
She spent much time drawing lines
with one finger into the surface of
the field.
2.2a
With encouragement, she eventually

picked one spot and filled it with
water. The dreaminess of her hands
and her state of deep introversion
is visible.
2.2b
Skin sense: Here the hands are in fully
aware contact with the bottom of
the field. They lean into it, rest on
it, taking in the necessary sensory
knowledge that this ground is
reliable, solid and trustworthy.
These hands are fully awake sense
organs that communicate important
life-lessons to the individual.
2.2c
Skin sense: These hands are in
need of touching and connecting.
The left hand of this client looks
“younger” than the right hand.
2.2d
Skin sense: Smoothing, caressing and
holding are adult versions of the
skin sense. The left hand holds with
a lot more tonus than the caressing
right hand.
2.2e
Skin sense: How relaxed are these

hands! They have created something
and are now holding this object,
assessing its qualities, textures and
messages, communicating with it.
The hands look loving, protective,
welcoming this new “being” that
has emerged. Similar to a birthing
process, this client understood
2.2f
through her hands that something
new and tender had entered her life.
Skin sense: This 11-year-old girl lived

in foster care. Initially her need to
be held was overwhelming. The
clay had to be as soft as possible,
which she created by adding lots
of water. She would then sink her
hands up to her elbows into the
soft mass. She desperately needed
to be contained and to be held, a
developmental need that was not 2.2g
fulfilled when she was an infant.
Skin sense: In the following session

with the same girl, I provided

this hold for her by building a
container around her hands. She
happily stayed in this “womb” for
40 minutes, asking me at intervals
to “feel the babies kicking inside.”
In the following session, she
built the container herself, as her
“house.” Her behavior changed 2.2h
significantly after this positive
mothering experience.
Skin sense: This woman had grown

up in a violent home and was
deeply traumatized due to ongoing
terror throughout her childhood.
In order to “help” the traumatized
left hand, the right hand had built
an encasement around it similar
to a plaster cast. At this stage the
left hand is “birthed” from its safe
2.2i
container. The right hand massages
it with rhythmic movements to
bring the frozen fingers back to life.
Sense of balance
The vestibular sense is our sense of balance. Located in the inner ear,
it may cause, when disturbed, bouts of dizziness or vertigo, motion
sickness or loss of balance.
Deuser sees balance as a conflict of every child or that of the
child archetype within; the part that needs to negotiate its existence
suspended between the powers of mother and father. Balance is
acquired in the first seven years of life when the child orients itself
in the energetic tension between the parental forces. All children are
dependent upon their caregivers. Their survival is determined by
them, regardless of whether the parents are a loving couple, a fighting
couple, divorced, or absent through death or departure. The parental

presence manifests as the child’s sense of balance or imbalance. Deuser
would demonstrate this quite vividly, standing with outstretched
arms; one hand touching the mother, the other the father archetype.
The child’s—and later the adult’s—sense of balance depends on their
ability to negotiate an existence outstretched between those polarities.
The more the parental poles move in unison, the greater the sense of
balance in the child. Increasing discord between the parents will force
the child to sway, as if on a boat on a stormy sea, constantly looking
for solid ground. Adults have found this balance in the uprightness
in their spine: they use the ground to bounce off it; their orientation
is up and no longer down. A healthy sense of balance, however, is
just as necessary for adults as it is for children, and it manifests in the

uprightness of the spine.
Deuser sees the sense of balance as a significant marker in the
Clay Field. It manifests as coordination of the hands, as alignment of
the body with the field and the extent to which the entire field is
landscaped and handled. If, for example, only sections of the field are
moved and explored, while others are being ignored, aspects in the
psyche are also being ignored or dissociated. If the body is twisted
sideways, or one hand only is used, part of the client’s psyche is twisted
or turned off, or has learned not to get involved.
Imbalance shows as one hand dominating the other; or one hand
remaining inactive, underneath the table, for example. The body is
twisted sideways, one shoulder held back, or the pelvis—often just
slightly—turned away from the box, which symbolically represents
the world. The hands in the clay will divide the field into halves
that differ from each other. Children whose parents undergo divorce
will inevitably build trenches, ditches, rivers, walls, fences, etc. that
divide the field. Or only one half of the field will be filled with life and
movement, while the other lies dormant. This tends to happen more
when one parent is physically or emotionally absent.
If the therapist now focuses on the need of a child rather than its
lack and the reasons for this lack, it becomes apparent that the hands
only want one thing: they want to come together. Children, and adults,
need to find balance within, even if this does not happen in the world at
home, where they are powerless to appease the parents or their source
of trauma and stress. Thus the hands will build bridges or tunnels that
connect the two hemispheres of the field. Water often helps to enhance
the connection. Or balls and spheres are shaped and placed in the
center of the field. (See 2.3 a–f.)
Trauma causes serious imbalance in individuals. Brain functions are
impaired; and the connection between the brain hemispheres can be
seriously affected. The flow between emotions and cognition is often
disturbed—especially in the case of traumatized infants, important
connections may have never actually developed. The involvement
of both hands in the creative process in the Clay Field, cooperation
between both hands, and eventually a balanced use of the entire field,
will assist a client to reset the equilibrium. (See 2.4 a–d.)
Sense of balance: This is the final

stage of a process.
This client felt torn between
two conflicting issues. She was most
relieved when her hands created
this balanced image. The two
towers balanced her life outside of
the field, the two balls represented
her inner balance.
2.3a
Sense of balance: Cooperation be-
tween the hands. One hand holds
the box; the other pushes the clay.
2.3b
Sense of balance: Balanced focus of
both hands holding a centering
sphere.
2.3c
Sense of balance: This woman
suffered from an imbalance in her
marriage and current personal
life. She could not coordinate
movement between the hands. At
the end of the session both hands
rock together in the “lap” they have
created. Her whole body rocks
with it, appeased. Balance and
2.3d connectedness is restored.
2.3e 2.3f
Sense of balance: Diagonal movement across the field creates rotation in
the spine; the inner axis becomes activated.
Sense of balance: June 1: June has

recently been in an accident in
which she broke her right arm and
leg. She is still on crutches and
feels very off balance. Here she
acknowledges the quite different
needs of her hands. The left hand is
resting in the bowl with water, the
other has found a hold in the clay.
2.4a
June 2: Next she wraps the right,

broken limb into a “clay womb” for
healing. She adds much warm water.
In contrast to the only recently
removed plaster cast, this gives her
a pleasant, very safe and secure
feeling. She visibly relaxes. Her
right hand receives strength and
nurturing from the clay enclosure
through the skin sense. 2.4b
June 3: While her right hand is

now “safe,” memories of lack of
such safety as a very young child
arise. Her anger and upset about
these events are acted out by the
left hand through hitting the
field; also through crying and—as
trauma discharge happens in the
body—through shaking. The right
2.4c
hand stays in its cocoon until it
feels “strong enough” to re-emerge.
June 4: At the end of this session

June can rest. She has found a safe
hold for both hands. For her, the
two clay handles she has created
represent her new-found inner
parents; they have become an inner
agent as well as a new felt sense, a
body memory she can hold on to
for assurance. The regained balance
2.4d
between her left and right sides is
emphasized by the two eggs that
are now held safely in a “nest.”
Depth sensibility
Depth sensibility produces the desire to penetrate and shape something.
According to Deuser, it develops with the emergence of the father
archetype. It requires the experience of a relationship with something
that is experienced as other than me. The depth sensibility requires
self-perception of my physiological reality; here are my hands, my
strength—and I can apply my actions to something that is outside
of me, in this case the clay. It is connected to our sense of power, of
competence and our ability to do things. The depth sensibility grows
with the emergence of I-ness, of Ego, the moment a child begins to
stand up, when it moves from crawling to walking and sitting upright.
This is the developmental stage when a child realizes that it has separate
identity from its surrounding. It begins to say “I am me.”
Depth sensibility is responsible for all actions in the field, for

executing motor impulses. Here the hands dig, grab, squeeze, excavate,
lift, pound, push, strangle, hit, rip, turn and move the clay in a million
different ways.
When the hands are in full contact with the material, it appears
as though they are “chewing” the clay. Deuser compares the hands
to teeth in this case; working through the clay takes on a digestive
function. By squeezing the clay through the fingers, by fully grabbing
it, the hands explore and conquer the other-than-me aspect of the clay;
they begin to own it, and then shape and mark it. This is very different
to the sensory relationship the skin sense suggests, where the hands
merge into a relationship with the other, sensing its qualities. Here they
are active, formative, dominating, making their mark. (See 2.5a–h.)
And of course, it also becomes apparent when the hands cannot
do this, when they appear not to have the strength to move the clay,
even though the clay is not smoother or harder than for the previous
client, who moved it with ease. Social and psychological difficulties
manifest when the hands cannot touch the material; when they shy
away; when they dare not destroy something in order to create. Because
every action in the field is also an act of destruction; whatever is there,
the smooth surface or any other form, will be irrevocably affected by
the client’s hand actions.
All movements in the Clay Field that characterize the depth
sensibility reflect how we learned to approach and deal with “the
world,” how we were taught to do things. It becomes apparent where
our biography made us feel safe or unsafe, where we could be confident

or needed to be afraid. All this emerges through sensorimotor action
rather than through cognitive processing of the life story. Cognitive
integration may be necessary at the end of a session, when sensory
integration has been achieved and new solutions have been found, but
not while the hands are living life in the Clay Field. (See 2.5i–l.)
The accompanying therapist can observe clearly at this stage how
self-worth, self-esteem and competence are being expressed, or how a
client struggles with the lack of these. How do we cope with failure
when constructions in the field break? How do we handle hardship
when it manifests as heavy, resistant clay that requires effort to move?
How do we negotiate blockages and difficulties, the moments when
things do not work out as expected? How do we claim space and
ownership in the field? What does it take for the Clay Field to become
“mine,” my world, my space, my ground? The hands in the Clay Field
will mirror our biography, the way we respond to the world at hand,
how we approach life.
2.5a 2.5b
Depth sensibility: The heightened tonus in the hands becomes high

physical pressure and concentrated strength. The whole body becomes
aware of such impressions, especially when they are repeated and
enduring. The coordination and self-stabilizing organization of the
body parts becomes a conscious achievement.
2.5c 2.5d
Depth sensibility: Pushing resonates in all physical aspects of the body.

Intense stretching of the arms requires solid stability in the central axis,
grounding in the pelvis and anchoring in the heels. In this case the
pushing forward and to the sides has excavated a moving channel in the
field, a vertical axis that is centered and filled with motion.
Depth sensibility: These hands active-

ly penetrate the material. They dig
in and excavate, creating depth and
space. They have dared to break
open the smooth surface. They have
explored the depth of the field and
reached the bottom. They are now
pushing material forward, excavat-
ing it out of the box. The thumbs
2.5e
are particularly active. If the clay is
not “chewed” at the time, it remains
unconscious and the client will need to go back to processing it at a
later stage, when more resources are available to cope with the informa-
tion contained in and projected into the material.
The alignment of the arms with the central axis in the body is well
visible. The tonus in the hands is strong, the posture firm, the action
directed.
Depth sensibility: These hands strain

to penetrate the clay for the first
time. Only the fingers are used. The
clay appears to be hard, which it is
not, requiring much effort.
2.5f
Depth sensibility: Here the thumbs

are particularly employed to dig
into the clay. They are the ones to
lift the material up in large chunks
that are then discarded.
2.5g
Depth sensibility: These hands are

competent to shape and to create.
They are confident and know what
they want. There is strength in the
wrist, tonus in the right hand and
it is aligned with the arm and the
shoulder. The cooperation between
the two hands is awake, and they
are in a creative relationship.
2.5h
Depth sensibility: These hands grab
and pull large chunks of clay
towards the body. They want to
have it. Here the material was
collected with a diffuse intention
to create. The purpose of this need
only became apparent at a later
stage.
2.5i
Depth sensibility: There is intense
determination in these hands. They
grab and push the material and
bulldoze it out, simultaneously
opening up a deep chasm in the
field. Also obvious here is the firm,

structural alignment with the body.
2.5j
Depth sensibility: This woman had
experienced a childhood of vio-
lence and abuse. She reacted, after
being initially fearful, with intense
emotion, re-enacting aspects of
what seemed to be biographical
events. Here she is grabbing, shak-
ing and strangling the clay with
enormous pressure.
2.5k
Depth sensibility: The same client is

now attacking the clay with her
fists. She is boxing into it. Instead
of being afraid of her violent father,
she finds empowerment through
assimilating his strength. Now she
can fight and defend herself.
2.5l
Haptic object relations

Our hands reflect clearly how we relate to the world. The German
Clay Field trainers Brockmann and Geiss have mapped out the three
core senses (skin sense, sense of balance, depth sensibility) in the way
they are gained as developmental stages, and the way hand movements
and their coordination reflect biographical and social conditions. These
steps can be observed in children’s play during various—especially
infant—stages. The study paid particular attention to the interrelated
development of extero- and interoceptors.
This section is based on Brockmann and Geiss’s book Sprechende
Hände (Speaking Hands 2011), as well as on Deuser’s and my
observations. To understand the skin sense, it will help the reader
to imagine the hands of an infant—how the very young relate, for
example, to their caregiver, to the mother’s touch and breast, to the
first intake of solid food, to the beginning contact with the world that
surrounds them.
Haptic object relations through the skin sense

Skin as container: In order to awaken the skin as a sensory organ,
something has to come to it from the outside—like a mother’s touch.
Here the skin wants to be contained, embedded, surrounded, warmed,
caressed. In order to achieve this at the Clay Field, the hands use the
material to sink into it; they want to be held in it. Such hands are not
active; they simply want to be unconditionally contained. Children love
to be caressed and engulfed by the clay, sometimes up to their elbows.
To be contained in such a way satiates the need to be held, to be safely
surrounded. Inner tensions can be released as the hands surrender to a
nurturing, all-encompassing environment.
In a next step, this receptivity to touch will “get under the skin.”
Impulses from the outside can open up perceptions inside. As the pores
open up and circulation increases, perception, initially insular, wakes
up. A certainty arises that gives sensory stability and calm. Wet clay
creamed onto the skin, as well as the then drying clay, will stimulate
a perception of the skin as a container. This is a first awakening of a
sense of self. The inside is still diffuse in this first contact with another.
The skin is the sensitive membrane that simultaneously separates and
connects.
After that, the hands may “cuddle” into a soft Clay Field, which
involves a far greater awareness of the other. At this stage the hands
may also discover that they can facilitate care for each other through
creaming and touching each other. The active delight of such self-
touch leads to deep bodily reassurance that self-fulfillment is possible.
Only now can the hands begin to focus on the source of such
a stimulus and commence to explore the quality of the surrounding
other. A sensory dialog starts between “me” and “the other.” Dialog still
as a polarity of oneness, as two aspects of the one experience. The Clay
Field is not separate, but becomes the container for sensory satisfaction,
for core trust that it is possible to rely on an other than me.
To touch and receive oneself: Now the hands are searching
in the soft pliable surface to find inner resonance. This takes time.
Hands explore the connection between touching something and “I
am touched” through the skin. They like to sink into the clay, make
imprints, crawl into it—all in full sensory delight.
The hands here are still dreamy; the other is as in a fog. They tap,
circle, stroke and caress the surface with the fingertips or open hand.
The hands are relaxed and have no drive. They wander, wipe or circulate
in an undirected way, only gradually becoming aware of irregularities
and qualitative differences on the surface, such as bumpy, warm, cold,
soft, comfortable or not (Brockmann and Geiss 2011 p. 78).
Settling down: As the hands gain trust they settle down. Inner
tension decreases, and the individual surrenders to the ground. This
ground gains first qualities of something one can encounter. The hands,
and increasingly the forearms and elbows, like to rest on the Clay
Field; the shoulders relax. Here the hands are awake, alive, present
without being active and busy. In this unquestioned, unconditional
connectedness they satiate the sensory experience of touching and
being touched. They prefer convex or concave surfaces: molds, caves,
mounds, waves. They sink into the moving surfaces. Repetition increases
the haptic satiation: to pat, tap, to add sounds; wiping and tipping can
be animating; swinging, circling repetition also stimulates images such
as nest, bed, fur, silk, dough, beach, breast, womb, glove or bandage.
Touching, moving, stimulating: The hands now begin to
explore themselves and the Clay Field with stroking pressure and begin
to discover sensory differentiation.
• They explore dents in the clay.
• They squash material between the fingers to feel the space in-
between the fingers.
• They roll onto their backs, the sides, slide along the pulse and
the forearms.
• Such zones will be bathed or sprinkled with water, covered
with clay, creamed in it, or chunks of material are used to rub
and enliven the skin. Such sensory stimulus expands through
the entire body.
These activities strengthen and awaken the hands. They begin to
differentiate and explore various ways of moving and sensing: slow, fast,
gliding, rolling, rubbing, pushing. The object here is not important. It
is still all about gaining trust in the reliable presence of the other.
Space and place from the perspective of skin sense: As the
hands spread out and explore, they take their first steps into spatial
awareness. A finger comes to a point. From there it can discover another
“there.” One is close by—the other over there. The finger can leave
one place and go to another. Developmentally and haptically, these are

important experiences. In the given, all-encompassing, unquestioned
space of being, the infant gains its first rudimentary structure.
Perception of the other with the skin: Two core patterns emerge
at this stage: punctuating movements such as tapping with the fingertips
and stroking with the flat hand. The subjective begins to drift apart
from the presence of an object, just slightly. A gap appears. The hands
surface from the oneness with the other. The other is no longer just
an undifferentiated ground—it gains contours that mark it as foreign,
as other-than-me. This might evoke fear, but also curiosity. This other
beckons to be explored. Initially this is an insular consciousness that
grows into an increasing sense of place.
Expansion: Now the fingers stretch and the hands begin to spread
out. Their soft, infantile roundness uncurls, the thumb emerges. Inner
space is gained in response to the first exploration of the outer space. The
hands become “long.” The index finger keeps its function of pointing out.
The middle finger becomes the axis, with the thumb as its polar opposite.
The fingertips act as sensors. The hand gains structure and begins to
explore (Brockmann and Geiss 2011 p. 87). In this way, subtle marks
can be made in the clay: little dents, pathways, channels, boreholes that
can be filled with water. Small formations such as tracks or holes become
incentives to notice one’s actions. Repetition evokes expectations in the
hands, they can have an effect; they can make a mark. These discoveries
lead to small intentional actions that produce an effect in the material.
The hands gain their first inklings of competence.
What follows is a gradual interchange of gained awareness of what
the hands can effect on another and how this affects them. As the
hands “grow” into the space—and they now look bigger—the space
becomes three-dimensional. The hands begin to act together, holding
such a large thing, so much larger then themselves. This awareness is
still diffuse, but an awakening to the “other” as mass and quality with a
rudimentary sense of location.
This is a continuous interchange of the fundamental experience
of the skin sense as me becoming conscious of myself on the inside,
being touched—and touching, becoming aware of the world on the
outside. For the hands in the skin sense, the given space is primarily
an expansive, physical phenomenon, a sensory field full of variations
(Brockmann and Geiss 2011 p. 92).
From touching to contact: An infant’s primary interest at this
stage is the skin of the mother/caregiver, its surface and quality. The
hands—also in the clay—are searching for something soft, graspable,
movable, stable and lasting. Also the temperature of the material and
of the water needs to be “comfortable” to allow a tonal dialog; like an
echo of the other touchable body. Gained trust in the contact leads to
developmental patterns of movements.
• There are circular stroking movements, initially irregular und
uncoordinated.
• Gradually we start to see mirrored, circular movements of two
circles.
• Arms and body follow this impulse, which unintentionally
creates a center axis.
• Hands and body experience centering, left and right, close and
distant, as a primary structure.
• Hands alternate in their parallel and rhythmic gestures; as one
hand moves forward, the other goes back.
• The diagonal and the boundary of the Clay Field are explored.
• The field now offers a dimension for movements in skin contact
with the ground.
To grasp substance with the skin sense: The clay in the field offers
a mass, a large, deep reaching mass, much bigger than two hands can
hold. The hands can dive and slip into this mass. This is a haptic event
and a sensory delight.
Skin sense: Wanting to be surrounded

by the material, slipping underneath it.
2.6a
The hands discover there is not just a surface, but it offers also a stable,
pliable encounter. The hands now squeeze, squash, rake, grab and drill.
The hands need to penetrate the surface of the clay; they can only do
this if they have previously acquired enough tonus and stability within.
Drilling as a skin sense explores the sensual density of the material.
Fingers emerge from the round fist and break the surface of the
material, and they can be ravenous and intense. There is sensory lust.
Often the joints are not yet strong enough and bend in the effort.
When both hands drill, fingers may meet at one point underneath in
their tunneling effort, and the individual has a glimpse of knowing that
there is someone drilling and affecting something. The coincidence of
self-perception and effect becomes the first rudimentary differentiation
between subject and object.
Squashing as an open-handed contact with the material also serves
to access its physicality. Squashing is full of lust. The hands enjoy the
sensual quality of the clay with sensory delight of the hands. The hands
squeeze, “chew,” press and roll. And the clay, as a formless mass, survives
it all; it does not disappear. Touch and movement come together now.
The body responds to these actions with small motor impulses such as
shaking, stretching, rocking, and thus integrating the impulses coming
from the hands.
One version of squashing is to take manageable chunks out of the

amorphous mass and squeeze them in the hand until they disintegrate.
In this way the inside of the hand stimulates the center of the body
as heart and abdomen (Brockmann and Geiss 2011 p. 102). Or the
clay is literally devoured, the hands working it like teeth. The material
is oozing through the fingers. Forearms and radial pulse often still
rest on the surface, in need of close contact with the previous stage
as the safe basis for these new adventures. This rolling and rubbing,
kneading, puffing and prodding is all happening—as skin sense—in
an introverted, almost timeless atmosphere. It is a lustful or innocently
rough action, even filled with sensual mercilessness in which primary
needs are fulfilled. It is a vital incorporation of substance.
Grabbing and wanting to have: This leads to grabbing as the
next developmental stage. Now the hands want to have the material
in an impatient and impulsive urge. The hands do not want an object!
Rather they are charged with an intense motor impulse and, in their
need for action, require a movable mass. Picking, tearing and gathering
are aggressive, quick and undirected. The hands are full of “want.” They
want to HAVE.
Skin sense: Grabbing it. Having it. The

movement is a wanting desire, not
about having an object, but simply
about the pleasure of digging into
such a mass.
2.6b
These actions resonate in the entire body and awaken tonus and
awareness. Such hands can be hungry, full of desire, wanting more and
more. Occasionally one piece attracts the individual’s attention. This
may be triumphantly lifted out and shown to the companion: “Look!
I have got something.” Or one hand grabs and the other collects the
pieces. Such collecting in the context of the skin sense is about desire,
not about creating an object.
Raking, scratching, digging and shoveling: The hands in all
these actions move and push the material around, and even though dints
and hills and ditches appear, they have no permanence. They may be filled
in the next moment or patted down. Building UP and tearing DOWN,

digging OUT and filling IN are lustful acquisitions, satiating the hunger
to HAVE that is vitally necessary for inner stability. This process should
not be interrupted through introducing “meaning.” Rather the rhythmic
exploration of substance and space should be encouraged as the basis for
our dealings with the physical world. Here the self-organization of the
hands creates basic patterns of order, patterns of touch and movement.
The clay offers boundless possibilities, and children or adults at the Clay
Field can create the landscapes that they haptically desire. Accidentally
appearing dints, tracks, holes and cracks become repeated and ordered
into rows and patterns. The hands explore close and away, from one to
the other, the middle and the sides, in the front and in the back. Such is
the emerging intentional order of the world.
Rhythms: One elemental structure of movement is rhythm.
Rhythm is the basic order in the entire body as heartbeat, breath, the
pulsing contraction and expansion of all organs, muscles and cells.
The hands reflect such rhythmic order unconsciously. Emphasis on
any sensory or tactile discovery happens through rhythmic repetition,
through tapping with fingertips, banging with the fists, patting with
the open hand, poking with the index finger. In this way forth-
rolling patterns emerge. Rhythmic sound—such as clapping of a beat,
singing of nursery rhymes and dancing steps—taps into the essence
of life; it forms integrating patterns and helps the hands to remember
achievements.
Skin sense: Experiencing the sur-

face through undirected circling
motions.
2.6c
With the haptic exploration of substance, the emerging order of a

space and the discovery of rhythmic movement, the hands and the
body become aware of a gradual discovery of two poles: the self and
the other.
Skin sense: Devouring the material,

squirting it in-between the fingers,
having it, owning it. Here we
have depth sensibility as well, but
with an infantile quality of simply
grabbing.
2.6d
Skin sense: This woman began to cream
her hands and arms with clay, giving
herself the loving care and nurture
she had insufficiently received when
she was young. Her right hand is
receptive and open; the left hand acts
as the caregiver. Deuser sometimes
gives clients the image that such a
nourishing movement “feeds” every
2.6e
pore of the skin with love.
Skin sense: This boy has dug out one

hole in the center. He has filled the
hole with water, and gradually the
sensory discovery turns the entire
field into a landscape, an image. He

has created a lake.
2.6f
Skin sense: Now the left hand of the
same boy later on in the same session
has tunneled through a mountain,
and it rests completely relaxed and
open, up to the elbow in the safety
of this enclosure, being held. After
this session his erratic, aggressive
behavior at school decreased
significantly. He was less afraid.
2.6g
Jennifer, who is a long-term infrequent client, gave birth to her first

child three months ago. I have not seen her for four months. She
tells me how emotionally stressed she gets whenever her baby
cries; stressed to the extent that she freezes in terror and cannot
comfort her child any more. She experiences herself on the brink
of an “endless black void,” a space that feels familiar and terrifying.
I know from previous sessions that she felt either abandoned as an
infant or pressured into high performance. In the past it took her
several sessions before she could even make contact with the clay
without dissociating.
In this session she begins to touch the clay with flat hands.
Her hands look tense. Her fingers are stiff and overstretched,
while her thumbs try unsuccessfully to dig into the material. She
begins to cry. All of a sudden her hands begin to claw the material
in desperation. I encourage her, telling her that she can hold on to
material, emphasizing that the material is “there.” She cannot speak.
Only her breath and her tears and her hands are indicators for me.
She does several rounds of clawing, then reverting back into freezing.
I encourage her to gently move her hands as if they had a heartbeat
while they are enclosed within the clay, holding on to it. As she does
this, her body begins to rock after a while. She rocks with her hands
dug into the clay, her arms resting on the field, her head resting on
her hands, partially dug into the clay as well. Very gently, her hands
relax and then find the hold again, relax and find the hold again. She
begins to hum gently while she rocks. From the depths of the field
she announces: “It is there, it is still there!” She tells me she feels
happy now and that her body feels “all tingly.” She leaves relaxed and
feeling strong “all the way down into my legs.”
Haptic object relations through the sense of balance

We now reach the age between one and two in healthy children; the
age when they begin to discover their uprightness, begin to stand up
and walk.
With the emergence of two poles—the self and the other—the urge
arises to bring these into balance. The perspective of duality experiences
the two hands as organs in their separateness and togetherness. This has
structural consequences for the perception of the body. The mobility of
the two hands and their encounter with other-than-me objects on the
outside requires a stabilizing counterforce inside. Similar to the fulcrum
of a seesaw, the body needs to develop a coordinating center.
Hands—duality in togetherness: Individuals now begin to

perceive their hands as autonomous parts of the body. The hands are
there in their separateness and their urge to move and engage with
other moving objects. This creates a dangerous sense of instability. The
hands are a double organ. In order to search for balance, the hands
move something back and forth, discerning difference in weight. One
hand might dig while the other holds what has been dug out. But even
when they each do something different, they will aim for cooperation.
Hands and body—duality in balance: The hands need to deal
with two opposing needs:
• the newly discovered need to expand into the uncertainty of
outer space and
• the fundamental need for support and certainty.
Curiosity drives the hands into the expanse of the physical world,
but this venture becomes too unsafe without a stable pole inside. And
thus a paradox solution is found in the growing awareness of an inner
axis: the spine. Initially this balance is sought through outside props
similar to the poles a skier uses. Or the hands play with stable–unstable
situations until they find coordination by creating a rotation in the
spine and thus awareness of an inner axis.
I once worked with a middle-aged woman who was highly

traumatized due to the onset of type-1 diabetes when she was 18
months old, which required her from then on to have daily injections,
administered by her mother. When she commenced therapy, she
was dissociated from her body, she was dissociated from her feelings,
dissociated from what she wanted, needed and desired, as all these
impulses had been stifled in her. Her entire childhood had been rigidly
regimented due to the medical requirement to control her food
intake and every other aspect of her life, as she would otherwise
slip into a coma. Months into the therapy, she discovered with great
delight that she could sit on a swivel chair at home and draw with
crayons on paper while she swayed from side to side. She was not
interested at all in any outcome in her drawings, but simply loved the
physical sensation the activity stimulated in her body; she gained for
the first time in her life a sense of self, an inner axis and thus balance,
in what was otherwise an utterly frightening and confusing world for
her. Her urge to draw like this lasted for several months until the
developmental need had been satiated. It became a turning point in
her therapy.
Hands—things in space in balance: Here the hands leave the

oneness of the skin sense and enter the world of duality. They begin
to differentiate between self-perception and object-perception. THERE
is another and it is “somehow” other than me. This is not yet object
creation, but object perception (Brockmann and Geiss 2011 p. 124).
Space here is initially still a two-dimensional order, but the simple
flat field now has left and right, front and back, near and far; it has
corners and diagonals. Once the hands discover the existence of an
object in the space, three-dimensionality is asked for.
Acquisition of haptic balance at the Clay Field: Initially
the Clay Field is the safe and neutral ground for experimenting with
coordination and balance. It takes on the function of the stable third.
The encounter between the self and another something is acted out as a
touching and letting go, as connecting and disconnecting of the hands,
as releasing and arriving. The hands separate from the physical other
and reconnect with it.
They disconnect from the unconditional union they experienced
in the skin sense and now are confronted with a different other. This
otherness often comes as a shock, a flash that strikes through the entire
body. How reliable and trustworthy is this other-than-me thing there?
Individuals might at this point place both hands in the field, lean
on them, then disconnect from the ground, lean back into the body,
returning to themselves—and then make contact again in the field,
checking whether the other is still “there.” Children like to act this out
by covering their eyes with their hands, being “gone” only to reappear
as they release their hands to be “there.” Gone-and-there makes the

other-than-me reliable. Trust is gained through alternating distancing
and connecting—mother leaving and returning—and the Clay Field
becomes the stabilizing third that gives the moving hands and the
moving body a reliable hold.
Another version of this is alternating hand movements of touch-
and-go as a polar oneness of two movements. Occasionally rhythm
now becomes important, for example drumming a beat into the Clay
Field. Contact and distance find stability through rhythmic alternating
patterns, which resonate throughout the body down into the legs.
Pendulating or swaying movements or alternating diagonal stretches
across the field provoke awareness of movement and rotation in the
spine. Initially movements are parallel, then become synchronized, then
alternating, then crossing over. If the body follows—and it needs to
follow—it discovers a vertical axis in the rotation. Thus the surrounding

space becomes something the individual can move in.
Equalization of differences: Now the hands discover they can
do different things. One hand might hold on to the side of the box
while the other journeys or digs in the field. A polar pattern of holding
and motion is coordinated.
If these differences are experienced in “the other,” they require an
ordering principle of the mass or parts of the mass of clay. High and low,
empty and full become spatial orders of a mass in space. Such orders
evoke associations of mountain and valley, lake and tree, swimming
pool and tower. Such opposites, such twoness of things, allow the
hands a gradual differentiation of forms, spaces and movements.
If the clay as mass is included in the sense of balance, the hands
penetrate the material in a synchronized way with both hands. They
hold on to the clay, they “bite” into it in order to find a hold. Handles
emerge as the stabilizing third; these are tested through rattling and
shaking them to assure their stability. With this hold in place, the body
can move and sway and rotate, testing its own weight and substance.
If balance is projected into the space of the Clay Field, the
dimensions of the left and right side, of foreground and background
become of concern; as does the way in which the relationship between
these dimensions can be coordinated.
Next, after the substance of clay has proved reliable enough, the
hands expand their experiments with balance into dividing the mass
into parts. Bits are picked out of a big lump of clay. This is a new
dimension of separation and differentiation. The picked‑out bit becomes

separated from the whole. The hands cause this separation. This is
another imbalance. Oneness is lost. This separation is as existential as
the separation of the hands from the ground. In order to survive this,
individuals again play with “gone-and-there,” picking a bit out and
then reuniting it with the whole. Separation and contact has now been
transferred onto a substance, a thing, an object.
The next developmental step requires the hands to pick two bits
out of the whole and to examine their weight, their difference in both
hands. Such bits are not yet objects with a quality and a form. They are
rather random and simply serve the explorations of balance. They will
be dropped after a few seesawing movements.
More solid bits may be used as “tools.” The hands then “walk”
across the field, holding balls of clay or square-shaped stamps to claim
the space. Afterwards they are deposited on the sides of the field in
diffuse piles. These usually loosely complied mounds mark the space
and mark a center in-between.
The whole Clay Field has thus gained a structured threesome—two
sides and a center—which relates to the two sides of the body and the
central axis of the spine.
All these actions serve to strengthen the sense of balance as an
inner stability that is strong enough to survive the existential separation
into me and another, into subject and object. It assures the self that
balance can be restored, no matter how upsetting the imbalance has
been experienced. (See 2.7a–c.)
2.7a 2.7b
2.7c
Sense of balance: The existential discovery of letting go and reconnecting

with the material is acted out in these three steps.
Gone-and-there makes the other-than-me reliable. Trust is gained
through alternating distancing and connecting—mother leaving and
returning—and the Clay Field becomes the stabilizing third that gives
the moving hands and the moving body a reliable hold.
Haptic object relations through depth sensibility

Developmentally, we now have children aged from three and four
onwards. The third dimension of the core senses comprises the
acquisition of depth sensibility in the hands and in the body. Depth
sensibility describes the awareness of deep-reaching bodily firmness
and weight, the perception of interconnected joints and the structural
build of the hands. Haptic actions accomplish this awareness through
experimentations with pressure. To achieve this, the hands will use any
mass, any heavy yet movable other. Through dealing with a compact
reliability and the passive resistance of a stable mass, the hands gain
inner concentration, a heightened inner stability and inner structure
(Brockmann and Geiss 2011 p. 141). (See 2.9a–d.)
Basic phenomenon: pressure: With “pressure” we describe a
directed haptic impulse. Pressure is an intentional gesture. It is directed
towards an other and effects that other. When the hands apply pressure,
three directions come into play.
• The spine becomes erect. The INNER AXIS grounds the
movement in the feet, gaining a firm standpoint—which is
centering.
• The second is directed from the center of the hand and center
of the body towards something on the outside. It is a centrifugal
PUSH that creates distance.
• The third is a PULL towards the body, such pressure may be
acted out with one finger or pushing with the clenched fist, a
gathering, a concentration of physical strength and tonus.
Hands here explore their inner structure and firmness through pressure;
and they explore it simultaneously as effect onto something and as felt
sense inside the body. They experiment with imprints, pushing away,
pushing together, pulling, and thus they gain an encounter with an
other, creating distance and space in-between.
The Clay Field is particularly suitable for such experimentations. The
clay is a heavy mass, pliable and movable. It is compact, yet contained
in the box. Extroverted pressure and introverted depth sensibility can
thus be acquired (Brockmann and Geiss 2011 p. 142).
Here we are no longer contained in a physical substance as in skin
sense—nor do we have the exploration of stability and instability as in
sense of balance. Here we are dealing with tension and charge directed
towards an opposite; the desire to concentrate and exhilarate one’s

strength and power.
The hands are now firm and filled with tonus; their structure is
visible. They radiate enthusiasm, anticipation and tension. They are
flexible, they can work rhythmically—and they can maintain distance
in the contact with the opposite. They no longer need to cling to the
other for support nor balance it. They can face it and deal with it,
confront it with INTENTION.
Strengthening of the joints: Pressing and pushing are intentional.
The hands want to achieve something noticeable. They want effect.
For this they need reliable stability and flexibility in their joints. In
order to push or pull, press or lift something heavy, the hands have to
concentrate their inner organization, which then resonates throughout
the entire body, giving it firmness, the ability to flex and relax, a solid
stand and reliable movement.
In the skin sense, the hands are round, soft and unstructured;
open for the sensual offerings of the surface. This oneness gains some
structure through the sense of balance. As both hands find support in
the Clay Field while the body leans onto them, the spine and the inner
axis are discovered.
Now, however, the hands experiment with pressure, and the
joints get to know their muscular substance. Duration and flexibility,
a firm tonus in the base of the hands, in their center and in the fingers
provokes the experience of lasting structures in the body. Joints, muscles,
ligaments and the skeleton become one integrated organism. The skin
is firm, containing the individual within a clear boundary.

When the hands make imprints and impressions, pressure is
concentrated in the base of the hands. This corresponds to all other
large joints in the body: the shoulders, pelvis and hips, the knees and
ankles. Most individuals will dig their heels into the ground, even
stand up, when they apply strong downward pressure onto a surface.
This expansion of tonus and bodily organization communicates solid
positioning within the physical self.
Pressure effecting dialog: If the hands experience resistance,
they will respond with increased counter-pressure, which corresponds
to increased physical pressure and tonus in the body. The individual
experiences durability and robustness. Such pressure may be acted out
as pressure with one finger on a single spot, or the clenched fist, the
base of the hand or the elbows. The intensity and direction of the
pressure will leave a mark behind in the clay. The field will mirror the
haptic act; it becomes noticeable and visible.
Under the pressure of the hands, the diffuse, physical opposite
changes in quality, position and form, yet remains an opposite. It
becomes a perceptible object. In this way the hands create a new
dimension of “twoness.” The two are no longer indistinguishably
connected—nor in a state of imbalance that needs adjustment. Here
the hands discover their separateness from the other and their ability to
impact upon this other.
Impressions: Simple, prolonged, intense pressure creates an
impression. It is concentrated and intentional. The hands want to make
an impression; want to affect something, make it visible. Here the hands
experiment with their concentrated firmness. They can hold down, but
they also need to let go in order to rest. Such pressure and release can
take on rhythmic repetition. The body actually remembers rhythmic
pressure more clearly than a constant, held pressure (Brockmann and
Geiss 2011 p. 150). The play between pushing down and letting go—
pushing up—prevents fixation and enlivens the action.
However, children in particular need to test their endurance at
times—“Look how long I can push down!”—and thus experience their
power and simultaneous grounding in their body. Through impressions
the hands acquire a sense for the resistance and reliability of an opposite.
They explore its durability, its positioning—and within they learn to
concentrate and direct their strength. The more “impressively” they
handle this other, the more it becomes defined as an opposite.
Often standing up, the hands press the clay together in the middle,
then press it down. Piles get squashed down, mountains and towers are
vehemently flattened. The hands explore their relentless potency.
2.8a 2.8b
It is visible how the entire body of this six-year-old boy gains a vertical
axis right down into his feet. He experiences structure and strength
through his effort of pressing the clay down and—a little later—testing
the base of the Clay Field. (2.8a–b).
Impressions and uprightness: The heightened tonus in the
hands becomes high physical pressure and concentrated strength.
The whole body becomes aware of such impressions, especially when
they are repeated and endured. The coordination and self-stabilizing
organization of the body parts becomes a conscious achievement.
This is only possible when individuals have gained trust in their own
sense of balance to the extent that they can surrender their need for
horizontal equilibrium and instead experience a united, integrated
vertical, a strengthened vertical axis from the shoulders down along
the spine and into the feet. Thus a core of duality is experienced: one
here, the other there.
Imprints: Next the hands experiment with imprints. Imprints
expand the haptic gestures into visible, traceable marks. Imprints
encompass two aspects: a movement and a perception. The creation
of a trace in the material and the separation from this trace are two
facets of the same act. The hands print and set off; they touch and
let go. And the intention here is to leave a mark, a concrete effect on
the opposite.
Such marks now need a story. They will not be filled in or wiped
away. Here the material has to endure an individual’s actions and allow
permanence. Stability is gained in imprint and release. Separation can
create something enduring and permanent. This is a huge evolutionary
step! Children love to try out such imprints, preferably of their hands,
but also fingers, fists and even faces. Repeated prints give reassurance.
Children make visible, permanent marks in the Clay Field and often even
express interest in how these marks can be made even more permanent
as casts to be taken home. Patterns with fingerprints as rows or tracks
also give assurance of the capacity to create something enduring.
The act of separation: Imprints as haptic action are more, though,
than just the creation of an enduring trace. The more intriguing aspect
is the fact that the hands separate from the mark they have made.
Separation becomes an act of differentiation between intentional
actions and their visible effect (Brockmann and Geiss 2011 p. 155).
This act is based upon a paradoxical polarity of the movement.
The hands need to make intense contact with an opposite in order to
separate from it. Imprint is a complex polar movement of enduring
pressure, its effect and the separation from the created mark (Brockmann
and Geiss 2011 p. 156).
This challenges the reliability of the ground—as well as the

individual’s ability to survive such a separation intact.
The first separation is that from a flat ground. Gone-and-there,
as skin sense, searches for sensory continuity. There-gone as sense of
balance is a loss and retrieval. Gone-and-there as imprint of the hands
actually creates this opposite that they then release. The experience of
this other is predominant. And as the hands deepen, repeat or enhance
the mark they made, it gains visibly concrete form as an image. With
the image the separation of a mark is complete. The mark has become
an object.
Children experience their hands and their effect in the Clay Field
through dints, holes, furrows, ruts, grooves, channels—imprints they
have created with their hands and fists. In this way they take possession
of the field. However, it takes the separation from this action to perceive
the mark simultaneously as “I was there—now I am gone—but the
mark is still there.”
Pushing: In pushing, imprints acquire movement. It is far more
dynamic than simple downward pressure. Now we are dealing with
mass and resistance. How is my movement going to affect the other?
Pushing is extroverted, away from the body. It is linear, intentional
movement. The hands cause distance. They cause the creation of new
space, they cause separation.
When the hands push clay away from the body, they usually
create an increasing mass of material at the opposite end of the field.
With such creation of distancing, the hands explore a new dimension
of duality. The other is no longer found, nor adjusted; it becomes a

creation of the hands. Pushing is a vehement, explicit encounter with
an opposite.
Pushing resonates in all physical aspects of the body. Intense
stretching of the arms requires solid stability in the central axis,
grounding in the pelvis and anchoring in the heels.
If the hands push the material beyond the boundary of the box,
they are acting AGAINST the other. The hands facilitate distance and
separation from the contact. The hands here are tense, firm, and push
off; the separation is short, quick and often vehement. The other is no
reliable opposite—it needs to be GONE. At times here the hands are
overstretched and frozen; they need radical separation.
Space: distance—interspace—actional space: Space in the
Clay Field appears as distance, as interspace and as actional space.
Distance is created when the hands push a mass or an object away and
leave it there. The active individual and the object are differentiated;
each has their own standpoint. Duality has been manifested.
Interspace is the generated space in-between these two poles. It
becomes a space in its own right. “Only when the hands acquire this
interspace can they really understand the other as separate from self ”
(Brockmann and Geiss 2011 p. 166). The interspace invites a relationship
between here (hands/body) and there (the pushed‑away object).
Actional space is also acquired space. It has been generated by
pushing material out, often beyond the boundary of the box. It is a new
dimension that invites exploration. Qualities of closeness and distance,
boundaries, locations, are tested out with the hands. The hands open up
the body through their movements into an experiential field. The inside
of the body begins to resonate with the inside of the field (Brockmann
and Geiss 2011 p. 167).
Pulling: Now the hands want to bring in material, retrieve it, bring
it in close. Pulling is direct, energetic, intentional action. The fingers
open up expectantly to grab the other and pull it into one’s actional
space. Initially the acquired material is diffuse; it has simple qualities
such as “lots” or “little.” The other is not yet an object. Pulling, like
pushing, requires solid bodily organization. Pull requires the stretching
out of arms, fingers, shoulders, then tensing of muscles to bring the
desired mass into a space where it becomes available. The previous over
THERE is now HERE.
Nothing here is circular action. All movements are linear, directed
acts to acquire differentiation.
Once push and pull have become integrated patterns in the hand, the
entire mass of clay becomes available. Now the material can be moved to
the sides, it can be rolled, turned over, divided and put together.
Large formations gain shape, such as mountain or tower versus
valley or lake. Even dinosaur-like figures or monsters may be seen in
the clay. Such are three-dimensional structures in the field. The hands
become amazingly potent; they can move it all, handle it all, own it all
or discard it all.
Drilling: At this stage the inside of the material becomes of
interest; its inner substance, texture, reliability and resistance are being
investigated through drilling and poking into the material. The familiar
enclosure inside the clay, experienced in the skin sense phase, now
becomes directed action. Mostly it is the index finger, occasionally
the thumb or a joint action of the middle fingers. They drill into the
material until they hit the boundary. The bottom of the field becomes
tangible as an encounter in the depth of space. The initial point of

encounter with the ground is an incentive to uncover it, to reveal it and
turn it into a reliable base.
Furthermore, the drilling action requires tonus in the fingers, the
arm and an adjustment of the inner axis to gain maximum effect. Drilling
may be repeated in sequential patterns or be executed as tunnels and
channels. The latter create connections and are often explored with
sensual delight. First images may also appear.
Taking away: Separating large bits, small bits, lots or little; of
importance here is the act of separation and differentiation. Bits are
bulldozed out, shoveled out, cut out, raked or drilled out.
Handling: Something that has been separated from the whole
demands handling. Initially such bits are squashed back into the whole,
then retrieved, pushed and pulled. Gone-and-there is acted out again,
until the bits survive as something special and are deposited outside of
the box or collected in the hands. Piles are placed along the boundary,
often as patterns or emphasizing the corners.
Finally the hands pick up the pieces and gather them in a ball. Young
children often cannot yet include the thumb and need to rely on pressure
only in order not to drop the ball. In the repetition of taking more and
more material, the actions become more directed and confident. Finally
the ball is put into a central space in the field. Such an object remains in
place; it is enduring and lasting, while the hands undergo further actions
in the field. Children often want to take such a ball home.
The other, the object, has become visible; it is durable, firm and
stable. The hands know now that they can create it and that their
creation has lasting stability. And of course this is also reflected in the
confirmed body organization, which has now gained stability within,
direction and a place in space.
Depth sensibility: This ten-year-old boy

is still struggling to find sufficient
strength in his hand. The wrist is
bent, his shoulder twisted. His
body is not aligned. Later in the
session, he stood up and could
then experience better alignment,
which gave him a growing sense
of strength and allowed him to
2.9a fulfill his intention and dig out
the material.
Depth sensibility: Here, though, he

vents his frustration by digging
out chunks of material with an ice
cream scoop, then he attacks the
clay with a stick, poking holes into
the field in an aggressive rhythmic
manner.
He then returns all the chunks
to the whole and flattens the field,
2.9b
then focussing on the center of the
field.
Skin sense: His right hand now digs

into the center, right down to
the bottom. His hand has gained
strength and tonus. It is interesting
to observe how tentatively the left
hand acts in comparison.
2.9c
Depth sensibility: The same boy in

the same session, now towards
the end. He has stood up, and the

alignment in his arms and hands
with his body is obvious. Now he
radiates confidence and intention,
rather than frustration and anger.
2.9d
The topography of the hands

Another tool for my orientation as a therapist during Clay Field sessions
is a topography of the hands that has its origin in palmistry and in
Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan and Ayurvedic medicine.
Palmistry predates recorded history. The practice originated in
India and dates back 4000 to 10,000 years. Aristotle, Julius Caesar
and Alexander the Great are supposed to have read hands. In the
nomenclature of palmistry, the thumb, for example, has to do with
willpower, personal drive to manifest one’s potential; the index finger
is associated with leadership and the desire to influence others; the
middle finger has the tendency to seek, or impose, or simply attend
to small details; the ring finger is linked to artistic and creative drives
and the public persona; the small finger is the witty one, characterizing
internal communication. In addition there is the significance of the life
lines and other features of the hand.
Our fingertips display a set of prints that do not change after five
months prior to birth. They are uniquely ours. No two sets of fingerprints
are alike, which is why fingerprinting is used in criminology to identify
perpetrators.
In Eastern and Ayurvedic medicine alike, many body parts mirror
the entire physiological complexity of an individual. Just as reflexology
can reach and treat all organs through pressure points at the soles of
the feet, acupuncture can address any part of the body, predominantly
the organs, through specific tsubos (pressure points). Through the tsubos
the meridians, a non-physical circulation network in our body that

channels chi (life energy), can be accessed. Eastern medicine is almost
entirely based on this highly complex energy system. Acupuncture
and acupressure manipulate the flow of chi in the meridians, which
are linked to the organs, in order to rebalance the chi in accordance
with the principles of yin and yang (Ohashi 1976). Every organ and
each body function has its particular meridian. All meridians end in
the fingertips and all meridians can be read as a pulse in the wrist!
Pulse diagnosis, even though it has no scientific basis in the west,
distinguishes 16 different pulses, one for each organ. It is regarded
as an ancient, amazingly accurate tool, a diagnostic core component
that has been applied in eastern medicine for thousands of years. For
example, Hindu Mudras involve specific hand gestures, which use these
pressure points to enhance concentration in meditation or for medical
purposes (da Silva 2000).
This subtle energy system most certainly comes into play when
the hands move in the clay. The chi energy in the meridians becomes
activated through touching and manipulating the clay. At times I may
encourage individuals to rub their pulse, their wrist, into the clay. The
connection can be amazingly soothing and rebalancing, as all meridians
are being stimulated.
Let us also not forget that countless nerves, similar to marionettes,
connect our hands with our spinal cord and thus with our brain. The
ancient Greek “neuron” meant a cord or fibre. When these neurons are
cut, loss of either movement of sensation occurs. Galvani and other
modern scientists showed that electrical forces were associated with the
control mechanism for voluntary movement, that a complex interaction
between sensory and motor nerves connects our hands with the spinal
cord and the brain. And, as discussed in Chapter 1, Wilson (1998)
suggests that our brain, our neo-cortex, was shaped and stimulated by
the increasingly sophisticated use of our hands and senses.
The hands represent a micro-image of the entire person; and when
I accompany an individual at work in the Clay Field, I will intricately
observe the hands as if they were the entire person moving in this
symbolic “world.”
The base of the hand represents the pelvis. It will act out the
vital urges to defend, conquer and own. The base of the hand is often
used to push large amounts of clay away or around, almost like an
earthmoving device, bulldozing through the field, doing the rough
work. (See 2.10a–c.) The hands here are actively ploughing, digging,
grabbing. The thumb is not a finger! The thumb is attached to the

base of the hand and it is significantly different in its function from
the fingers. It is designed to execute the powerful and willful impulses
that arise from the vital urges of the pelvis and abdomen, the seat
of our survival impulse, our emotions and sexual drive. The thumb
is capable of significantly enhancing the effectiveness of impulses
coming from the base of the hand. Its employment can vastly increase
the amount of clay that can be dug up, moved and shifted around.
(See 2.10d.)
The base of the hand acts out kinesthetic activities such as pounding
and pushing the clay. According to Lusebrink (see Hinz 2009 p. 57),
such activities can release energy and tension and are designed to
find an inner rhythm. The kinesthetic experience will increase arousal
and be followed by relaxation; it decreases tension and increases
emotional awareness.
All pressure is at the base of the

hand. The fingers are stretched
away from the clay.
2.10a
Here the core push comes from the
arms into the wrists and from there
into the base of the hands.
2.10b
The left hand is pushing with the
base to clear material away.
2.10c
Here the thumbs are the most active
and strongest force to dig up the
clay. The thumbs are not fingers.
They are capable of enhacing the
effectiveness of impuses coming
from the base of the hands.
2.10d
The center of the hand is the “heart” place. In order to feel the
material, the hand has to lie flat on the surface. (See 2.10a and b.) Only
in this way can the central part of the hand come into full contact with
the clay. The addition of water often helps to enhance this experience.
Actions here are touching, smoothing, stroking and caressing the
material. This sensory experience (Lusebrink 1992) will allow the
emergence of emotions such as sadness, perhaps disgust, if the clay is
perceived as dirty, or a state of calm, focused attention. As the depth of
the experience increases, internal sensations and internal rhythms find
coordination. Sensual and personal memories are being stimulated. The
mind can relax (Hinz 2009 p. 77; Lusebrink 1992).
The rolling of a ball between the two hands always happens in the
middle of the hand and literally activates a heartfelt sense of union, a
coming together of opposites, also in the brain. Such rhythmic action
will communicate a harmonizing impulse through nerve receptors in
the hands to the brain hemispheres. The rolling of a ball is one of the
most effective ways to stimulate the integration of information from
the left and right hemispheres of the brain, to balance cognition and
emotion (Hinz 2009; Lusebrink 1992; Wilson 1998).
The moment the center of the hand is the core focus of perception—
rather than just accidentally coming into contact with the clay during
the bulldozing phase—action slows down, and a more introverted
response sets in that is concerned more with the quality of the material
than what I can do with it. The center of the hand has the skin sense
as its core function. Such movements encourage sensory perception.
The right hand is gently exploring

the quality of the clay with full
touch of the flat hand.
2.11a
Both hands enjoy a moment of

stillness. The sphere is even lifted
close to the heart.
2.11b
The fingers: The fingertips in particular act for the “head” and the
senses. The fingers, if we disregard the thumb, are physically weak in
comparison with the base of the hand. They have, however, an innate
sensitivity (2.12a). They can explore any surface and “see” what is
there. Most adults work with closed eyes in the Clay Field. Their
fingertips, however, will allow them to perceive with great clarity what
is there. Fingertips can see, smell, taste, hear and certainly touch. Just
as a blind person can read Braille with the fingertips, an individual
can read the shifting landscapes in the Clay Field. The fingertips will
be able to define the created outcome as an image. They will build
the bridge to naming the experience and to recognizing the outcome.
Through the fingertips, the cognitive function comes into play; after
the motor impulse from the base of the hand has slowed down, after
affect has been processed, and after the sensory response has been
explored with the center of the hand, cognition comes into play
through the fingertips (2.12d). Here we find the symbolic component
experience (Lusebrink 1992; Hinz 2009 p. 167). Individuals will
discover their internal wisdom, “make sense” of their experiences,
discover or rediscover parts of their self. The Clay Field process is
now perceived as a symbolic journey that has revealed hidden parts
of the self.
A healthy process usually works “bottom-up” (Ogden, Minton and
Pain 2006), starting at the base of the hand and then progressing up;
moving from a vital life impulse in the base of the hand, via sensory
integration through the flat hand to cognitive insight with the fingertips.
A top-down approach in the Clay Field can be an indicator of fear, of

feeling incapable of handling the material, and thus the issues at hand.
Careful observation is required to determine whether the individual
who can only touch the clay with the fingertips is simply shy and
tentative or dissociated and in the “head.” (See 2.12c and d.)
Most traumatized clients will not be able to connect with the clay
through the full hand. Dissociation from the body will manifest as
dissociation from the full hand. In such cases often only the fingers are
used to touch the clay, and those fingers tend to be tense, overstretched
or even rigid with fear.
Fine motor skills to create a small

detail. These fingers are “seeing.”
They are capable of defining the
symbolic texture of the object they
are shaping, which in this case was
a wooden boat. Not only is the
image defined, but also its intrinsic
textural and symbolic qualities.
2.12a
The fingertips are used to push
away from the base of the box.
Fearful tension is held in the fingers.
These hands are afraid to touch
the ground. The client is trying to
distance herself from full contact
with her body through fear-driven
control in the head.
2.12b
The fingers here are used to
penetrate the material. The client
does not trust her instinctual
impulses and prefers to stay in
control.
2.12c
The fingertips are used to refine
and differentiate an almost finished
bowl. The anticipation in the left
hand is a remarkable response.
2.12d
The alignment—or misalignment—between these core zones within

the hand is another criterion that comes into play in the therapist’s
observations. Do the fingertips avoid touching the material? Are the
hands fearfully overstretched, away from direct contact? Or are the
fingers bent, cut off from the base of the hand, interrupting the energy
flow at one or several points? Can someone only use tiny, fiddly
movements of rolling and squishing clay between the fingertips (a sign
of unhealthy dissociation from inner process and the physical self )?
Traumatized hands can look like “dead spiders,” all life energy drawn
out of them, and often submersion in warm water is initially the only
way to bring them back to life. (See 2.13a–d.)
These hands are in healthy full

contact with the material.
2.13a
The fingers of this client are tensely
overstretched away from the
material, resisting full contact.
2.13b
These fingers appear lifeless. The
client has disconnected with the
experience and has gone into her
head. She is holding the material,
but she is no longer with it, in
communication with it. Rather she
is thinking about it.
2.13c
These hands, too, appear lifeless.

This client was actually frozen in
traumatic memories at the time.
She felt helpless and incapable
of moving. It took a phase of
immersion in warm water before
her hands could regain movement.
2.13d
The alignment of the hands with the arms and the body is also
important. Can energy flow freely from the body through the arms into
the hands or is this flow interrupted in the shoulders, the elbows or the
wrists? A resolved process will allow a sense of aliveness to stream from
the feet up through the entire body.
The wrist can play an important role in helping to reconnect the
head with the body. Chinese medicine names 16 pulses in the wrist,
one for each meridian. All organs can be contacted through the wrist.
Body contact can be enhanced through encouraging clients to connect
the wrist and the pulses with the clay by sliding the forearm across the
field or “creaming” the hands and wrist with clay. (See 2.14a–c.)
Even though the fingers of this cli-

ent appear slightly overstretched,
she was at the time gently rubbing
her wrists against the smooth clay.

Added water had made the clay
more slippery. She was a single
mother and thoroughly enjoyed the
connecting sensation. It stopped
her being very “busy” in the field,
2.14a
“just like at home.” Instead she ex-
perienced nurturing connectedness,
something she deeply missed in her
life.
This woman cried while she was

creaming her wrists and forearms,
touching them in a nurturing,
caressing way. She had experienced
severe neglect and abuse as an
infant—which she got rid of by
clearing all the clay out of the
box—and she was now fulfilling
her developmental need. The right
2.14b
hand is the caregiver for the left in
this moment, but she would switch
roles as well.
Here both wrists are being pressed

into the clay. It helped this woman,
who had been diagnosed with
PTSD, to stay present and not
dissociate, which she would easily
do. This way she could stop and
connect with her body in a way
that did not overwhelm her.
2.14c
The forearms and elbows can enhance further sensory integration.

The therapist can encourage an individual to include the forearms

and elbows in their explorations. Digging with the elbows and the
forearms or leaning on them as in the cases below activates earliest
body memories. This is how we crawled as infants. Especially when
such early impulses to venture out into the world were frustrated or
traumatic, reliance on the elbows and forearms can reconnect us with a
core trust in being supported. Clients who are fearful of touching the
clay or who lack support and structure often find unfamiliar strength
through “walking” and digging with their elbows in the field. Thus to
suggest working the clay with the elbows or leaning onto the forearms
and pushing with them can at times be a useful intervention. (See 2.14a
and b.)
For this woman it was of particular

significance to claim the entire field
as “mine.” She no longer had to
share her space with her twin sister.
2.15a
This woman needed desperately to
be supported. The elbows give her
structure. Being carried in this way
allows her to rest.
2.15b
Encasements of the hands and forearms in the clay serve to

strengthen, nurture and safeguard a weak or needy personality aspect.
(See 2.16a–c.) Many clients, especially adult clients, will build such a
container themselves, but in some cases, especially when working with
children, it may need to be the therapist who provides this shelter. I

have mentioned two case histories in the section on balance. Often it is
the child archetype that is in need of nurturing and strengthening. An
art therapist who is working in a women’s shelter shared that almost all
the children ask to be held in the clay, which she builds around their
hands, at the beginning of every session. Very young children love to
have their feet packed into the clay. To be encased in this manner gives
an unconditional hold, a womb-like nurturing space. Some like to have
the inside filled with warm water; others simply enjoy the firmness. All
this will satiate developmental needs through the skin sense.
This woman came from a violent

home. The protective encasement of
her left “female” hand and forearm
provided by the “male” right hand
had a profound rebalancing effect
on her. Before this encasement the
left hand was paralyzed (trauma-
related). After emerging from this
healing “womb,” her left hand
2.16a
could move and dared to express
rage together with the right hand.
This ten-year-old boy was diag-

nosed with ADD (attention deficit
disorder). He built this enclosure
himself. His right hand is still in a
fist, tense and aggressive, as he pre-
sents himself to the world. While
being held, his right hand gradu-
ally relaxes, until it is completely
open and can trust again.
2.16b
Now the left hand goes through
the same process. Being safe allows
him to completely open up, which
is visible in the upturned, receptive,

vulnerable open hand. His behavior
at school changed significantly
after this session.
2.16c
When I observe hands in the Clay Field, I do study them as if I were

witnessing the whole person of the client in a miniature world. It is
about the way an individual negotiates orientation, safety, order,
contact, and the associated emotions. It is astounding how disoriented
and powerless many hands of clients are. And it is even more astounding
how, with a few prompts, these hands can reclaim missed opportunities,
find a safe place, establish nurturing contact, without engaging in story,
in biographical memories.
Of course, at the end of a session cognitive integration becomes
important, but too much focus on distressing and traumatic memories
at the beginning is often retraumatizing, time-consuming and
unproductive, offering no solutions. At the conclusion of a session,
when a solution or new attitude has been found, insights into past
events become uplifting, encouraging a client to leave a session with an
acute sense that change is possible. It has occurred.
Healthy hands are confident to take, grab, hold, mold, push, pat,
pound, stroke, caress… They will engage in a lively exchange with the
“world” they find in the box. Healthy hands have trust to rest when
needed. Traumatized hands are either hyperaroused, involved in a
frantic struggle for survival in a hostile environment, or they are hypo-
aroused, paralyzed in terror. Terrified, frozen hands do not rest—when
they don’t move, they cannot relax! This is why warm water is often
helpful; it is the equivalent to taking a bath in order to calm down.
Deuser emphasizes that there is a core difference between
developmental deficiencies and trauma, even though this might
not be evident at first sight. Children and adults who have suffered
developmental setbacks will take to the Clay Field like fish to
water; they will take one breath and begin to swim. The hands will
intrinsically know what to do and reclaim missed opportunities very
quickly, especially since all developmental stages from prenatal states
to adolescence can be accessed nonverbally in the Clay Field. As seen

in Chapter 1, the hands can close developmental gaps and inform the
brain of necessary or revised learning steps.
These steps are simply contained in the clay. The material evokes
the ancient memory banks of touch, the age-old learning that comes
from handling things. These memories offer themselves to the hands,
and the hands will take the opportunity. This might be conscious or
unconscious to the client; it will not matter. The hands will know what
to do and will negotiate their needs.
Traumatized hands, however, do not know what to do. They are
fearful and disconnected and will need therapeutic intervention in
order to build up sufficient trust and safety in the field before they
can address and resolve the traumatic event. We will discuss these
approaches in detail in Chapter 5.
The therapeutic dialog with the hands

In order to support the haptic language of the hands, the art therapist
needs to observe closely which parts of the client’s hands are in primary
contact with the material and how the hands move. Accordingly, the
art therapist will remain in an unobtrusive dialog with the client, who,
if adult, will have his or her eyes closed. The task is to encourage
movement as well as to enhance the client’s awareness of his or her
movements without stimulating a cognitive process. “Awareness” in this
context means to become conscious of the sensorimotor messages the
hands communicate to the client. This is not a cognitive reflection of
past or present events, but a re-experiencing of oneself in a substitute
world, the Clay Field, in the here-and-now. The setting allows the libido
to find its flow in a way that is innate to the client, rather than fitting
it into conditions determined by the socialization process. Rather than
appealing to the ego and an individual’s self-control, this kinesthetic
process connects us with our core self, with our sensory awareness, and
flows from there.
As the accompanying art therapist, I will pay attention to four key
stages in the therapeutic dialog that I describe in the following.
1. Flow
Flow encourages movement. Such movements relate predominantly to
the base of the hand, even though the full hand is in action. Flow
activates the libido.

Most clients are initially tentative, shy, unsure. As soon as their hands
begin to move, as they commence poking, squashing and shifting the
clay, the therapist will verbally support movements with comments
such as, “Yes, yes,” “Take as much material as you want to,” “Go as deep
as you like,” “Yes, follow this impulse,” “Yield to every wish.” This is
designed to ensure that the client gains trust in the setting and is able to
overcome embarrassment, critical reflection or impulses to do things such
as intentionally creating an object, which we are all conditioned to do,
rather than simply following the urges in the hands. Once the head can
let go of concepts and “shoulds,” libido begins to flow.
This is the phase when the hands are active. The therapist’s task
at this stage is to encourage the client to keep moving, not to drop
out of the contact with the clay, not to stop and think, and not to be
too hindered by embarrassment, shame or self-consciousness. Whatever
wants to happen should be allowed to happen unconditionally. So the

therapist might accompany movements the hands make with a simple:
• Great…
• Keep going…
• Take more material…
• You can go deeper, if you like…
Even just an “m-hm” sound might be sufficient to communicate to
clients that what they are doing is OK. This lasts as long as the hands
move in full contact with the material. Here the hands are active, they
follow a motor stimulus. They dig, grab, grasp, knead plough, squash,
push and pound the clay. The Flow Phase is dominated by the motor
actions of the depth sensibility.
2. How
Here the “heart center” of the inner hand comes into contact with the
clay. The hands begin to smooth the clay, they make contact with their
flat inner surface, the hands want to explore the sensory quality of the clay.
It is important to accept from the therapist’s perspective that the
clay takes on whatever quality we project onto it: cold, hard, resistant,
fertile, inviting, warm, soft—the clay reflects whatever we assign to it.
In order to enhance the client’s perception, the therapist will now ask
“How…?” questions to fine-tune the awareness and activate the senses.
• How do your hands find this…?

• How do you experience…?
• How does the material feel in this corner?
• How is it to touch this bump there?
• How does the ground feel?
And the client will begin to define the qualities in the field. Such qualities
might initially just be “good” or “bad.” If appropriate, the therapist
might gently push on and ask: “How does ‘good’ feel?” However, at
the stage of transition between the Flow Phase and the How Phase,
the hands can briefly surface, but then dive back into the clay for more
motor impulses that belong to the Flow Phase. A therapist who asks
how-questions while the hands are following such a motor impulse will
just irritate a client and interrupt the flow.
The challenge for the therapist is to read the language of the hands
accurately enough to accompany the client, not to lead.
Water often helps to increase touch with the flat hand. Once a
quality is defined, either the client’s hands might decide to go back to
Flow, into more motor impulses, or the increased awareness will evoke
an image: “This bump here feels like a mountain.” The How Phase is
dominated by the sensory fine-tuning of the skin sense.
3. What
What-questions stop movement and the client will go into the head
and think. At this stage, often the fingertips are involved in reading and
“seeing” what is there.
A what-question asks for a gestalt. “Gestalt” translates from German
as “creation;” it implies both the completed form and the process of its
becoming.
• Do you have an image?
• What do you see?
• What is happening?
You may have noticed that I never refer to the clay as “clay” but rather
as “material,” simply because the clay very quickly stops being clay and
instead turns into skin, a landscape, the mud in the creek bed I played
in as a child…
What-questions invite descriptions and images. However, if the

therapist asks for an image too early, the flow of libido will be seriously
interrupted; the hands will become irritated and might have to go back
to Flow, with the therapist’s assistance, in order to reconnect with the
inner motor impulse.
Therefore I prefer to wait until the client comes up with an image, at
which point I modulate my how-questions towards a sensory definition,
which can then easily incorporate the image. The client might say, “It
feels like a mountain.” From then on, the therapist will engage with the
client’s image and (for example) ask, “How does your hand feel on top
of the mountain?”
I have at times referred to these three stages using the metaphor
of driving a car, in which case Flow is the gas pedal, How refers to
the gears and What represents the brakes. What-questions address the
head. What-questions interrupt Flow. As soon as the therapist asks
what-questions, the hands will stop moving. The appropriate time for
this arises when a process has come to a final form, to the fulfillment
of the movement, and it is time to open eyes and have a look. There is,
however, the situation when a client is in danger of being overwhelmed
by inner events, stuck in a blind, frustrating Flow Phase where there
is just acting out without reaching any awareness. In this latter case
it is appropriate to interrupt the unproductive or even harmful Flow
with an intervention: “What are you doing here, [insert client’s name]?”
Cognitive processing is then appropriate until insights have been
gained and adjustments can be made.
4. Integration
Now it is time to open the eyes—time for reflection and cognitive
integration. Children will not work with their eyes closed, but they
too will need ways that validate their experience. This is a time to
reorient in space and time. Individuals have been in an altered state
of consciousnes; they are returning from a journey. They need time to
readjust and integrate the experience cognitively. It can be helpful to
check how the body feels now.
• How is the felt sense now?
• What has changed?
• What is new? Unfamiliar?
Clients will ask, “Where have I arrived? How does this new self I have
discovered want to move and connect with the surroundings?” The

intense projection onto the Clay Field needs to be taken back. I like to
work with affirmations; sentences that will connect the experience to
thought forms. The gestalt principle of identifying with the creation
in the Clay Field can be of assistance. For example, a client will look
into the field and say, “This is beautiful.” I will then encourage the
individual to test what it feels like to say “I am beautiful.” Or “This
looks so peaceful!” can translate into “I feel at peace.”
New-found strength needs integration; resources that have been
revealed during the process need to be put into words. Intuitive concepts
may want to be more consciously worded—for example, “How I can be
strong and safe now?”
Sometimes this is an intermittent stage: the client is clearly not
finished, but needs to have a look and reflect or share biographical
details; and will then go back to another round, back to another
Flow–How Phase for further clarification.
Some basic rules

Some basic rules apply when the therapist companion observes the
hands in the Clay Field.
• Full contact of the hands with the material—feet on the
ground—hands and arms aligned with the body—and the use
of lots of material is the healthiest and most committed way of
working.
• Water can enhance the contact.
• Poking and knocking movements indicate growth and fertility.
It is as if we are knocking on a door—anybody in there?
• Hitting the clay in the context of magical thinking signifies “I
need to break something to make what is in there come out.”
• Penetration with thumbs shows ego determination.
• Making everything very thin and fiddly indicates fear.
• A circular way of working points towards a ritualistic approach.
• Moving all the clay stands for taking possession, taking it all on.
• There is never more than the given amount of clay that was
initially in the box.
• Holding on to the sides of the box, or resting the elbows on
the table while working, blocks the movement that comes from
the body. It indicates fear and lack of security.

• Working on the surface relates to the inner surface of a person.
• Going deep into the material equals inner depths.
• Taking all the clay out of the box signifies the need for a new
beginning, the liberation from suppression and abuse, getting
rid of contaminating, superimposed issues, usually internalized
authority figures; anything that is not “I.”
• Once the clay is out of the box, it magically returns to a neutral
state and can be reused in a new context. Sometimes the clay
needs to be washed in water to purify it before it can be reused.
• This is not the case when lumps of clay or created objects have
been given a specific meaning before they were placed outside
of the box. In this instance they remain changed.
• Representations of real-life partners, children and friends

do not belong inside the box once individuals have gained
adolescence. The field now is the client’s soul space. Loved
ones can be placed around the field, but not inside it.
• Whatever the hands can handle, the client can handle. Sessions
will only become concerning when clients cannot touch the
material. As long as the hands are capable of dealing with
the clay, the client has a medium at hand that can transform
whatever has emerged. Clients may cry and think they cannot
do “this,” but as long as their hands do it, they can process their
experience, even though it may seem overwhelming.
A young woman had experienced a full-term miscarriage six years

previously. Half way through her Clay Field process she suddenly
realizes that the intense pressure her hands apply is like re-
experiencing the birth of this dead child. The physical and emotional
memory surfaces unexpectedly with huge intensity. She screams. Her
hands hang on to the clay while her body wants to run away and tears
stream down her face. She begs to be let go, but her hands hang on.
With the therapist’s support, she has the courage to go through with
it. She holds the clay child in her arms, something she was not allowed
to do at the time in the hospital. She rocks it and grieves. She presses
it to her heart. She talks to it, declares her love. She takes her time
with more rocking, until she can calm down and breathe deeply—and
then she gently releases her dead child into the Clay Field box; she
bids it farewell, covers it with a cloth, and puts it and herself to rest.
She later called this a life-changing session. She could go home
and dismantle the shrine for her daughter and other things she had
held on to for far too long; she buried her little girl’s clothes and
began to live. What was important was that throughout this session,
even though she thought she couldn’t handle her overwhelming grief,
her hands all along knew what needed to be done and would not
let go.
In the following months she re-partnered, and she was able
finally get on with her life.
Deuser once defined sexuality as the wish to incarnate, the wish to

be touched and to touch. Clay is a very sensual material. The Clay
Field experience is often sexual in its symbolism and its experience of
touch. It takes very little to have a penis shape emerge or to experience
an opening as a vulva. Such acts, while they are sensual, are never
directly sexual, even though they might remind a client of sexual
experiences. A healthy approach to one’s sexuality reflected in the work
with clay is, again, a full touch and the use of lots of material—even
if this then evokes embarrassing, conflicting or traumatized feelings.
An unhealthy attitude is apparent when a person indulges in fantasies,
fiddling with the material, touching it only with the fingertips. If such
behavior persists without arriving at expression of such inner images
in the clay, if it is not possible to engage the hands and they remain
dissociated from the material, then the work at the Clay Field has to
be discontinued.
A client who supports her heroin addiction by prostitution can

only masturbate the clay with her fingertips while simultaneously
engaging in sexual fantasies.
I quickly shifted to a less tactile art therapy medium with her.
Movements that are cause for concern

• Little movements with the fingertips within a small, tight space
often indicate disturbed sexuality.
• The same applies for thin, fiddly movements. It all happens in
the head; no translation of the movements into the physical
happens, the libido is disconnected, and therefore the vehicle

for transformation is not accessible.
• Fear of touching the clay can occur if a numinous quality is
projected into the material. The clay is charged, loaded with
some overpowering force—death, for example.
In these cases it is recommended that one discontinue the work. Clay
is a regressive material and can be too provocative, even dangerous,
especially for clients with pathological disorders.
Sometimes clients are very fearful of getting “lost” in the field; they
may feel a threat of being overwhelmed, or lack cognitive and sensory
awareness, due to trauma or severe developmental setbacks. Here it can
be helpful if the therapist accompanies their process at the Clay Field
with a continuous commentary. As though commentating a football
match to a televised audience, the therapist companion will describe
every movement the hands make, using the client’s name, and, where
appropriate, also validate the client’s experience. “Peter is now digging
really deep. This is very brave of Peter. And now Peter is filling the
hole with water…” In such a case the therapist takes on the cognitive
function as proxy for the client. The commentary does not interpret,
but can give the client the assurance that he or she is not alone, that
it is possible to survive the journey in the field, that his or her own
voice is not lost, even when the individual feels overwhelmed. While
most people would find such ongoing commentary irritating or even
annoying, for some it can provide the invaluable assurance of being
cared for and not left alone.
Kinesthetic messages of the hands

Kinesthetic movements of the hands in the Clay Field can be observed
in three main categories.
Acquired movements are the physiological equivalent of
“shoulds”—they represent conditionings and are characterized by a
forced quality and lack of vitality in the hands. The flow of libido into
the hands is interrupted by various angles at the wrist, in the knuckles
and in the fingers. Especially the fingers appear stiff, labored, or lack
energy. The elbows may want to rest on the table, or the forearm
might lean on the side of the field. One can perceive one movement
and then another movement that will contradict the first impulse. It is
the kinesthetic equivalent of “I want, but…;” “I am really angry, but I
should not show this to anyone;” “I wish I could be really messy, but I
should behave.”
Frozen movements are due to traumatic experiences where
the client could not move, due to the immobility response of the
involuntary nervous system. Hands here will either not be able to move
at all, look like “dead spiders,” or they will operate with a minimum of
strength, energy and courage. Such hands appear disoriented, lifeless;
many cannot touch the clay at all, or they remain strictly at the surface
and only scratch patterns into the material with a fingertip or a tool.
Self-movements are natural, flowing and animated; they lead to
healing, solutions and authenticity. Here arms, elbows, wrists, hands
and fingers are aligned and follow and support movement in one
direction. Energy can flow, and clients experience a sense of satisfaction.
The quality of all actions, including the resting of the hands, is alive,
charged with presence, with fullness in the here-and-now.
Part II
Setting the Scene

for Work at the
Clay Field
Chapter 3
The Work Set-up at

the Clay Field
This chapter looks at the various components that form the basis for
a Clay Field session. It defines the role of the clay as the primary art
material provided. It investigates the purpose of the bowl of water and
the enormously important function of the box. The role of the therapist
as the accompanying “human you” will be discussed, as will the props
that can help to facilitate a session.
Work at the Clay Field begins with a simple setting. On the table
sits a flat box filled with clay: the Clay Field. This is simply an
object that initially has no specific significance. It is something
tangible that can be grasped, something that is there, just as many
other things. It offers itself to the hands. The therapist companion
encourages perceiving this object with the hands—preferably with
closed eyes. This setting reflects a model of all experiences on which
individuals base their idea of the world and their relationship to
the world: something tangible is there that can be touched and
experienced—and this contact needs to be invited through another
human you. (Deuser 2009 p. 11)
98
The Work Set-up at the Clay Field 99
The clay
Clay is neutral, pliable and ancient. It is the primal material of creation.
Indeed, God created man in the Book of Genesis, as well as in
innumerable other creation myths, from clay and breath.
A Clay Field holds approximately 15 kilos of smooth, non-gritty
clay. Enough to provide resistance and a “world” for the hands, but also
no more than can be lifted; young children may need less clay than
adults. No more clay is provided than what can be contained in the
field.
The clay has three core qualities:
• It offers a hold, something to hold on to. The hands can
firmly grasp something concrete. The material is tangible. It
can be moved and “dealt with.” It has weight. No Clay Field
process can begin unless the hands have found a way to connect
with the material and to establish their individual certainty
with the clay. The clay offers safety by simply being there; the
client is prompted to relate to it. Children, for example, when
they say “Tell me what I should do” are really asking “Tell me
how I can find a hold.”
• It is limitless in its availability. The limited amount will
provoke in us the cycle of creation and destruction. Thus we
create and then intentionally or unconsciously will have to
destroy our creation in order to progress. Every movement of
creation is simultaneously a movement of destruction; every
imprint of the hands changes the field irrevocably. Nothing

is constant. The possibilities, however, are limitless. At the end
of the session, no product will be there to take home. The
field will simply go back to its beginning state of limitless
availability where all is possible.
• It mirrors and reflects whatever is done to it. Clay as such
is neutral. It will, however, absorb and reflect every contact
made with it. All our dealings within the symbolic world of the
field become visible. Clay in this context makes libido and the
flow of libido visible.
It is important to remember that the clay in the context of clay therapy
is not used to intentionally create an object; nothing will be fired and
made permanent after the session. Clients do not take anything home.
It is also important to remember that adult clients will, if possible,

work with their eyes closed at the Clay Field. Visual perception is
consciously discouraged. Familiar social patterns of interaction are also
virtually non-existent. Individuals enter what could be called an altered
state of consciousness.
“Education of the senses” is one of Deuser’s definitions of art
therapy. In Clay Field therapy all the focus is on the sense of touch,
on haptic perception. The Clay Field activates the ancient evolutionary
steps we took as humans from the Stone Age to civilization; from
prenatal developmental stages up to adulthood. Through tactile
experiences the clay can activate a wide spectrum of brain functions:
kinesthesia and proprioception (self-perception in space), emotion,
affect, feeling, perception, cognition and symbolic understanding. It
connects us to archetypes, biography and social learning. It connects us
to body memories. The contact with the clay produces synesthesia, the
experience of a primary sense—in this case touch—as the source of all
senses: smell, touch, hearing, vision and taste.
It is hard to define the mystery that actually takes place when the
hands touch the clay; to name the chemistry that will turn a simple motor
impulse into a complex sensory experience. Through grasping the clay I
grasp myself. The material reflects. It gives feedback about every impulse
of contact. And this feedback is absolutely neutral. The clay does not
comment, judge, laugh or ridicule. It is simply there. Thus all perception
that happens through touching the clay is self-perception. It invites a
process through which I can find, understand and recognize myself.
Consciousness of the senses is awareness. Such consciousness is not

intellectual, nor cognitive. Awareness suggests that I perceive myself
and the other as timeless, in a state of being. It bypasses the ego as a
source of identity and connects us with a profound and unshakable
sense of self.
The water
The water is an essential part
of the set-up. It is advisable to
offer warm water. Water can take
on innumerable qualities. It can
be used to make the clay softer
and more pliable, to polish and
smooth it, to enhance contact and
full touch.
Water is a cleaning element. For practical purposes it can be used

to wash the hands, but it also comes into play for spiritual and healing
purposes, to purify or to baptize the clay. It has a core function when
working with victims of sexual abuse, where cleaning and washing and
purification rituals are of huge importance.
Water is poured into the field to fill rivers, moats, lakes and chalices.
It can make the ground slippery and enhance the movement of figures.
Watered down, clay becomes increasingly formless until it is
virtually soup. This primal mud (Urschlamm) can reconnect us with
earliest childhood memories. It can be used as body paint to cream the
face, the arms and hands. Soft clay appeals to the skin sense and is a
reminder of earliest touch.
The addition of water will make the clay increasingly formless and
matriarchal in the archetypal sense. As slushy soup it can contain the
hands. They can float and rest in it, similar to the embryo contained in
the womb. Liquid clay enhances skin contact.
However, in order to construct and build something, to do
something with it, especially for all vertical structures, one needs the
clay to be firm, with little water content. Its ability to take on shape, to
be formed, relates to the patriarchal archetype.
Children move in their developmental stages from a liquid, formless
state in which they were contained, as in the womb, to an increasingly
solid existence where they shape their world and take charge. If the
developmental impulse towards a more solid form remains delayed,
the therapist can introduce glass marbles into the slosh to stimulate
the sensorimotor impulse of form-giving, which is related to the ego.

Developmentally, the emergence of the ego coincides with our ability
to move from crawling infant into an upright posture. Only then we
can differentiate between me and you, me and the other. The more
solid clay, with which one can build structures, relates to one’s inner
uprightness, to our ability to stand
up for ourselves. The liquid, muddy,
slushy clay that is diluted with lots
of water connects us with states
that are prior to the ego; it contains.
(See 3.1.)
This client dissolved increasing

amounts of clay in the water bowl.
3.1 The initial impulse to “clean” the
clay turned into a most pleasurable sloshing and creaming of the hands,
fulfilling a developmental deficiency from her infancy. She had grown
up in an orphanage and lacked maternal nurturing.
Water permits us to go to places that are pre- or neo-natal in order
to complete or to reconnect with a developmental need. These are
experiences that definitely have no words, but are strongly defined by
earliest memories of touch. The hands in such therapeutic situations
will look and act like those of a very small child, even though the client
might be an adult. The clay can be shaped like a womb-like container
or like holding arms, filled with warm water, or the bowl of water is
used. The hands rest inside, almost as proxy-embryos, re-experiencing
the safety and unconditional nurturing of their pre-birth state of being.
Embryo-hands rest in the water (3.2c). They float in the water
space, weightless, dreamy. For some clients this was the last time in
their biography when they were truly safe. Children’s hands move in the
water; they splash, play, swim, make noises, have fun.
For children, water is often more important than clay. It is a
nurturing substance, a life-giving substance. The Montessori exercise
of pouring water into containers of different sizes can teach children
to contain their emotions in different situations. In such a case nothing
needs to be discussed or interpreted. Simply the action of measuring
and pouring will give the desired confidence.
Neglected and abused children and adults will seek the reassurance
of the nurturing mother. Often it is the therapist who digs out a hollow
space in the field for the child. The child places his or her hands into
the hollow and the therapist will then cover the hands with clay. The
therapist may leave his or her hands on top of the mound, applying
gentle, rhythmic pressure. I remember a young girl with multiple
trauma and attachment issues. She would “kick” with her fingers inside
the “womb,” asking me whether I could feel the baby’s feet move
inside. She was back in the womb, connecting with the last time she
felt truly safe and held. Through little openings at the top, the therapist
may pour warm water into the hollow. This is a miracle cure! It is the
equivalent of an unconditional hug. It is profoundly nurturing. The
hands float in a womb-like space and reconnect with the safety and
intense contact they had then. (See 3.2a.) I have even witnessed the
need for this when working with adult men. Most adults will facilitate
this care themselves. (See 3.2b.) One hand plays the role of the “child,”
the other that of the “nurturing adult.” One hand will coat the other
hand with clay and keep it cocooned until the insufficient hand has
gained enough strength to come out again. Children, though, are still
dependent on the fulfillment of their needs by adults, so the active
participation of the nurturing therapist is necessary.
Tense and traumatized hands

such as these benefit enormously
from resting in warm water. It is
the equivalent of taking a warm
bath. Immersion in warm water is
sometimes the only way to allow
contact to happen, especially in
all those cases when the clay is
experienced as too charged with
3.2a something threatening.
This woman needed to clean the

entire field of the body memories
the clay provoked. She had
experienced sexual abuse as a four-
year-old. After washing the box,
washing her hands and her face,
she could finally rest, initially not
in the threat-related field, but in
the safety of the water bowl. Only
3.2b
after she had gained enough rest
and healing could she remove the

water bowl and claim the field as
her own.
These hands are blissfully at rest.

They don’t have to do anything;
they can simply be in the nurturing
water-world of this field. Prior to
this period of relaxation and deep
inner alignment, the client had
recalled terrifying memories. What
she needed—and was receiving
now—was to be held and contained
3.2c in a maternal embrace. Here she
can accept herself fully and allow
herself to be.
The box
The box is made of varnished or unvarnished timber, definitely not of
plastic, and measures 36  42  3cm on the inside. It is not too large
and not too small and holds approximately 15kg of smooth, non-gritty
clay. The box provides a boundary, a hold, protection and safety. The
work at the Clay Field could not be done without this container. The
box represents the safe space, also a temenos, a sacred space. It can take
on enormous significance. It is fundamentally ME, almost equivalent to
my skin boundary. The box divides the given space into an inner world
and an outer world on the table.
For children, the box represents the world that contains them; they
are contained in it. They perceive the box as a state of being. For adults
from adolescence onwards, the box becomes a relationship, an object
relation; they treat the box as the opposite other. Young children do not
create things in the box. They are in the box. Children will go straight
into the clay when they begin their process. Adults will almost always
orient themselves on the sides and corners of the box; they might even
move the box to a more convenient angle; and they position themselves
in front of it before they begin. (See 3.3a and b.)
This adult woman makes initial

contact with the field. One can
observe the hesitancy in the left
hand, while the right hand holds
on to the boundary for reassurance.
3.3a
Now her left hand has relaxed a
bit and her left index finger makes
tentative contact with the material,
still from the safety of the boundary.
3.3b
Children will go into the field and be in it—or not. For children the
boundary is fluid, just as their own boundaries are still fluid. They still
need others and their attachments to those others in order to grow.
They are dependent on the outside world for their survival. Parents,
teachers and other caregivers have power over their inner and outer
world. Thus children will include the table on which the box is placed;
they will build roads and tracks beyond the boundary of the field onto
the table, and spread their designs. And the therapist is allowed to
enter their box-space; the art therapist might be employed to assist
with excavations or the shaping of certain figures inside the child’s
field. When moving the material is deemed too hard or too frightening
or too time-consuming, or the child is actually in need of experiencing
that there is an adult willing to support their process, the therapist can
actively engage with approximately a third of the given material in the
box.
From adolescence onwards, this sort of intrusion becomes
inappropriate. In puberty an intense awareness grows for one’s own
boundaries. The point where consciousness begins to distinguish
between the inner versus the outer world is age-specific. With this
changed perception, clients are acutely aware of the boundary between
“my world inside” and the outside world on the table.
From then on it can be of utmost significance to determine whether
the figure of a partner belongs in the box or on the table. Many mothers
have their inner space crowded out by family members—husband,
children and other relatives. Their own movements and creative life can
only unfurl once these attachments are resolved by placing the figure
representing a loved one (or hated one) outside the box. (See 3.4.)
This woman felt intensely relieved

once she could evict her mother
from the field. Every lump she
placed outside of the box was
another aspect of their relationship.
Her mother suffered from a mental
illness and had been a life-long
burden for her. Now she could
claim her own space, guilt-free!
3.4
The corners of the box are of utmost importance. Just like the boundary,
they are aspects of ego, but more definitely so. If clients lack ego or are
in fear I will encourage them to hold on to the corners, even to enhance
them with guardians, angels or watchtowers—whatever can assist them
in making their space safe. In a similar way, the walls of the box may
need reinforcement until the box is turned into a fortress. (See 3.5a–b
and 3.6a–d.)
3.5a 3.5b
This client needed the reassurance of the corners of the Clay Field
at various stages throughout her process. In the second image, a fair
bit later in the same session, the assertion and acquired confidence is
reflected in her body language.
While the center of the box and its depth relate to the Self (Jung),
the boundary and the corners challenge and strengthen the ego. This is
all the more important because of the dissolving, regressive quality of

the clay. Clay work without boundaries can even be dangerous.
Here the corners of the field have

been reinforced by “watchtowers”
to protect the emerging uprightness
and visibility of the client’s Self
in the middle. This way the ego
aspect of the corners of the box is
strengthened.
3.6a
These sentries have four different

qualities, each with a different
shape and function, which helped
the client to differentiate between
specific abilities. She had to
safeguard her emerging confidence
and visibility in the center of the
field.
3.6b
In the center of the field is a mother
figure protecting a child in a cradle.
Sentries in both upper corners
guard this mother–child world. The
infant in the cradle has received an
additional protective shield.
The corners of the box are
employed to strengthen the
boundaries of the client.
3.6c
Here the sides of the box have
been reinforced. The material has
been built up all around in order to
ensure that the space is safe and can
contain the client, and that she can
hold on to it. The lake in the center

was spontaneously associated with
a childhood memory in which she
dared to swim a long distance and
3.6d succeeded; an incident charged
with important self-esteem value.
The bottom of the box is significant in a number of ways. The hands

can actually arrive at a firm and solid place when they dig down; they
can attain a certainty, something that firmly holds. This simple fact can
take on huge significance at times when the client is fearful, insecure,
falling apart or overwhelmed. The hands receive the message “there is
an end to this” and thus understand that, whatever the problem, it is not
bottomless, it is not endless, and therefore is manageable. The relief once
the hands reach the bottom is often

palpable (3.7). Clients will knock,
test and try this found ground.
They will lean into it, push into it.
Some will even stand in the field to
make sure it can hold, support and
contain them. Children will sit in it.
The bottom of the box represents
the inner foundation, the place
3.7
I come from, my physiological
and spiritual origin; my earth;
everything that holds me, supports me unconditionally.
A recurring theme is reclaiming, repossessing this ground. Women
who have experienced sexual violation, for example, will inevitably, it
seems, have to throw out the abuse, the abuser, in the form of the clay.
The field is cleared of all the “shit,” disgust, shame and humiliation.
The contaminated clay that is sticky on their fingers and makes them
feel dirty has to be removed; even on the table it might still be too
close. I spent many hours with such women at the sink, scrubbing the
box while they sobbed and sobbed in desperation: “I will never get (it)
clean.” Here too, the focus is never on “What happened?”—that is, on
memory—but rather on what the need is, what the hands desperately
want to do to complete the trauma response.
Since the clay cannot, in this context, be experienced as mine, it

has to be pushed out. The clay becomes identical with the abuser,
or with whatever violated the client’s boundary. In such cases the
clay is experienced as alarmingly unsafe. It reminds the client of
the overwhelming physicality of the unwanted touch, of boundary
violations. The clay, however, can now be treated as the client wanted
to treat the abuser at the time, but could not, due to a power imbalance
or the trauma-related immobility response. The clay is fought out, hit,
punched or flicked out in disgust, can barely be touched. Because the
physiological identity has been violated, such individuals’ perspective
of their bodies is often dissociated. Many perceive their body as dirty,
disgusting and shameful, and therefore cannot connect with it.
This perspective changes, however, the moment the hands arrive
at the bottom of the box. The ground is undoubtedly “me.” It is pure.
It is that which survived it all, that which is permanent in a world of
impermanence. To reconnect with this inner resource is unbelievably
empowering. Once the ground has been cleaned with water and paper
towels (if need be), it is celebrated in various ways: some clients pick
up the box and hug it; some lie in it with their arms and head and can
finally rest within themselves, often for the first time without fear; some
begin to build their world, lay foundations with clay, grow things;
others will ritualize the discovery of self.
Common to all these case histories is that once the bottom has been
reached and claimed, it is undoubtedly a new beginning, a reconnection
with the source from which life, sustenance, safety and spirit flow.
The case history shown below (3.8) illustrates the points I have just
made about the enormous significance of the box to the process. This
client proceeds in classic steps.
3.8a 3.8b
3.8c 3.8d
3.8e 3.8f
These are hands that are disgusted! Every movement of these hands
says “I hate this.” For this woman the clay was sticky, dirty, revolting.
She did not want to touch it. She hated how it clung to her fingers.
She couldn’t get it off. She could not create anything with it. She just
wanted to get it out of her space.
Her reaction (3.8 on the previous page) is a characteristic response to

abuse, especially sexual abuse. However, the setting of the Clay Field
offers a substantial advantage to just working with clay alone. If this
client had just been given clay, she would not have had anywhere to go
but to dissociate from the experience or leave the art therapy exercise.
Here, however, she has also got the box; she has got “my space.” The
clay may be disgusting and provoke horrible body memories, but the
box is her symbolic essence. It has permanence, and it has in its core
not been affected by the yuckiness of the clay, by the abuse she once
suffered.
3.9a 3.9b
3.9c 3.9d
3.9e 3.9f
Thus, with little prompting, she can now begin to throw the clay out
of the box, push it away, get it all out (3.9a and b). Next she washes the
box, cleans the boundary and claims her ground (3.9c and d). Instead
of being revictimized by “bad touching,” she can actually do now what
she could not do in the past. She can defend herself !
It must be understood that at no time during these events did she
talk. We never engaged in her biography and what had once happened.
When she leans into the field with her elbows, really being able
to own “her” space (3.9e), she begins to cry. She then uses the water
that covers the ground in the field to wash her face and to wash off
her tears. She restores her loss of face, her loss of identity, with a new-
found purity.
Her body language is obvious. At the beginning, she has nowhere
to go. Towards the end, she leans up to her elbows in the field, really
claiming it, owning it, being in it, being present, being in the here-
and-now (3.9f ).
Physically one can actually not lean into the field in this way
without breathing deeply into the pelvis. Thus she is integrating a new-
found felt sense (Levine 1997) through her body posture and through
deep breathing. This is what we then put into words: the relief she
experienced, the strength and confidence she had gained and how she
was sensing this now in her entire body.
Developmentally, the body memory of leaning on the elbows in
this manner relates to the infant crawling. This is the first kinesthetic
impulse to move forward, just before we learn to walk. It appears
frequently at this stage in the process and it may not necessarily indicate
that the trauma happened around this age, but that the body reconnects
with the vital impulse of that age, the impulse to get up and walk and
“stand up for myself.”
Topography of the Clay Field

The location of activity and the placement of objects in the Clay Field
can be indicative and may allow certain assumptions. These assumptions
are based on the physical relationship the body of the client has with
the field. The field mirrors the client’s physiological self, while the clay
mirrors the client’s libido, the client’s life movements. The left side of
the field thus represents the left side of the client’s body, the right side
of the field the right side of the body. There is no difference between
left‑ or right-handed people—the field mirrors the brain hemispheres.
A field can be divided into a bottom, a center and a top part as well
as left, center and right. There are also the four corners to be taken into
account. Thus the bottom third of the field corresponds to the pelvis and
abdomen, the center to the solar plexus and the chest, the top third to the
head.
According to Riedel, a Jungian analyst and art therapy lecturer
(Riedel 2002; see also Elbrecht 2006), the lower half of any painting
or art work, thus also the lower half of the Clay Field, relates to the
base chakras, the pelvis and abdomen; it reflects the inner ground, the
matriarchal archetype, our physiological roots, the emotions. The top
half of the field represents the upper chakras (throat, shoulders and
head), the patriarchal archetype, the cognitive, spiritual and ideal, the
individual’s idea of “heaven.”
The center of the field relates to a client’s physiological center,
the heart or the solar plexus, but also to any core issue. Solutions,
rebalancing and centering will most likely occur in the center of the
field. The center represents the present, the here-and-now, the Self, the
focus of attention, the main theme.
Rather than taking this layout into too much interpretation, I like to
view the Clay Field through this lens in a predominantly physiological
and archetypal context: water poured into the top half of the field has
different significance from water we find in the bottom half. A client
who is working in the upper half of the field is sorting out a head
space, whereas if the hands move mainly in the bottom third, the client
is dealing with gut feelings: sexuality, grounding, early childhood
attachment issues and emotions.
A vertical division of the field will relate to the spine and the client’s
ability or inability to be upright (3.10). Division is also an indicator
about a compromised connection between the brain hemispheres.
Many children who suffer from the effects of their parents’ divorce, or
traumatic events at home, will divide the field into two halves and will
not be able to engage equally with both halves.
I take notice of which part of the field the hands avoid, in which
part of the field the hands need to dig, remove material, create space or
build things; whether they discard clay out of the left side, the right or
in the middle of the box. I do not comment on these actions, but they
are definitely indicators.
Our archetypal experience is also that the sky is above and the
earth below. Accordingly, the Clay Field may be themed as a landscape,
either from the bird’s eye perspective or from the physiological view.
Dissociated clients may look into the field from above, and then dig
down into the ground or build up on it. Most individuals will project
themselves into the field as if looking into a mirror.
Jungian analytical psychology places the past, the unconscious,
introversion, memories, the female (anima) aspect of the personality
into the left side of the field; also the shadow, evil, the feared, death.
In this context, the left bottom corner is our birthing place and burial
ground. It is the western half of the setting sun. The neurological
perspective will link the left side of the Clay Field to the right brain
hemisphere, which predominantly processes the sensory, affective,
emotional and symbolic components (Hinz 2009 p. 7; Lusebrink
2004, 1992). Bolte-Taylor (2008) describes it as the spiritual,
universal, holistic sense of Self. The right brain hemisphere is
predominantly affected by early childhood events, the relationship
with the primary caregiver, by emotions, by the sense of being held,
being safe (Levine and Kline 2007; Pally 2000; Rothschild 2000;
Schore 1994; Trevarthen 1995; Winnicott 1964, 1971, 1986). This
may explain the Jungian association of the past being located on the
left side of the body, and thus of the art work.
Accordingly, the right side of the Clay Field is linked to the left
brain hemisphere, where logical thought, labeling and categorizing of
information takes place in an organized, linear, sequential fashion. The
left brain hemisphere is kinesthetic, perceptual and cognitive (Bolte-
Taylor 2008; Hinz 2009 p. 6; Lusebrink 1992). The terminology of
Jungian psychology connects it with the analytical mind, extroversion,
plans, ideas, ideals, goals; the logical male side, the animus aspect. It is
the eastern half of the rising sun, where movement leads to awakening,
recovery and return to life. (See Table 3.1.)
Table 3.1: The topography of the Clay Field
Female aspect of the Heaven/Sky

Patriarchal dimension
Father FATHER
Collective Ideals
Spiritual Father Head
INTROVERSION Main Theme EXTROVERSION

ANIMA, the female SELF ANIMUS, the male
Past Present Future
Right brain hemisphere Heart/solar plexus Left brain hemisphere
Earth Earth-aspect of the

Matriarchal dimension
MOTHER male:
Birth and death
Abdomen Sexuality, money, power
In this context, the bottom left corner of the box becomes the part that
is dominated by female energy. The earth aspect of the pelvis, the mother
archetype, combines with the anima’s intuition, emotion and affect. Thus
Riedel (2002) considers this part of the field oriented towards the past,
the mother, the unconscious, a place of birth but also of regression.
Diagonally opposite lies the top right corner, oriented towards
the father archetype, the heavenly, the future, cognition and logic;
additionally charged with the drive of the animus, the “male” hero-
aspect of our personality. It is the place for plans, aims and ideals, also
for collective, patriarchal values and social success.
The bottom right corner in the matriarchal field is influenced by a

“male” ego-driven impulse. I refer to it informally as the SMP corner:
sex, money and power. Here we are also dealing with social misfortune,
fixations and attachments.
The top left corner touches the patriarchal sphere, but with the
connotation of female introversion, sensitivity and intuition, which
turns it into an area of spiritual insight.
Take this map as a grid, superimpose it on any given art work, and
a whole new dimension of understanding opens up.
As a therapist I look out for the central focus of the hands, the
center of action or events, since such a concentration of energy in the
field allows me to draw conclusions on the basis of this layout. (See
3.11.) The same applies to distortions or displacements. The lower part
of the field might remain untouched, or all anger and anguish might be
directed into one particular corner. If actual figures such as people or
animals are created, I pay attention to the direction in which they move
or look, and in which part of the field they are placed.
This vertical chasm is simultaneously

mapping out the field to find
orientation, moving forward in
the “world,” and it represents a
reflection of the client’s spine and
her desire to “stand up for myself,”
to be upright. The next impulse
was to create a similar horizontal
3.10 chasm, a cross shape that expressed
her need to expand and have more
space.
A mother embracing a child with

prominent arms is placed in the
bottom right corner, and a central
father figure is standing nearby in
the front. The image was created
by a young woman who had found
herself standing in the world, as the
central male figure demonstrates,
3.11 but she longed for a child and
the fulfillment of her female side,
which is placed in the future half of the field, in the corner of sexuality
and empowerment. Had this mother figure been placed in the center
of the field, the significance would have shifted towards something
happening in the here-and-now.
The direction of a diagonal axis can point out impulses, ideals, fatal
attractions or goals with this layout. Which way does a river flow, in
which direction does a path lead, into which corner do the hands push
the clay? The axis from the top left towards the bottom right suggests
depression, whereas the reverse direction indicates spiritual aspirations
(Riedel 2002). The mother figure in 3.11, for example, is looking
diagonally towards the top left corner, where the client’s spirituality
would be located.
A movement that aims from above to below transports a head
space, mental contents into physical matter. These may be inspiring
insights or they may be internalized authority patterns, designed to
suppress one’s own impulses. Impulses that push up from below come
from the physical, emotional, vital; in traumahealing they will act out
the survival response of pushing an aggressor away, for example; most

times upward movements represent the healthy urge to move forward.
The Clay Field also has depth. It is three-dimensional. Therefore
it is also significant which layers in the field become activated: the
surface, the deeper layers of the material, the bottom. There is a
direct correlation between the hands exploring the depth of the field,
penetrating the clay, and the willingness of a client to go deep inside.
Merely touching the surface of the material correlates with staying
psychologically at the surface, as opposed to going to the bottom of
one’s issues.
Finally, the Clay Field has an inside and an outside, mirroring an
individual’s skin boundary, dividing inner world and outside world
into clearly defined areas.
Ultimately, it is of importance that all aspects of the field are
integrated, that the hands and respective sides relate to each other and
cooperate.
Props
When I work with adults, all I supply is the Clay Field, a bowl of water
and paper towels. The paper towels can gain a significant function in
all cases where the box needs to be cleaned and purified. Occasionally
a paper towel will be turned into a “blanket” to wrap or to cover
something special. And from a simply practical perspective, tissues for
tears or to blow the nose will stick badly on hands smeared with clay,
whereas paper towels will last!

Children, however, do need additional tools. Between seven and
14 years of age, tooluse is age-specific, and necessary for many. The
direct contact with the clay might be too regressive at times, and they
will need something with which they can distance themselves from
direct touch (3.12). Examples are:
• spatulas, spoons, ice cream scoops, which can be used as shovels
• pointy sticks to engrave and carve patterns
• cups in different sizes to scoop water
• a sponge
• toothpicks, which serve fantastically as spears, guns, fences and
goal posts
• glass marbles, which can introduce something solid into a too

liquid mud-water world.
Such tools will communicate competence and can assist in dealing
with the world. The combination of sand-play figures with the clay is
unnecessary and usually ruinous for the sand-play tools. Figures can be
shaped far more successfully from the clay. If need be, the therapist will
be “employed” by a child to shape certain objects that the child deems
“too hard.”
3.12a 3.12b
This ten-year-old girl used an ice cream scoop and a wire instrument to
assist her in making contact with the clay.
Children, and occasionally adults, will at times enjoy adding paint and
collage materials such as feathers, leaves, sticks, flowers, fabric, and
unspun wool in order to enhance figures formed from clay (3.13).
A shoebox in which to “jail” overly threatening objects that have

emerged in the clay can be handy to have on stand-by, especially for
children.
This ten-year-old girl added craft

sticks, paint, cardboard, plasticine
and toothpicks to her world in
the Clay Field. The turtle and the
owl were shaped upon her request
by the therapist. She created the
snail and the bird and the rest of
the garden.
3.13
The accompanying human “you”

The role of the therapist companion is crucial in this process. Being
an artist myself, I am used to long hours of solitude while I paint and
create and would find the presence of another person at most times
even irritating. I have, however, never been able to work at the Clay
Field on my own. I guess the submersion is so total that it calls for the
“conscious other” to be present. The process requires a witness. Deuser
employs the image of a deep sea diver, who needs the boat on the
water-surface and someone in it to hold the lifeline.
The process not only demands a sense of safety, but it needs to be
witnessed. Whatever happens during the journey in the field wants to
be validated. It is like waking up from a dream: unless I write the dream
down or tell it to someone, I am most likely to forget it very soon.
Children’s processes that have not been perceived by another, that
have not been acknowledged in their worth, will not be consciously
stored; events then will appear as if they had never happened (Deuser
in Tschachler-Nagy and Fleck 2007 p. 20).
The searching can come only from desultory formless functioning,
or perhaps from rudimentary playing, as if in a neutral zone. It is
only here, in this unintegrated state of the personality, that that
which we describe as creative can appear. This, if reflected back,
but only if reflected back, becomes part of the organized individual
personality. (Winnicott 1971 p. 86)
While clients sit in front of the Clay Field, adults with their eyes
closed, they will remain in a continuous dialog with the therapist. This
ensures that the “unconscious act” gains method. It helps to achieve
the necessary distance while being immersed. It is not our priority as
therapists to remove the burden, but to communicate the burden; to
assist in the process of “accepting who I am and what happened to me.”
To that extent, the therapist needs to have a “beginner’s mind”
(Suzuki 2006). Concepts, exercise rituals and expectations will only
get in the way. All that is required is to allow creative action to fulfill
an inner need.
This is best accompanied by an attitude of the therapist that is
shaped by an unwavering trust in the client’s libido; that this life
energy will always move towards wholeness, healing and balance, even
under minimally favorable conditions. If nature had not designed us
with this inbuilt resilience, the human species would have perished
long ago. The therapist trusts that the “hands know the answer,” while
the client’s “head” is, especially in situations of crisis, stuck in familiar

but unproductive, often even desperate or destructive loops of learned
behavior. Such behavior has disconnected clients from their innate
being.
Clients are moving and acting in the Clay Field rather than talking
about their life movements and actions; clients live life with their hands
in the field. At the same time this is life in a very small world, in a
controlled setting. The setting as such is neutral and unthreatening, yet
it will encourage and stimulate all the movements we use to negotiate
life in the big world.
Deuser speaks of the “adventurer’s mind” (Deuser, unpublished
paper, 2008). The therapist is asked to be someone who shows emphatic
interest, companionship; someone who understands the journey and
who suffers with the client the existential crises as they happen in
the field: the crisis of chaos and the crisis of failure. When something
collapses, breaks, tips over or caves in, it is the therapist who accepts the
elemental rage about the loss of wholeness. The companion is the one
capable of witnessing the “terrible” that is happening metaphorically in
the field, and that implies that he or she also accepts the terrible that
really happened once—without glossing over it, without smoothing
over its impact.
And while the therapist displays an attitude of informed neutrality,
of joyful participation, he or she must have the capacity to survive
terror and fear, and the ability to step beyond the socially accepted
and enforced. Because what must happen inevitably in the field is
the disintegration of an old order into chaos; and this is unavoidably

accompanied by instability, collapse, mistakes, restlessness, hitting with
unrestrained rage, fleeting, distracted fiddling…until a new path, a new
order, the treasure, can emerge.
It must be understood that an encounter with the Clay Field might
last anywhere from five or ten minutes to an hour. At no time while
the hands experience themselves in the field will we reflect about what
happens. This takes place at the end of the session. At the same time
there will be an ongoing dialog between client and therapist; a dialog
that is designed to encourage the client, and, further on, to define the
sensory qualities of experience as they occur. The therapist’s focus is
always on the need in the hands, not their lack; not on what the hands
can’t do, but what they want to do.
A Clay Field session is entirely experiential. The therapist will
assist the client to remain active in the Clay Field for as long as it takes
to arrive at a solution. The basis for this is that resolution can come
only from the hands; that only the hands know the answer; that only
the hands are in direct contact with the life movement, with the client’s
libido, and that any cognitive dialog, any interference from the head,
will more likely disrupt and distort the process than assist it.
By no means, however, is work at the Clay Field simply about
acting out, about discharging affect in an uncontrolled way. Many
therapists and art teachers have a repertoire of negative stories in this
respect, especially when working with clay. Awareness is encouraged
as “felt sense” (Levine), as sensory, somatic perception, and as “haptic
perception” (Deuser) through the hands. The felt sense will be explained
in the following chapter. And if we are taken deeply seriously in our
somatic reality, we will not act out in a destructive way. As in nature,
only the injured, threatened animal is unpredictable and violent; an
animal that is safe will begin to lick its wounds and commence healing.
Deuser once explained that when clients act out, by throwing clay in
frustration across the art therapist’s room, the companion has misread
the language of the hands and not fully seen and understood the client.
Similar to a mother who is tuned in to the multitude of needs an infant
communicates to her, the art therapist must understand the nonverbal
messages of a client’s hands and attend to their need through verbal
cues and encouragements. If the companion succeeds in this, explosive
outbursts of frustration will not occur.
Both Levine (2010) and van der Kolk (2011) liken the
communication of empathy to the mirror neurons in the brain—
therapists with their clients, like mothers with their infants, express
empathy through mirroring an individual’s gestures, postures and
sounds. Such mirroring is external and internal and is predominantly
nonverbal. As a therapist I pick up fear, tension, helplessness and unease
from the client opposite me; I feel these sensations in my body. If I recoil
from them, I abandon the client; if I allow these to overwhelm me, we
both get lost. Levine says that the art is to “embody some small portion
of Dalai Lama-like equanimity” to calm a client down and be present
with compassion. Such “therapeutic resonance” (Levine 2010 p. 42) is
vitally important for the often hypervigilant trauma client. And if I, as
the therapist, can deal with these uncomfortable, sometimes terrifying
sensations through tracking them in my body, breathing into them and
navigating the sensations, so will the client; whereas if I shield myself
from them in my body, I will unconsciously also block the client from
experiencing them.
Rational assessment can be an efficient tempering of the extreme

instinctual command when the person next to us (whom we are
mirroring) is mistaken or overreacting. However, often in therapy
the attempt to place reason over instinct is a serious failure, a likely
disaster.
In the therapy situation, the therapist must strike a balance between
mirroring a client’s distress enough for them to learn about the
client’s sensations, but not so much as to increase the client’s level
of fear as in contagion panic. This can only happen if the therapist
has learned the ins and outs of his or her own sensations and
emotions and is relatively comfortable with them. (Levine 2010
p. 46f.)
Unlike most other therapy forms, art therapy has the unique advantage
that a great deal of transference is projected into the art work, in this case
into the Clay Field process, and the companion is the one to facilitate
this transference rather than being the center of the projection. This
eases the burden of transference and counter-transference significantly,
and reduces the traps and pitfalls of the therapeutic relationship, such as
becoming entangled in the projected role of the rescuer or perpetrator.
Throughout the process clients experience themselves in charge of the
process, with the therapist as their assistant, witness or midwife, rather
than being “helped” or having things done to them.
Clay Field therapy is a one-on-one session therapy form. It requires
the intense step-by-step dialog between client and therapist. Group
sessions with the Clay Field are conducted on the basis of the “hot
seat” (Perls 1969, 1973)—client and therapist conduct an individual

session in front of the group. Group members then take on part of the
witnessing function and are encouraged to give feedback at the end
of the one-on-one session. The group setting tends to magnify the
energetic dimension and intensifies the process significantly.
Chapter 4
The Work Process

at the Clay Field
This chapter investigates the theoretical concepts on which work

at the Clay Field is based. There is the felt sense, as bioenergetic and
somatic therapy approaches have defined it. There will be a discussion
of Weizsäcker’s “gestalt circle,” a theory that formed the cornerstone of
psychosomatics. Reafference illustrates the sensorimotor process. Stages
of gestalt formation as well as the Nine Situations are core concepts Deuser
developed over several decades to grasp the intricate stages in which a
process at the Clay Field unfolds.
The felt sense

When I speak of “organisms,” I refer to Webster’s definition of
“a complex structure of interdependent and subordinate elements
whose relations and properties are largely determined by their
function as a whole.” Organism describes our wholeness, which
derives not from the sum of its individual parts, i.e. bones, chemicals,
muscle organs, etc.; it emerges from their dynamic, complex
122
The Work Process at the Clay Field 123
interrelation. Body and mind, primitive instincts, emotions,

intellect, and spirituality all need to be considered together in
studying an organism. The vehicle though which we experience
ourselves as organism is the “felt sense.” (Levine 1997 p. 8)
The “felt sense” is a term coined by Eugene Gendlin (1981). The
felt sense forms the basis for Levine’s trauma healing work: somatic
experiencing. Haptic perception, perception with and through the
hands as a sense organ, constitutes one specialized area of the felt sense;
one opening through which the felt sense can be accessed.
…there is a kind of bodily awareness that profoundly influences
our lives and that can help us reach personal goals. So little
attention has been paid to this mode of awareness that there are no
ready-made words to describe it, and I have had to coin my own
term: felt sense.
…a felt sense will shift if you approach it in the right way. It will
change even as you are making contact with it. When your felt
sense of a situation changes, you change—and, therefore, so does
your life. (Gendlin 1981 p. 32)
My training in bioenergetics and transpersonal bodywork in the 1970s
has provided me throughout my career as an art therapist with an acute
awareness of the body’s responses to certain thought-forms, actions and
situations; how “the body speaks its mind” (Keleman 1975; Dürckheim
1973, 1976, 1980). In my practice as a Shiatsu-massage therapist I
learned much about how clients hold tension in the body and how they
can release it. Yoga has taught me the interrelatedness of the physical body
with spirituality, and Zen meditation trained the witnessing function of
my mind. Bioenergetics and somatic experiencing (Levine) both originate
in medical rather than psychological models. They take the refreshing
approach of looking primarily at the body’s physiological responses and
coping strategies. This can at times help both client and therapist to not be
overwhelmed and unproductively occupied with the client’s story.
Body awareness has everything to do with the awareness of cues
from the sensory nervous system. Which language does the body speak
as clients tell their story? Does the heart race? Is it really hot? Is the
breath held back? Do the hands fidget? Is the body or part of the
body turned away from the Clay Field or the dialog partner, and, if
so, which part? This might just be a slight twist in the neck, a minute
misalignment between the torso and the head; it can, however, have a
significant impact on how this client views the world.
Body postures express our learned behavior, our conditioning and

our responses to past and current events. My initial focus is always on
how clients try to keep themselves safe in therapeutic situations where
their learned behavior tells them they can’t trust. Are the legs crossed
over? Is the pelvic floor contracted to the extent of numbness? Is the
diaphragm held rigid with shallow breathing? Are the arms folded?
Are the shoulders pulled up and tense? Is there a lump in the throat?
Is the body twisted sideways? Each of these physiological responses,
these mostly involuntary actions, will assist the client to dissociate
from something that is feared to be overwhelming. They at all times
embody creative solutions to something that was once experienced as
unmanageable. They represent the client’s survival strategies. Many of
these responses have become habitual and are no longer productive, the
danger being past, decades ago. However, such responses can remain
unchecked in the psyche for a lifetime, becoming powerful filters
through which we perceive the world. They shape our mindsets, our
expectations and belief systems.
The physiological shift is particularly obvious when such old
behavioral patterns are resolved. All of a sudden the client can breathe,
relax and move. And invariably the world—inside and later also
outside of the Clay Field—is now perceived quite differently: safer,
more inviting, lighter, friendlier…
Rothschild (2000 p. 101) differentiates between exteroceptors,
which originate from stimuli that have their origin outside of the body
(touch, taste, smell, sound, sights), and interoceptors, which consist of
sensations that originate on the inside of the body (connective tissue,

muscles and viscera). The Clay Field will evoke both these stimuli in a
way that will be hard to match with a psychotherapy approach, even if
it is a body-centered one.
The interoceptors perceive the body’s internal environment: heart
rate, breathing, pain, internal temperature, visceral sensations and
muscle tension. The internal sense provides us with the somatic markers
that we then identify as emotions. Fear, anger, joy, relief, frustration,
happiness, sadness are each accompanied by a distinct set of body
sensations. Our language is full of references to the internal sense; we
suffer from a broken heart, butterflies in the stomach; we are scared
stiff, have a red neck, a stiff upper lip or a lump in the throat; we can
lose our head, be on fire, are swept off our feet, fall for someone.
This intricate interconnectedness between body sensations and
emotions is called “affect.” These body sensations and the accompanying
emotions are stored as patterns in the brain. Neurologist Damasio calls

them implicit memories (Damasio 1994). Implicit memory can be
triggered into recall whenever similar stimuli are present. Thus, even
though we may have completely forgotten the original event, we will
from now on react with delight or fear or disgust to certain occurrences.
Implicit memory is instrumental in how we write our personal history,
but also in how we can distort it.
To touch the clay will inevitably trigger implicit memories of
touch; touch that has been pleasant, nurturing or sensual, but also
touch which hurt or violated our sense of self or terrified us. Rothschild
(2000) points out how tricky implicit memory can be for traumatized
individuals, how dissociation and fear can distort memories of events.
Levine uses the term “the terror of memory.” If we focus primarily on
the hands in the Clay Field, we do not need to engage as much in the
client’s story. What happened will be told by the hands through the
present experience of touch, rather than through cognitive recall of
memories. The hands will be driven by their innate memories; and, if
need be, they will find the necessary movements and aim to complete
the traumatic event. Thus the work at the Clay Field is more concerned
with creating and recreating implicit memory rather than the recall of
events. It can enable clients to rewrite their emotional history.
Emotions in this context are treated as inner movements and will be
expressed in the Clay Field as kinesthetic action. The clay makes body
movements visible, thus making emotions visible. Anger, for example, is
a powerful movement. As a body movement it always rushes upwards; it
is hot and fast. The client may attempt to manage this movement through
“valves” such as controlled deep breathing or shallow breathing, through
swallowing, fidgeting, through crossing the legs, walking around or
clenching of the jaw—or let fly, in which case the hands will hit or throw
the clay; they will squash it down or strangle it. My emphasis as a Clay
Field therapist is to support the externalization of these body sensations
as movements in the clay rather than to focus on the meaning of the
emotion and the story attached to it. In this way the felt sense is made
visible in the clay and can be encountered by the hands.
Body awareness is not an emotion such as “afraid.” Emotions are
identified by a combination of distinct body sensations:
Shallow breathing + elevated heart rate + cold sweat = afraid.
Terms that help to identify various bodily sensations include (but

are not limited to):
breathing; location, speed, and depth; position of a body part
in space; skin humidity (dry or moist); hot, cold; tense, relaxed;
big, small; restless, calm; movement, still; dizzy; shivers, prickles;
pressure, pulling; rotation, twist; contraction, expansion; pulse rate,
heart beat; pain, burning; vibration, shaking; weak, strong; sleepy,
awake; yawning; tears, crying; light, heavy; soft, hard; tight, loose;
crooked, straight; balanced, unsteady; upright, tilted; butterflies;
shaky, empty, full. (Rothschild 2000 pp. 101–102)
Many of these body sensations will be projected into the clay and acted
out in the field; just as many will be experienced as a client’s somatic
reality. Thus the client’s hands can run, push, fight, twist, hide… The
clay will be perceived as hot or cold, breathing, shifting, soft, hard,
tight, loose… And simultaneously a client might shake, breathe heavily,
feel dizzy, restless, etc.
Diane’s session might illustrate the felt sense, in the context of
work at the Clay Field, as a fluid interchange between the somatic and
psychological and kinesthetic process happening in the contact with
the clay—and how wholeness can emerge from this process.
Diane is a 40-year-old woman with a slight physical and intellectual

disability. Before she begins her session she shares how her older,
smarter and stronger sister used to beat, tease and ridicule her when
she was little, and still does. She begins then to push the clay into the
middle of the field with the base of her hands. The effort she makes
is enormous. Her face turns red, she grunts with the strain. Once the
clay is piled up in the middle of the field, she announces that she feels
murderous and wants to strangle the sister. She strangles the clay.
She gains deep satisfaction from this action. By externalizing the huge
pressure she must have been under for decades, she becomes aware
of herself; she describes the discomfort and strain she is under, how
it hurts in her body; how the sister must hurt now. After a while her
interest in the murderous impulse wanes. She picks up the “sister”
and places her outside of the box onto the table, then pushes her off
the table onto the floor. She is definitely gone now. Diane now begins
to expand in the field, creating more and more space for herself.
With great relief she pours water into the box and spends the rest
of the session turning the field into a smooth, soft ground; into a safe
home in which she can rest and relax.
In this example you may notice the interchange between an internalized

and an externalized force; between biographic memory, somatic reality,
psychosomatic symptoms, felt sense, sensorimotor actions and creative
expression. The hands do all the processing. As a therapist I witness and
confirm the experiences, but I need not intervene or suggest anything.
In the process, Diane simultaneously experiences the sister at present,
the abusive sister of the past, the inner pressure she is under on a daily
basis, and her murderous rage. The clay mirrors whatever quality is
projected into it.
The range of qualities that a client might experience during
the course of one session can be astounding in its scope. Clay that
was initially sensed as sticky, dirty, cold, hostile, is transformed into
something that is beautiful to touch, inviting and warm. It is always
the same neutral material that is capable of absorbing any projection.
If I recall my own therapy sessions with the Clay Field from the
client perspective, each session has left a profound imprint in my
body memories. I can still sense with every cell solutions my hands
found 40 years ago. There was, for example, a state of disorientation,
abandonment and fear that was very familiar to the child in me and
that was intensely activated as my hands blindly struggled with what
seemed an overwhelming amount of unmanageable chaos. And then
my hands found a hold! They found what most likely was simply a
bit of squashed-together clay. For my felt sense, however, I was able
to hold on to “someone.” The relief that rushed through my body in
this moment was unforgettable, and I can still recall this body memory
decades later. From then on, whenever I encountered disorientation in

my life, I could remember and rely on this hold being there.
I have witnessed similar events from my perspective as the therapist
companion of clients’ processes. What is astounding is that such body
memories are lasting. The felt sense can reinform physiological learned
behavior in a way no cognitive therapy ever could. The felt sense is
the summary of our biography; however, biographies can be rewritten.
The gestalt circle—the echoing touch

So what really happens when our hands touch the clay? As I grasp the clay
and investigate it, I myself become the object of my investigation; because
as I touch, I am also being touched. The clay makes every movement of
my hands visible. It reflects my actions. And as my hands perceive what
they have done, I encounter myself. I have entered into a relationship
with myself. My movements and actions in the field reflect my way of

approaching the world, my learned ways, my story, my body memories.
This simple setting replicates a basic condition of human
development, how we construct our view of the world:
• there is a tangible opposite—the world as it is, which provokes
us
• there is our own self in our vital urge to grasp, to touch, to come
in contact with, to discover this world and realize ourselves in
our possibilities, and
• there is an accompanying human “you” that perceives, validates,
understands and supports.
In the Clay Field I comprehend the world according to my needs. With
the hands the field can be touched. The clay absorbs every imprint.
The material can be formed and transformed. I do this not as a pre-
planned action, but rather as a spontaneous movement. Now, though,
I experience something fundamental: relation is always reciprocal.
Touching something with my hands, I myself am also touched by
that thing. But it is unlike the majority of life situations: ordinarily,
when I touch someone or something, this other then reacts to me—
someone might laugh, withdraw or frighten me as a response. In the
Clay Field, by contrast, I encounter no one other than myself. This is a
provocation. What confronts me are my needs, my affect, my emotions.
They invite improvisations, decisions and answers, all of which, in their
turn, respond to me again through touch.

Like a pliable picture screen, the Clay Field illustrates the way
in which I behave in my world. In a cyclical process I manifest my
accustomed concepts of the world, and thereby challenge them:
that which moved me now confronts me, either as a quality or as an
image in the clay. It takes place as an event and as a dialog in this
setting. According to Weizsäcker (1986) I experience my progress as a
“fortrollendes Werden” (an ongoing becoming).
This is the central theme at the Clay Field: in a profoundly
individual way I encounter myself as the opposite, and this opposite is
constantly changing and taking place. The moment I move, the world
in which I move also moves. The pliable material accommodates me
in every possible urge: the clay offers my hands a hold, it is diverse
and available. And, at the same time, every imprint conveys to me the
consequences of my action. I encounter a matrix full of possibilities
that corresponds with my own possibilities and needs—but can they

be seized?
Because every touch is, of course, also a memory, every encounter
will—consciously or otherwise—recall previous experiences, how I
once touched and was touched. It will tap into my memory banks of
past encounters and trigger the sense of danger or safety, of terror or
bliss I experienced then. It will also remind me of how I learned at
various stages in my life to negotiate survival in an unfamiliar, quite
often overwhelming world.
The Clay Field can seem very large when one has one’s eyes closed.
Similar to the magnifying abilities of our tongue, our fingers can
perceive the 15 kilos of clay in the field as huge, unbelievably heavy,
insurmountable and resistant. Therefore I will express myself initially
in movements I am accustomed to, in familiar ways I learned in the
past to negotiate my encounters with the world. I will experience the
well-known sense of safety or danger, of being held or abandoned,
of frustration and disempowerment, or a sense of joy, passion and
adventure that is and was part of my world.
Progressively my movements will demand development and
solutions. The active agent here is the libido with its drive to live and
to fulfill its vital needs. Thus I gradually realize that I now have the
power to attain what in the past, in my biography, was not possible. I
can now have and take what then was not permitted. I can now make a
mess, do not have to be “good;” I am not judged in my explorations; I
am not expected to behave in a certain way. The field is unconditionally
open for me. And, most importantly, I am safe to explore who I am.
From this moment onwards I can explore new possibilities and search
for more fulfilling movements. I can begin to discover “my” world. A
genesis of my becoming has been initiated.
The Clay Field in this context is representative of the time–space
continuum of “my life.” The hands represent my subjective identity, my
sense of “me.”
It is such a simple setting—a box full of clay and the hands of
an individual moving in this Clay Field. And yet, Deuser’s quest to
comprehend what is really happening in this interrelational process has
driven him to draw on philosophy, mathematics, anthropology, biology,
nuclear physics, developmental and depth psychology. It is a bit like
eating a sandwich. We can simply do it, and we do it on a daily basis;
but once we begin to focus on what is in fact going on, what happens
when we bite a piece off, chew, swallow and digest it, it becomes a very,
very complex matter indeed.
In Deuser’s understanding, any creative process emerges out of an
evolving, continuous interchange between subject and object, self and
world, inside and outside, conscious and unconscious impulses, hands
and clay. While these core components represent opposites, they are
simultaneously connected. As I touch the other, I am being touched by
this other.
At no point is the process in the Clay Field simply driven by a
cognitive image, a concept, or an idea that will then be realized in a
pliable material. Rather, awareness and self-realization are understood as
a permanent exchange of impulses between the conscious aim towards a
defined gestalt and the unconscious, collective mass of inner urges.
This dialog is beyond any moral right or wrong. It is simply a
continuous interchange between our perceptions and actions. It is
driven by our libido. All focus is on fulfillment, the fulfillment of
one’s experience as realization of oneself and one’s world. The clay
simply corresponds to this “processing unit,” the libido. The clay is
the material that links us with our opposite and in whose links we
experience ourselves and our world. The Clay Field process makes our
libido visible. We not only act out our story, remember our story, but we
also create our story. Self-realization and insight into our individuality
evolve simultaneously. Deuser refers at this point to the “gestalt circle,”
as described by Weizsäcker (1986).
CONSCIOUS
• Sensory
• Perception
• Image
PSYCHE WORLD
• Subject • Object
• Person • Clay Field
Find the other in myself Find myself in the other
EGO/SELF THE OTHER
UNCONSCIOUS
• Flow
• Movement
Inner order
Inner ground
4.1: The gestalt circle
The gestalt circle describes the fundamental common bond of subject

and object. Anything that we perceive is simultaneously connected
to us through the movement in which we perceive it. The Clay Field
“in this setting represents the inside of our perception, in which we
are focused on what we perceive. We can perceive how we perceive”
(Deuser 2009 p. 16).
The gestalt circle forms the basis for Weizsäcker’s understanding
of psychosomatics. It is another perspective on the psychophysical
drama that I discussed in the previous chapter about the felt sense. It
illustrates Webster’s definition of an organism as “a complex structure
of interdependent and subordinate elements whose relations and
properties are largely determined by their function as a whole” (Levine
1997 p. 8). Levine views the wholeness of an organism as a complex
interrelation of its individual parts—bones, chemicals, muscles, organs,
instincts, thought-forms, emotions…
Every motor action at the Clay Field is driven by an electrical
interchange of impulses that affects every muscle in our body;
simultaneous tension and relaxation; moving forward and letting go,
flexing and reflecting. As we learned in the chapter about the hands,
Wilson (1998) explains how such motor impulses are connected to
complex neuro-transmitters in the spinal cord and the brain, and how
these neurons then respond by sending impulses to the muscles, the
chemicals, the organs and the instincts.
Emoto (2002, 2005) has discovered a similar interchange
between water and our consciousness, which he made visible through
photographing crystals in frozen water. Bottles of water had thought-

forms written on labels pasted onto them, such as “Thank you” or “You
fool.” The frozen water crystals clearly took on the information fed
to them. Every thought-form was reflected in the cell structure of the
water. Now consider that 70 percent of the human body consists of
water, impregnated with our thought-forms—and how that very same
water in our body in turn influences our thought-forms.
The ego is the answer-giving organ of these impulses, yet, at the same
time, it constitutes itself in its answer. It is involved in the life process of
continuous change, and yet whatever it constitutes determines exactly
those conditions in which the ego finds itself, from which it issues.
It is the sense of touch that determines the consistency or
inconsistency between the ego and the creative process. The process
itself, however, is not a “feeling.” This only ascertains whether the
processing and the balancing out between motor impulses and sensory
perception have succeeded. Because when our sensorimotor impulses

are aligned, we feel “good,” whereas when they are not, we feel restless,
tense, in pain or dissociated.
What drives the process in the Clay Field is the “living unrest”
(Deuser) of the libido, which is seeking its fulfillment for the moment.
Deuser describes “deficiency as the unfulfilled, which wants to find
its form through us” (Deuser 2004, unpublished paper). In his view,
life’s urge for fulfillment is our libido; and the libido’s impulsive resolve
to act is often surprising. The libido as the core life force is always
there, only its forms of appearance are infinitely variable. Since it is
deeply founded in our biological existence, it cannot be controlled, yet
it safeguards our continuity. Jung described this organizing force as the
“Self.” Eastern philosophies define it as the kundalini, which transports
chi, the life energy, through channels upwards in the spine and through
the meridians. All agree that though this force is vast in power and
related to our survival instinct, it is beyond our ego’s control and can
only be accessed through conscious submission and surrender—the
aim of all meditation practice. The libido constitutes both: our physical
aliveness and our spiritual sense of eternity, wholeness and fulfillment.
In our daily life and as we grow up, this continuous interchange of
impulses, of life urges, happens as a mostly unconscious process. The
continuum of the Clay Field as a consistent object that is always there,
that in every session will display the same features of a flat, clay-filled
box, will allow an individual’s relationship with the world to unfold as
if under the microscope.
“Movement becomes Gestalt” is one of Deuser’s core statements.

To realize ourselves in a gestalt, to become form is our human mission.
This form, however, is never static; it is forever moving and changing.
Each transformation also represents a crisis: each time, a security, a
certainty, an acquisition has to be given up.
The reafference principle—the echo

In his search for answers to understand haptic perception and the
dynamics of the Clay Field process, Deuser came across the work of
the German biologist Erich von Holst, who discovered the reafference
principle (1973 p. 464). Holst describes the biological process of
reafference as the sensory registration of a motor impulse and the
message confirming its success, as the basis for all growth, even in
plants. An initial impulse is “afferent,” which from Latin translates as
“to carry to.” It is a motor stimulus, such as my finger poking a hole

into the clay. This motor impulse will then be carried back to me. It
has an echo, it resonates. This “reafferent” answer will be sensory. It
will challenge me to perceive my finger in the hole. How many ways
are there to feel my finger in the hole in the clay? I can become aware
of the urge to poke, the joy of poking, the fear of penetrating, the
embarrassment of penetrating, how the material encloses my finger,
how my skin responds to the contact with the clay, how deep down
I can get, how the bottom of the hole feels, how my finger is held in
the clay, how my finger feels trapped in the hole, how I would like to
enlarge the hole; is it still a hole or rather a void, a crack, a puncture, a
cave, a chasm, an abyss; have I created a defect…? Any motor impulse
will call for its sensory echo. Without this echo there is no fulfillment,
no satisfaction in the movement. This is why acting out does not get
us anywhere apart from temporary relief of tension. Reafference creates
awareness; it is sensory awareness, not cognitive awareness. It is the
biological version of what Levine calls the “felt sense” (Keleman 1975;
Levine 1997) and what determines Weizäcker’s gestalt circle.
Reafference allows us to stay in close contact with our life
movements and to become aware of how we do what we do, and what
effect our actions have on our body and our senses. And, equipped
with this sensorimotor awareness, we can progress from unsatisfactory
movements towards solutions. Deep satisfaction will come from these
found solutions because they are profoundly “mine,” not based on
anyone’s idea about “how I should be” and “what I should do”—but
they are a manifestation of our libido. They are also lasting, because
they are aligned with our innate being and therefore feel “natural.”
They are a remembering of who “I am.” They are not based on changing
or reprogramming a person in a cognitive-behavioral context—they
are an unfolding of the Self; “Self ” as Jung defines it: a transpersonal,
organizing force in each individual.
Clay Field therapy activates the libido as the driving life force that
is profoundly connected to who we really are. Sensorimotor perception
overrides ego-driven, cognitive, learned behavior; thus the work allows
us to recover a deeper, healthier version of ourselves. To the extent
that we encounter ourselves as blocked, frustrated and fragmented, the
libido will re-member the lost and split off personality aspects; it will
find the flow that can reconnect us with our wholeness.
This does not happen as a cognitive process. Nor does it happen
as a visual process, even if the eyes remain open. Our hands do not
know the word “clay.” They do not see “box.” The hands can only
comprehend the box through, for example, hugging it, tracing its
boundary, or through grabbing the clay, squishing it between the
fingers and pushing it. As soon as we perceive this, we will react
to this tactile experience, either positively or negatively, liking it or
not, which will provoke further actions, such as dropping the clay
or reshaping it; and as this happens, we have the urge to name it, to
communicate it.
The hands are at all times in a relationship. They are never alone!
They always move within a context; we are at all times with something.
We meet ourselves as we create ourselves. It repeats the patterns of
earliest learning as infants, when we were held, and when we discovered
the world through touch. “Through touch we attain a somatic certainty
of our own existence” (Deuser 2009 p. 17). We can be sure of being
here, sure of being alive. This gives a profound sense of belonging and
order. Touch constitutes a continuum of sensorimotor encounters that
urge us forward towards fulfillment.
The neurological perspective of this sensorimotor process is
represented in the graph below (4.2). Van der Kolk and Ogden (Ogden
et al. 2006) speak of the “bottom-up” approach; a way of working
which begins with a motor impulse, then leads to sensory awareness
and from there to cognitive integration. This is how work at the Clay
Field unfolds. This is how children learn. This is how mankind evolved.
It is a very useful therapeutic method for client groups with difficulties
in expressing their problems verbally, such as children, but also many
adults, especially traumatized individuals.

The first actions at the Clay Field arise from the somatic and
autonomic nervous system. They are a mixture of voluntary and
involuntary motor impulses. Here clients may have a certain intention to
do something with the clay, but they will also inevitably find that urges
creep in unexpectedly, reactions to the touch of the clay that makes the
client withdraw the hands, or push forward, or do something else. The
autonomic nervous system is fueled by responses from the sympathetic
and parasympathetic branches, the physiological impulses that keep us
alive and that regulate stress; traumatic memories are stored here and
become activated here, not necessarily with any conscious memory, but
through faster breathing, quicker heart rate, increased blood pressure
and sweating, physiological responses that we translate as “fear” and
discomfort or, as these signs decrease, through a found resolution, such
as “relaxation” and wellbeing.
CENTRAL NERVOUS
SYSTEM
BRAIN AND SPINAL

CORD
PERIPHAL NERVOUS
SYSTEM
SENSORY DIVISION MOTOR DIVISION

Muscular
EXTEROCEPTIVE INTEROCEPTIVE SOMATIC AUTONOMIC

“The Five Senses” Proprioception NERVOUS NERVOUS
Respiration SYSTEM SYSTEM
Heartbeat Voluntary Control Involuntary
Vestibular Sense Conscious Control No Control
SYMPATHETIC PARASYMPATHETIC
BRANCH BRANCH
4.2: Structure of the central nervous system (Rothschild 2000)

Gradually these motor impulses will provoke sensory perception. Some

clients will experience their interoceptors more dominantly, others
their exteroceptors. With their interoceptors they now become aware
of how they feel on the inside, how their heart is racing, that they
are hot; or that they now feel calm and can breathe more deeply than
before. Their hands may appear lost in the space of the field; or they
may struggle with their sense of balance. The therapist can bring a
client’s attention to making solid contact with the feet on the ground
or to taking a breath.
With their exteroceptors they begin to perceive the environment
they are in. Of course, the sense of touch is dominant in this work at
the Clay Field, but visual, auditory and olfactory sensations can also be
intense. The clay makes noises when it is squished and pounded; it can
smell, and even with closed eyes, clients have images of what emerges
underneath their hands, of what they hold, of what they create.
In the process at the Clay Field the hands become aware not only
of the material and the quality of the material they touch—they also
begin to be acutely aware of their existence in a particular space. The
kinesthetic impulse will communicate the experience of moving through
the field, pushing forward or withdrawing, digging down, climbing up,
or hiding in the corners. The awareness of these kinesthetic movements
in space is called proprioception.
Proprioception is an important aspect of the awareness that
comes with reafference. Initially there are only motor impulses and a
rudimentary sensory perception of qualities the material has, such as
soft, yucky, hard, precious, etc.; soon, though, the hands also begin to
perceive themselves in the field as in a space. This phase is prompted by
a sense of disorientation and the need to establish order and a context
in which the hands can move and be. Proprioception is a vital need.
When the hands find orientation and a hold, they almost always also
find imagery that defines this space, or the object they hold on to. Thus
landscapes unfold in the field. Caves, lakes and mountains or objects
become defined as skin, rock, lighthouse, tower or pearl.
Anne is in her mid-fifties. She comes into the session with great
trepidation. Her brother was murdered two weeks ago, an event that
has been widely discussed in the press. He was her “little brother.”
They were close, despite his criminal career. She closes her eyes and
begins to take the clay out of the box, steadily and quickly, handful
by handful, and drops each load onto the floor—until the box is
completely empty. She cleans the box with water and paper towels.
Then she sits in front of the box, and her hands know neither what
to do next nor where to go. She looks lost. Her body is collapsed. I
encourage her to explore the corners of the box. She holds these
corners, then the sides. Increasingly her hands push, press and test
the sides of the box all around. With each side she announces that
this part of her space is “safe;” that “no one can come in.” She repeats
this for several rounds. Her movements become more confident.
Her body tonus improves. With clay she shapes a small “bench” for
every corner of the field. Her fingers then climb onto each bench and
“look” over the rim of the box. As her fingers do this she describes
what her fingers “see” in the world outside. She divides this outside
world into “safe and unsafe zones.” In-between, her fingers climb off
the various benches and reassure themselves that the inside of the
box is totally safe. She experiences the greatest threat when her
fingers stand on the bench and look out from the left bottom corner
of the box. Finally she begins to describe what her fingers see from
that corner.They see the brother, they see the murder. She describes
the events quite calmly. Every time she becomes agitated, her fingers
climb off the bench into “her space” to assure that all this happens
outside of her space. Every time she states this, she takes a handful of
clay from the floor and places it into the box. The more she realizes
that his story is not her story, the more material she picks up and
puts into the field. Next she pours water into the box and mixes it
with the clay into a soft, smooth paste. Then she places her arms up
to her elbows into the field, into the mud, and rests her head on her
arms. She looks comfortable and relaxed. She announces that her
ground, her “family-ground is safe and healed.”
Throughout the session, Anne followed prompts that deemed a place

“safe” or “unsafe.” This was a proprioceptive experience, where she
became acutely aware of how she moved in her space; in some parts
it was acted out as projection onto the space outside of the box, while
in others it was dramatized by her hands. Her loss manifested as a
physiological response, a motor impulse, her hands lost the clay. The
clay quite literally dropped dead onto the floor. Apparently the most
traumatic aspect of the events as they had unfolded in the past weeks
had been the negative press reports about her family; thus her need to
decontaminate her space, to clean it, to reassure herself of her identity
(the box) in order to separate her story, her space, from her brother’s—
and then she could, as a final act, restore her family-ground.
This case history illustrates the “reafference principle” in clear

steps. Anne takes handfuls of clay out of the box and drops them
onto the floor. If I had asked her at this point what she was doing, she
would most likely just have been confused. This was a motor stimulus,
and even though it proved to be a moving illustration of her loss and
her feeling of lostness, she was not aware of it. Her hands just did it,
because they were urged to do so. With every step of her resolution,
however, she activates an impressive range of sensory responses and
simultaneously puts handfuls of clay back into the box—she reverses the
previous movement. With every inch of family-ground that she reclaims as
healed, the movement’s echo constitutes awareness. A fulfilled process
in the Clay Field will always be based on completing the initial motor
stimulus as sensory perception. Only then is balance reset.
Something has happened in Anne’s life: her brother’s violent death.
This is a condition she is confronted with, a fact that is afferent. And
somehow she has to respond to this event. The reafferent response

will always be the reverse of the afferent movement—its echo, which
brings solution and fulfillment. Anne’s motor impulse is to take all the
material out of the box. Her sensory response is fulfilled by returning
handfuls of clay to the box, healing her ground. “Not me” becomes
“me;” alienation transforms into identity.
And while adults may find additional satisfaction in some cognitive
processing at the end of the session, this is not necessary for the
session’s therapeutic effect. Without the sensory awareness that comes
from reafference, however, there will be no insight, no fulfillment and
no psychological transformation. Children might “play” with clay and
water for the entire hour without a word, in which case the therapist
as witness of this nonverbal “playing” will constellate reafference and
thus sensory awareness.
Awareness in the context of the reafference principle, or the
gestalt circle, can be stimulated through interventions by the therapist.
Through suggesting an opposite, a relationship with an other has to be
constituted. The old learned ways, which manifest in the initial motor
impulses, very often come with strong attachments and affect, which
may make a client blind to new possibilities. Such affect needs to be
externalized, but it is the therapist’s responsibility to ensure that this
process is both safe and leads to awareness. The simple prompt by the
therapist to touch something different may introduce a new sensory
experience that can provoke the sensory re-evaluation of the old one.
In Anne’s case, this happened when I asked her to hold the corners of
the box after she had cleaned the clay out. It introduced the possibility
of a new relationship with her world, one that was solid; it gave
her a personal boundary and a hold. Such opposites will encourage
reflection—again, not as a cognitive process, but as a multidimensional,
sensory marvel. Such opposites establish the sounding boards from
which the client’s motor impulses can echo:
• Client–therapist: the client is aware of the presence of and
the relationship with the therapist; the therapist is important as
a witness, to validate the experience, to be the sounding board;
someone who safeguards the encounter at the Clay Field.
• Clay Field–client: the client can move backwards, away from
the table, and put distance between the field and self; or the
client can feel the outside of the box, as opposed to the inside,
for certainty. Often it can be of help to prompt a client to
be aware of his or her body, to breathe deeply, check body-

sensations, put the feet firmly on the ground and feel the sitting
bones.
• Client–clay: the client can be encouraged to take up a
relationship with the clay, to go deeper and engage more
fully—or to distance him or herself from the clay, getting rid
of it, pushing it out of the box, even onto the floor. Or to lean
backward, even get up from the chair, become aware of the feet
on the ground, stamp the feet, breathe deeply, etc.
• Water–clay: the hands move between the water bowl as the
safe place and the Clay Field as the unsafe place.
• Box–clay: if the clay is experienced as overwhelming and
disorienting, the box has permanence; it does not move; it has
a solid ground.
• Cognitive experience–somatic experience: if the client
tends to be dissociated or too much in the “head,” it helps
either to refer frequently to the felt sense in the body, or to
encourage motor impulses in the Clay Field.
Such opposites are introduced by the therapist as a break of focus
whenever clients get stuck, or too much attachment has gathered in one
place. As long as clients have nowhere else to go, have no alternative, they
will progress in a linear fashion, getting increasingly frustrated, agitated,
emotional or even retraumatized. In trauma therapy it is imperative
to “apply the brakes,” to intervene before states of hyperarousal veer

into panic, breakdown, or tonic immobility (Rothschild 2000; Ogden
et al. 2006). Levine calls this process “pendulation” (Levine 2003;
Levine and Kline 2007). Rothschild (2000) speaks of “dual awareness.”
Pendulation, dual awareness, just like reafference, is physiological self-
regulation that all animals, for example, apply naturally.
The alternative offered can be as simple as “if you like, add some
water.” It introduces a second focus away from the struggle with
a resistant material projected into the field. A client can now move
between the box of clay and the bowl of water. There is an alternative.
Or the therapist might suggest taking a deep breath, to take time. In
Anne’s case it was important to make her aware of the solid box—not
just to focus on the potentially overwhelming threat, but to establish
clear zones that were safe, as opposed to others that were unsafe. At all
times she had the option of going somewhere where she felt secure, to
reset her equilibrium. On this basis she could integrate the traumatic
event of her brother’s murder in widening circles of self-regulation,
until she could resolve it.
However, even without trauma-related interventions, awareness
requires a relationship. It requires an exchange between a subject and an
object, as discussed in the previous section. My afferent motor impulse
may be unreflected, but as soon as it encounters the other, affects the
other, the consequences of my actions will inevitably provoke sensory
awareness, reafference. In this way the libidinous motor impulse receives
the message confirming its success; the life impulse has moved forward.
Sensorimotor stages of gestalt formation

Every session will follow the same core pattern, which I will discuss
in this section. It will also further clarify the bottom-up approach of a
sensorimotor-oriented form of psychotherapy.
At the beginning of every process there will be an intention. This
intention is diffuse and total. It contains the undifferentiated entirety
of our life movement. It is an unclarified situation. We can see the Clay
Field sitting in front of us, but we do not know what will happen, what
awaits us in this encounter. The simple request “Perceive the Clay Field
with your hands” offers no hold in a specific task.
Just how awkward such a challenge can be becomes obvious in the
careful precautions clients take: we straighten up on our seat, tie our
hair back, cover our clothes, bring the Clay Field into position in front
of us: we create a mutual relationship. We are gearing up to establish a

relationship with the field, to locate ourselves.
Then we begin to hold the Clay Field with our hands; we touch the
sides of the box or find orientation within it through its boundaries. In
doing this, we are seeking a hold, safety and reliability, in the same way
as we have sought a hold—often perforce—in previous experiences.
We reproduce exactly those conditions under which our actional
patterns have formed in the past. Whatever patterns of behavior we
have acquired in the course of our life, they will now present themselves
anew—in their content as well as their structure. The hands are driven
by motor impulses, reacting to the conditions they have been placed
in, now and then.
This culminates in the primary gestalt (Deuser 2009), which is an
externalization of our conflict, our current struggle with “the world;”
how we shaped our world and how our world shaped us due to past
experiences.
Individuals experience a distinct amount of satisfaction when
they have externalized the primary gestalt, because their problem has
become obvious; it is out in the open.
This stage, however, does not represent a solution, so the hands
set out again, to search. The known, the past and the present are
left behind, and entirely new territory is explored. This is a phase of
realignment with who I really am, rather than who I should be. This
phase is based on acute sensory awareness and eventually leads to the
optimal gestalt (Deuser 2009).
The term gestalt in German translates as “creation;” the verb gestalten
describes the process of creation. Thus gestalt more correctly defines the
process of becoming form.
In the following I will map out these stages in three different ways.
I will present a diagram (4.3); I will describe the stages; and I will put
them in a grid that illustrates the parallel experience of the process in
the individual and that of the hands in the Clay Field.
Optimal gestalt
Fulfilled gestalt
Becoming gestalt
Reafference
Sensory awareness
Change
Primary
Ego gestalt
Hands
Bodily Haptic organization
organization in the Clay Field
Encounter Afference Relationship

Motor impulse
Intention
Life movement
4.3: Stages of gestalt formation
Intention
As shown in Deuser’s figure “Stages of gestalt formation,” the intention,
starting at the base, moves upwards and divides into two directions.
The undifferentiated totality of the life movement needs to progress
towards differentiation to become conscious and to find fulfillment.
The left side of the diagram represents the individual sitting at the
Clay Field. The right side of the diagram illustrates the experience the
hands have in the field.
At this starting point from which the hands depart into their
adventure in the Clay Field, we have to establish where our hands can
find a hold, safety and orientation. The individual (on the left) will
attempt to achieve this through “bodily organization,” such as tying
the hair back, moving the chair into position, rolling up the sleeves.
Here we are getting ready for an encounter. The hands (on the right)
will tentatively make contact with the field. They are entering a
“relationship.”
Both sides—the individual on the chair in front of the field and the
hands in the field—must first gain trust. What is possible? What can I
realize in this field? The Clay Field has to be established as a reliable
resource. Just the same as the relationship with the field, the therapist
companion has to be confirmed as a reliable resource. These are
prerequisites, and, if need be, these have to be established and reaffirmed
before work at the Clay Field can begin, either through other, less
regressive art therapy approaches or through appropriate experiences
with the therapist that will establish an adequate sense of personal and
emotional security. Whenever this phase is missing, not only does it
expose deficits in our biography, but it also has consequences for the
safety of the therapeutic process.
The hands seek out organizational patterns that feel familiar, and
thus safe. They need orientation points in the field—something to hold
on to. Most times we will act this out in ways that have been learned
in the past. Orientation in the world was acquired once with all its
insufficiencies, and anxieties, and our attempts to control, and that is
exactly how it will manifest now.
Such motor impulses are predominantly unconscious. They are
afferent. All emphasis is on the hands in the field. The hands might
discharge affect, they might be lost. They are reactive, responding
in the Clay Field to past patterns of learned behavior. They act out
our biography.
The primary gestalt

Gradually individuals move from these diffuse, undifferentiated,
kinesthetic states towards increasing externalization of inner events,
until two clearly distinguishable opposites have been defined: the ego,
me, my physiological and psychological identity on one side (the left)—
and the Clay Field containing the “problem” on the other (the right).
The problem is the manifest condition that is in need of change. It has
emerged from the mostly unconscious motor impulses of the hands
in the field. It is the manifestation of familiar relationship patterns. It
represents how I have survived so far, but in becoming obvious, it also
signals that these old ways want to be reconsidered—as otherwise they
would not manifest as a conflict.
Arrival at the primary gestalt is often characterized by a sense of
being “finished.” The ego is satisfied, having externalized its struggle.
Quite often, individuals will open their eyes at this point to also optically
and cognitively grasp what the hands wish to show them. Clients might
need to talk about what happened and how they feel about it now. The
primary gestalt can have an air of “look, I have survived,” and this is a
triumph of sorts, but surviving is still different from being alive.
The primary gestalt represents the client’s current situation of
conflict, manifest in the clay. To that extent it feels familiar and known,
and the way he or she got there is familiar and known. It can be a
relief to show it to the therapist, a relief to externalize the shadow,
the pressure, the shame and the grief. Many will be ready to leave
the session at this stage. This, after all, was the purpose of coming to
therapy: to get the problem out into the open.
The primary gestalt may manifest as an empty field, cleared of
all the old shit, but I may now experience it as lonely and isolated;
or it appears as mountain or wall and confronts me with something
insurmountable. In all cases I have to make a decision on how to deal
with these conditions or states, how to change.
To the experienced therapist companion, the Clay Field process
will feel distinctly unfinished at this stage. There is no solution. Maybe
parts of the field have not been touched at all. There might be a sense
of imbalance between the left and right side, or of fragmentation. There
is no rule, except a distinct sensation of incompletion or conflict.
Other individuals just experience a slowing down of the urgency in
their hands at this stage, but continue, with their eyes closed, without
interruption and cognitive processing, to search for a solution.
The optimal gestalt

And so the individual ventures out anew to search for change. Again,
adults with their eyes closed, and again, as before, the hands move
through stages of reorientation, reassurance and finding a hold;
the hands will be “doing” on one side (the right of the diagram),
the individual will be “feeling” on the other (the left), but the core
difference now is that everything we do is unknown! We are in
uncharted territory. We have never been here before. We do not know
the way. So, whereas in the first phase when we moved from intention
to the primary gestalt our hands were driven by affect (they were reacting
to biographical past events), now we search! The hands here can move
in the field like someone walking through a dark space. The hands
are tentative, sensing intensely every step they take. All orientation
now comes from sensory awareness, whereas beforehand the driving
force was mostly fueled by unconscious motor impulses. The hands
perceive the clay and the field in its sensory qualities, and such “good
or bad,” “safe or unsafe,” “oppressive or liberating” markers become the
guidelines for progress.
It can be of fundamental importance for the therapist to
communicate to the client that from here on no one knows the way.
Thus there is no pressure to achieve anything, there is no goal; there is
simply a path somewhere and it needs to be found, step by step—and
only the hands know the way. I assure my adult clients over and over at
this point that they don’t even need to make the effort to think, because
their head surely will not have a clue where they need to go now, and
I, as their therapist companion, also do not know the way. There is no
memory, no biography at this stage; all is new.
So this becomes a phase for trial and error. Whatever was neglected
or left out in the previous steps can now be taken up. There might
be old residue of affect, of taboos and vows. But now there is also a
resolve, a decision to deal with what once happened, and to move on.
The hands now act much more slowly, searchingly, in the field.
They are no longer reacting, driven or immobilized by survival, by
the unbearable, by guilt or shame; rather they are testing, trying,
experimenting, following whatever feels “good” or “right” from a
totally internal, sensory perspective that does not need to justify its
existence and qualification to anyone.
Thus we arrive at the optimal gestalt. This is Deuser’s term for the
point of fulfillment and closure of the creative process. We have become
self-aware. We have found an objective opposite that fulfills our claim

on life. In the Jungian context of the individuation process, we have
arrived at a manifestation of the Self.
Deuser defines the optimal gestalt as:
• fulfillment of the movement
• liberation of the ego as satisfaction, with a sense of completion
• having direction towards a future
• connection to traditions and the past
• unifying opposites, transcending duality.
The primary gestalt is defined by duality; it constitutes the current
opposite to our ego. It externalizes an inner conflict. We become self-
conscious, aware of our existence; we become able to reflect our actions,
and the consequences of our actions are mirrored to us in the field.
The optimal gestalt completes us as a resolved whole, as our self,
transcending duality. Our life movement, both internally and in the
symbolic world of the Clay Field, has become aligned. In the optimal
gestalt we fulfill our “inner life story” (Bernhard-Hegglin 1999), as
“inner experience” (Dilthey 2006) or as an “inner myth” (Jung 1963).
The optimal gestalt brings out our highest potential, our hope and
innate knowing of who we really are. It often has an element of
surprise, of awe.
The journey of the hands from the primary gestalt to the optimal
gestalt relates to the individuation process as Jung defines it (Jung

1968, 1972). Inside the Clay Field we are initially confronted with the
vast world of the collective unconscious, with a profound unknown.
However, the sensorimotor relationship between the hands and the
clay, between the Clay Field and the individual, constellates an inner
dialog that is capable of generating an intuitive knowing; the creative
process as a genesis, as a becoming. It constitutes a self-realization of
that which is collectively unconscious to find its form. The optimal
gestalt is frequently experienced as spiritual, unconditional love, as
profoundly safe without having to do anything, or as peaceful, settled,
having “arrived,” or as the discovery of a treasure, a lost part of Self, as
soul retrieval. It is a state of being. Clients frequently describe feelings
of reverence and gratitude or awe.
Whatever movement we set out with at the beginning of the session,
it has to find its correspondence in the optimal gestalt. The optimal
gestalt has to mirror the sensory fulfillment of the initial motor stimulus;
only then has reafference been completed; and only when this biological
balance is reset do we experience equilibrium and satisfaction.
In Table 4.1 below I have shown the stages of gestalt formation
in a diagram. It maps out the parallel occurrences in the individual
and of the hands in the Clay Field. Two streams of experiences flow
from undifferentiated oneness towards separation and externalization
of conflict at the stage of the primary gestalt, only to unite in wholeness
in the optimal gestalt. These stages apply to every Clay Field session.
The left side represents the individual’s experiences while sitting at
the Clay Field, while the right side illustrates the events taking place
in the Clay Field.
Table 4.1: Stages of gestalt formation
 INTENTION 
Bodily organization The hands’ movements and
of the individual events in the Clay Field
The individual now faces an encounter The hands in the Clay Field will live
with an opposite other. through a relationship.
How does someone face this What quality does the first touch
encounter? Sitting down, getting have? Is it safe or threatening? Does
ready, adjusting the box, the water the material feel welcoming or
bowl, moving the chair, adjusting the disgusting?
posture, taking a deep breath.
The hands will need to find a hold,

Now the individual will focus on orientation, and discover their
doing; will coordinate movements and proprioceptive presence in the space
motor impulses, find a rhythm. of the Clay Field.
The client will experience touch; and They act. The hands will grasp, poke,
will gradually acquire competence, pat, hit, etc. They either express their
improvisation skills and assurance. urges or disengage, not daring to do
Which emotion or atmosphere what they want to do.
emerges? The individual might Hands will transfer old relationship
feel shame, guilt, solitude, patterns onto the clay: anger, fear,
embarrassment, or will struggle with defensiveness, lust, fun.
doubts and inhibitions, or dissociate, The hands experience rhythm,
because in the past he/she was not flow, or lack thereof. They will feel
allowed to follow many of these receptive, restless, messy, sensual,
arising urges. impulsive, under pressure, defensive,
testing, searching, organizing.
As self-perception increases, clients Culminating in feelings of separation,

will have a growing awareness of confrontation and conscious
their own body and breath, their perception of the other, becoming
sense of strength or weakness. aware of old conditions that need
Decisions are made. This might change.
involve clearing parts of the field, Hands are executing these decisions,
establishing positions in the field, creating an autonomous gestalt.
and transition figures might appear In the first part of the process,
as pre-ego representatives. emphasis will be on these motor
Becoming aware of our own impulses in the field. The hands
biography. creating
AFFERENCE.
CHANGE   PRIMARY GESTALT
In the second part of the process, The urgency of the motor impulses
the emphasis will be on the sensory is lessened. The life movement
awareness of the individual. has slowed down. It is no longer
Whatever was acted out by the hands reacting, but searching.
through motor impulses has to find The hands are searching. Centering
its sensory equivalent now! The and grounding movements dominate.
individual has to find
Discovery of new possibilities; maybe
REAFFERENCE. a flaring up of old patterns and affect,
The individual is looking for and then moving to new potential,
new assurance, and searches for new designs.
equivalence. Initially hesitant, Gradually movements become calm,
gradually gaining certainty and collected; the hands are comfortable

confidence. There might be stages of in the environment of the field and
grief, awe, joy, “naughtiness” and fun. are in contact with the material.
Self-discovery through body Hands have orientation, belong in
sensations can involve changes in the the space they are in, look relaxed.
felt sense, relaxing, relief, feeling at Hands are aligned with the body.
peace, breathing deeply. Creation of figures. Symbolic
Seeing of images. representations.
Meaningful insights.
BECOMING COGNIZANT FULFILLED MOVEMENT
 OPTIMAL GESTALT 
The following case history illustrates in clear steps the stages of

gestalt formation.
I hope you can see the profound wisdom in this process and understand
some of its unfolding.
I only saw this young woman—let us call her Marilyn—for one

session. She was a practicing artist and made an appointment because
she could no longer paint. She sat down in front of the Clay Field,
and when I asked her whether there was anything in particular that
I should know or that she would like to focus on, she shared that
one year ago she had been drugged and raped. She had no conscious
memory of this event. She woke up in hospital not knowing where
she had been attacked, who it was, or how many of them there were.
She had had counseling for this assault for the past nine months,
but without any relief of her symptoms. Part of the difficulty she
experienced in the counseling sessions was caused by the cognitive
approach; she was asked to talk about an experience she had no
conscious memory of at all. In her daily life she felt listless, without
energy, dissociated, shut down.
Her first move—after the initial adjustments and orientations—is
to reach into the field and grasp handfuls of clay with her right hand,
collecting them in her left hand until she has enough material together
to roll a sphere the size of a tennis ball. She creates three spheres like
this; and as she declares each one “very precious,” she places them
outside the field on the table close to me for safe keeping.
Now she begins to tear into the material, ripping pieces of clay
out of the box or pushing large amounts of clay away from herself.
Her arousal level is high. But then she collapses into a hunched-over
body posture, her hands picking around in the field without any aim
or purpose until the next wave of arousal urges her again to rip and
push and throw lumps of clay out of the box onto the table and the
floor. She oscillates between hyperarousal and collapse until the box
is empty.
She uses water and paper towels to clean the bottom of the box
and then, with satisfaction, opens her eyes, declaring that she now
feels “better.”
We take time to check her felt sense, how she feels in her body,
to which she replies “OK.”
I now point out to her that there are still the three precious
balls sitting on the table. Because she had given them significance at
the beginning, they were clearly different in quality to the rest of the
clay, which she had thrown out.
She picks up one ball and holds it in her hand; next she takes it
to her heart and sighs. She then places the ball in her lap and takes
the next one until all three balls are lying in her lap, and she breathes
deeply. I encourage her to take her time and to find a place for the
balls in the field. She reaches forward and picks up clay from the table,
she works it with her hands until it becomes smooth and her hands
really own it. Slowly she then begins to build a “nest” in the center
of the field. It is a large nest, it is smooth, and she takes great care to
soften the inside of the nest. Next she takes each of the spheres and
places them into the nest. She calls them “my golden eggs.”
When she opens her eyes she feels great relief and a deep sense
of resolution.
Three weeks later I received a letter from her husband, thanking
me for “giving me my wife back.” She had resumed painting and was
able to be intimate again.
Marilyn’s first move was to take out the three spheres. In the context
of the law of afference and reafference, the echo has to come back in
order for equilibrium to be reset. In a completed Clay Field process,
the initial message (taking the three precious balls out of the field) has
to match the final message (placing the three balls back into the field).
Much of the process’s purpose is to clarify the initial message and
make it conscious. In Marilyn’s case this was the violation of her body,
the rape that had taken place a year ago. Just as the three precious
spheres had been placed outside the box for safe keeping, she too had
left her body; she had dissociated from it as a means of coping with
the unbearable.
The primary gestalt is the clean and empty box. The empty field
is cleared of the abuse, but it is also an image of dissociation and
isolation. The primary gestalt as her present “problem” was not so
much the assault as such, but the emptiness and disconnectedness
from herself it had caused her, because she could no longer accept
her body and be in it. As a consequence she could no longer paint,
be creative, live life.
Relief at this stage is experienced in the context of “I have survived.”
She could clean up the mess—something she had also done in the past
months of therapy; but her soul, her preciousness, the only part she
initially deemed worth saving, still remained dissociated, having no
place in the world (of the Clay Field).
During this phase, between the initial intention and the primary
gestalt, she gradually throws all the clay out. If what is thrown out
will not be touched, or will barely be touched, it will have to come
back in again. She had distanced herself from the experience, and
that is an important step; yet the process demands, in order to reset
the equilibrium, that she must deal with it. Thus some of the clay
had to come back into the box later on. And now she deals with it.
She kneads and processes it until it can be fully owned; she reclaims
the material to create a body-nest in which she can be safely held to
grow.
The optimal gestalt provides a resolution of incredible simplicity. It
incorporates a solution on all levels: physically, she is back in her body;
emotionally, she is safe; her spirit is back, centered, and ritualized in
the field; she can value herself again (the balls are very precious). At
the end of the session it was visible that she had come back into her
body, that her breath was deep, her tonus alive; she had reincarnated,
a term which translates from Latin: to go into the flesh, again. And the
effects lasted long-term. The trauma was healed. It was over. She could
return to painting, reclaim her creativity as well as her sexuality in her
marriage.
I will illustrate the following processes in more detail in Chapter 7,
“Your Story,” where the case histories are documented more fully. Here
we shall just briefly look at the core stages of the process, how an
initial motor stimulus at the beginning of the session finds its sensory
completion at the end (4.4 and 4.5).
Rose 1: The intention of this client

was one of painful dissociation
between the two hands. All motor
impulses she performed in the
field were dissociated. Her hands
could not coordinate movement,
could not even be together in the
same space. It took 20 minutes of
struggle with her trauma-related
4.4a
immobility until she found the first
stage of resolution.
Rose 2: The primary gestalt

constitues a resolution for each
hand. The right hand can act out
protective movements to secure the
boundary of the field; the left hand
takes a ritual bath to recover from
being frozen in terror. Here we find
temporary relief, and an awareness
of previously unconscious material
4.4b
through the acknowledgement of
vital needs.
Rose 3: The optimal gestalt

brings a lasting solution. Here the

exact oppostite to the intention at
the beginning has been constituted.
The hands rest within each other,
they have come together and
rock, in unison with her body. A
surprising sensory response to the
initial motor impulse has been
4.4c found. The life movement of the
libido has achieved fulfillment.
Jen 1: The intention of this client

was to run and hide. Her initial
motor impulse was an instant
tunneling into invisibility, in order
to be safe from sexual abuse in her
childhood. This was a completely
unconscious reaction of her hands
to being “exposed” in the symbolic
world of the field.
4.5a
Jen 2: Her primary gestalt has two
phases. First, she clears all the clay
out of the box, which is satisfying for
her ego. It is an affect, responding to
the abuse, which she has wanted to
act out for a long time. Second, she
needs to be held; here this happens
in the water bowl. It is a restoration
of an unmet developmental need;
the fulfillment of a vital need to be 4.5b
safe and loved by her mother.
Jen 3: The optimal gestalt is the

mirror image of the initial impulse
of tunneling into hiding. Here she
is visible, valued and beautiful—

and safe. The reafferent response
that her unconscious motor impulse
has found is filled with sensory
awareness in the field, in her
hands, in every cell of her body,
in her breath. She has attained a 4.5c
state of being her Self, rather than
surviving underground.
The reafferent, sensory response as it manifests in the optimal gestalt

is at all times visually, symbolically, physically and emotionally the
counterpart of the initial motor impulse. What was hollowed out will
be filled in; what was taken away has now been regained; what was
separated has now been joined.
Cognitive integration
It is important to take time for cognitive integration once the optimal
gestalt has been found. Clients need to look at it with open eyes. They
need to name their creation or the state at which they arrived and
describe in detail the changed perspective that has emerged. The new
paradigm manifests with different exteroceptors and interoceptors, and
these need to become conscious. The world inside and outside the Clay
Field looks different now. In groups I will encourage the client in the
hot seat to make eye-contact with other participants and describe how
different it might now feel to be seen or to relate. It is important to put
such an experience into words: “I am whole now,” whereas beforehand
the individual was fragmented. “I am alive,” whereas beforehand one
was barely surviving. For Rose the affirmation was: “I am safe, I am
nurtured, I rest within myself.” Such affirmations are always based on
what a client expresses when they open their eyes at the end of a process.
As the therapist companion, however, I may assist with clarifying the
message. For Jen the new paradigm was about being seen, being visible,
and the fact that this no longer meant risking humiliation and abuse. In
the group—with my encouragement—she looked at every participant
and said: “You can look at me and I feel safe. I am precious and beautiful
and I am safe.”
Such statements put an end to traumatic experiences, and the
individual can clearly acknowledge that whatever happened once, it is
over now and “I am alive and whole.”
This stage of the optimal gestalt and the expression of such

affirmations is always based on a new or renewed felt sense. To name the
transformed interoceptors is also important; to perceive how I can now
breathe into every part of my body, how relaxed and grounded I sense
myself, how I feel comfortable, loved, nurtured or wanted in the world
in which I live. Such experiences need conscious acknowledgement.
And they need time to sink in.
A skilled therapist companion may accelerate the acting out of past
experiences, the motor impulses based on biography, as they emerge in
the first part of the process, when the client moves from intention to the
primary gestalt, in the knowledge that many individuals know these
moves inside out from millions of repeats. However, when someone
arrives at the optimal gestalt, it takes time to digest what has happened
and where the client has arrived now. Without cognitive integration,
valuable lessons may get lost or remain hazy or unappreciated.
As a supervisor I have found that inexperienced therapists indulge

in the problem phase and underestimate the life-giving message of the
optimal gestalt. They tend to be glad, often together with the client, to
be “finished”—some kind of “product” has emerged and the client feels
“good,” and it is left at that. However, sensory and cognitive integration
will assure that the new paradigm becomes a consciously remembered,
life-changing message.
Only then is the bottom-up approach complete. The client has
moved from motor impulses emerging from the somatic nervous system
and the autonomic nervous system, to sensory perception through the
extero- and interoceptors, to cognitive integration.
Chapter 5
Trauma Healing
The psychophysiology of trauma

Contrary to popular belief, trauma can be healed, and Clay Field
therapy is one of a number of effective tools for doing this. Trauma is
a psychophysical event, even when the physical body is not harmed.

Trauma occurs when something happens to us and our involuntary
autonomic nervous system, our survival instinct, deems this occurrence
overwhelming. It is not so much a matter of what happened as one of
how we reacted to this event; there is no external objective to measure
trauma. Children may get traumatized by receiving an injection—an
event that is hardly registered by another as problematic. Infants can
become traumatized by cold temperatures or loud noises. Almost every
client I see in my art therapy practice—adult or child—is dealing with
varying degrees of trauma, past or present. Often, current problems and
anxieties are fueled by an underlying, unresolved trauma concerning
something that happened decades ago. Although the event may have
disappeared from conscious memory, the body does not forget.
While humans have experienced trauma for thousands of years,
research into the after-effects of trauma are very recent. While no one
155
was aware of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) after World War II,
it became an increasingly discussed issue after the Vietnam War.
Accidents and falls, medical and surgical procedures, violent acts
and attacks, loss, separation and environmental disasters are common
sources of trauma. Domestic violence, sexual and physical abuse, and
victimization through acts of crime and torture have a serious impact
on every person who has been exposed to such threats. Many people
experience birth traumas. Schoolchildren are exposed to bullying.
Statistics suggest that one‑third of all women and one‑fifth of all men
have experienced varying degrees of sexual abuse while growing up. If
the mother is emotionally distressed, the fetus in the womb will suffer.
Prenatal infants, newborns and very young children are most at risk
from stress and trauma due to their underdeveloped nervous, motor and
perceptual systems.
The trauma response sets in whenever our instinctual fight–flight
impulse is overruled; when the sympathetic branch of our involuntary
nervous system decides that we are too small to fight and too weak to
run. We then freeze. We dissociate in psychological terms, we get out of
our body, our soul takes flight. This immobility response has a number
of advantages: if we are harmed, it now hurts less, we feel less, see less;
whatever is deemed unbearable gets blocked out; we prepare to die.
Peter Levine studied animals in order to find out how animals cope
with trauma. A rabbit in the wild is likely to encounter life-threatening
situations several times per day, yet, if this rabbit were to develop PTSD,
the species would have died out long ago. So what do animals do?
When they freeze and pretend to be dead, many predators lose interest
and turn away. Or, should the eagle catch the rabbit, its impending
death will not be as painful. Dissociated from its physical body, to die
will not hurt as much. We do the same.
But what do animals do that we don’t, or don’t do enough—and
instead develop PTSD?
Nature has endowed nearly all living creatures with very similar
nervous system responses to the threat of danger. However, of
all species, there is only one that routinely develops long-term,
traumatic aftereffects—the human. (Levine 1997 p. 86f.)
The only time animals develop chronic traumatic reactions is when
they are domesticated or subjected to stressful laboratory conditions.
In the wild, as soon as an animal notices that it is still alive and safe, it
will begin to shake and discharge the hormones of hyperarousal that
Trauma Healing 157
have been activated through the fight–flight response. Because, while

the soul dissociates from the body in the immobility response, the
sympathetic branch in the autonomic nervous system remains highly
charged: adrenalin is still pumping, a huge amount of other hormones
is being released, the heartbeat is accelerated, respiration is increased,
all muscles are tense and ready for quick movement, and the mind
is racing. This hyperarousal is necessary for our survival, crucially
beneficial for short-term release; it is caused by an autonomic fight–
flight response in the limbic system of the brain. As soon as the danger
is over, though, and the soul returns to the body, the body will need to
discharge this vast amount of excess energy stored in every cell, tissue
and muscle.
Animals and humans begin to shake at this stage. Levine studied
the shaking of animals in slow motion and realized that the discharge
in the shaking actually acts out the motor response of the fight–flight
impulse that had remained incomplete at the time of dissociation from
the traumatizing event. Thus the shaking rabbit will make running
movements with its legs until the tension in the limbs is released, the
excess adrenalin and other hormones have become discharged, and
balance is reset. This discovery is of immense importance. It became
one of the cornerstones of Levine’s innovative trauma healing approach.
Levine has, for example, trained ambulance officers to support
accident victims calmly by gently touching their back in a supportive
way, while they discharge through shaking—provided, of course, that
they are not life-threateningly injured.
Traumatized humans, however, are nowhere near as comfortable

with the shaking discharge as animals are. They feel already out of
control because of what happened and often cannot cope with the
involuntary shaking of their entire body, which can be frightening
under any circumstances. We are conditioned to be in control, to hold
ourselves together, to not fall apart. Even when we are not afraid of the
involuntary shaking ourselves, others around us will be—and will urge
us to calm down, to wind down, to be OK now, or they will actively
sedate or anesthetize us. Caregivers, family members and bystanders
are rarely able to support the necessary discharge calmly. So, while our
teeth are chattering, our knees feel like jelly, we are cold and sweating,
and most likely we can’t get a word out when someone asks us what
happened, we still attempt to “pull ourselves together,” “calm down,”
“get over it,” and way too soon, we will assure ourselves and others
with a “Don’t worry, I’m all right.”
A study in an Israeli emergency department researched patients

who came into the hospital with an accelerated heart rate due to a
terrorist attack. Those who still had an accelerated heart rate when they
were released all developed PTSD, while those who had calmed down,
realizing they were safe now and the danger was over, fully recovered
from the incident (Levine 2011).
Problems occur if our survival instinct has not understood that the
traumatic event is over, that it has come to an end. In this case the
autonomic nervous system remains hyperaroused, in fight–flight mode,
long after the event. Since the shaking discharge is involuntary and
cannot be controlled by an individual, we begin to be afraid of the
very mechanism nature designed for us to reset our equilibrium, and
from now on, every time we come near this inner loss of control, near
arousal, the fear of the involuntary kicks in again, and again—and the
equilibrium can’t be reset. Adrenalin is still racing through our system,
and in parts we remain shut down. From now on, the entire human
system is constantly prepared to be assaulted again, to be hurt again,
while feeling lonely, powerless, helpless and immobilized by fear.
Trauma symptoms
If this supercharged survival energy is not released, it stays in the body,
sometimes for decades, and then in fact becomes very destructive. This
undischarged survival energy is the cause of a wide range of symptoms
and illnesses we associate with PTSD: flashbacks, anxiety, panic attacks,
insomnia, depression, psychosomatic complaints, lack of openness,

violent, unprovoked rage and repetitive destructive behaviors; chronic
fatigue, ADD, autism, Asperger’s syndrome, fibromyalgia, migraines,
severe PMT…
Each individual’s experience of trauma symptoms is different.
However, the nervous system does appear to favor some symptoms over
others.
• Initial symptoms are:
°° hyperarousal
°° constriction
°° dissociation (including denial)
°° feelings of helplessness.
Trauma Healing 159
• Early symptoms that begin to show up at the time or shortly

after those above are:
°° hypervigilance (being “on guard” at all times)
°° intrusive imagery or flashbacks
°° extreme sensitivity to light and sound
°° hyperactivity
°° exaggerated emotional and startle responses
°° nightmares and night terrors
°° abrupt mood swings (e.g. rage reactions or temper tantrums,
shame)
°° reduced ability to deal with stress (easily and frequently
stressed out)
°° difficulty sleeping.
• Additional symptoms that may develop at a later stage are:
°° panic attacks, anxiety and phobias
°° mental “blankness” or “spaciness”
°° avoidance behavior (avoiding certain circumstances)
°° attraction to dangerous situations
°° frequent crying
°° exaggerated or diminished sexual activity
°° amnesia and forgetfulness
°° inability to love, nurture or bond with other individuals
°° fear of dying, going crazy or having a shortened life.
• The last symptoms that may develop are:
°° excessive shyness
°° muted or diminished emotional response
°° inability to make commitments
°° chronic fatigue or very low physical energy
°° immune system problems and certain endocrine problems,

such as thyroid dysfunction
°° psychosomatic illnesses, particularly headaches, neck and
back problems, asthma, digestive problems, spastic colon
and severe premenstrual syndrome
°° depression, feeling of impending doom
°° feelings of detachment, alienation and isolation—“living
dead”
°° diminished interest in life.
Obviously, not all these symptoms are caused exclusively by trauma.
However, symptoms produced by other events usually go away after a
few days. Those produced by trauma do not. The symptoms of trauma
can be stable (ever present) or not (come and go), or may hide for
decades. They tend to grow increasingly complex over time, becoming
less and less connected with the original trauma (Levine 1997
pp. 147–150).
In his extensive research and practice, Levine made a number
of discoveries I found very helpful in my rather non-scientific
understanding of trauma:
• People who can stay mobile throughout a terrible event, who
do not experience the involuntary immobility response, do not
suffer from PTSD. They have discharged all the excess tension
and hormones in the actual event through fighting or fleeing.

They were at no time so overwhelmed that they dissociated
from what happened to them. Such individuals may have had a
terrible experience, but they will not develop PTSD.
• The completion of an arousal cycle is deeply satisfying. It
provides us with a “natural high” that we even attempt to
simulate through bungee-jumping, skydiving or other thrill-
seeking events.
• The immobility response is involuntary. I explain this to many
women who have been sexually assaulted and who blame
themselves for having “cooperated;” for not having done
anything to defend themselves. They could not. Their minds
may have been wide awake, but their bodies were paralyzed.
If the limbic system perceives that there is neither time nor
Trauma Healing 161
strength for fight or flight and “death” is imminent, the body

will freeze.
• Many people who have once experienced trauma will attract
further trauma; either because their ability to read situations
and to respond to them appropriately is diminished due to
the previous trauma, or because they unconsciously seek to
complete the arousal cycle through a repeat of the previous
event.
Trauma client groups

Trauma clients can form a wide spectrum with significantly different
treatment needs. Only about 25 percent of all clients who have
experienced a traumatic event will develop PTSD (Rothschild 2010).
The best help an individual can get after a terrible experience is loving
support from family and friends. However, many clients do not have
such support in their life. In addition, a therapist needs to be aware
that processing trauma memories will most certainly weaken the
coping strategies and create instability, which for many clients can be
too destabilizing; it may possibly cause retraumatization and further
distress. Thus it is crucial to assess a client’s resilience before entering a
phase of processing trauma memories, in order to avoid overwhelming
and decompensation.
We may have someone who has only experienced one traumatic
incident and who lives in an otherwise stable environment, who has

good ego boundaries and who has experienced secure attachment as an
infant. Such an individual will benefit from trauma recovery and trauma
resolution, even if the processing of trauma memories will be upsetting
for the individual.
Many clients, though, have encountered multiple traumatic
incidents from early childhood onwards; they have grown up in violent
families, then developed pain-numbing drug or alcohol habits, ended
up in abusive relationships or developed risk-taking behavioral patterns.
Many have experienced insecure attachment from very early on in
life; they have weak ego boundaries and are likely to be dangerously
overwhelmed if any of the traumatic memories are being addressed.
Some may struggle with personality disorders or dissociative disorders.
Such clients sometimes need years of stabilizing therapeutic support
where they learn to regulate affect, manage dissociative episodes, get
physically safe, and develop positive self-images that counterbalance

the negative experiences. They need to develop trust in the therapist,
especially to come to trust that no retraumatization will take place in
this relationship. They need to work on resources, functional ones such
as good locks on their front door, physical ones like learning to defend
oneself, behavioral ones such as avoiding walking through a dark park
at night, and also psychological, interpersonal and spiritual resources.
It might take years before such individuals are stable enough to process
trauma memories in any detail; some will never be strong enough.
Clay Field therapy is not necessarily the medium of choice for this
latter client group, certainly not initially. Such individuals will often
benefit from less regressive and more cognitive art therapy approaches;
or the Clay Field therapy will need to alternate with other art therapy
modalities in order to allow such clients to negotiate a break whenever
the process threatens to overwhelm them.
Van der Kolk (2011) states that most clinical studies of PTSD
are conducted on car accident or rape victims, individuals who have
suffered a single traumatic event; while the overwhelming majority seen
by art therapists and other mental health professionals are population
groups who suffer from DTD (Developmental Trauma Disorder). Forty
percent of people traumatized as adults are cured after eight sessions,
50 percent after four months and 80 percent after six months. However,
of individuals diagnosed with DTD who were traumatized as children,
only 30 percent recover after often long-term therapy; 70 percent
remain the “untouchables” of the psychiatric population, the walking
dead (van der Kolk 2011).

Civilian trauma is different from war trauma in so far as such
clients, mostly children, are hurt and traumatized by people they love
and depend on at home, which creates an attachment conflict that is
painfully hard to resolve.
Dissociation
Individuals who “froze in fear,” who were “struck with terror,” “scared
stiff,” who were immobilized by something overwhelming that
happened to them, have dissociated in psychological terms. Rothschild
(2000 pp.68–70) and Levine (2010 pp.133–154) offer a model
that illustrates the varying patterns of dissociation. It can assist in
identifying which elements of an experience are associated and which
are dissociated during the traumatic episode. The SIBAM model states
Trauma Healing 163
that implicit memory involves five core functions: Sensation, Image,

Behavior, Affect and Meaning. Complete memory of an experience
involves integrated recall of all these elements. If we view dissociation
as the mind’s attempt to flee, when fight–flight is not possible, in the
concept of this model, the most distressing elements of the experience
can be dissociated from one another, while the less distressing memories
remain intact.
In a visual flashback, for example, image and affect are associated;
sensation, behavior and meaning dissociated. Clients trapped in visual
flashbacks will shuttle between image and terror, blocked in their
inability to feel their body in the present (sensation), move in a way
that would break the spell (behavior), or put the memory into context
(meaning). Victims of crime and war veterans report waking up at night
flooded with terrifying images, sweating and frozen in fear.
In a panic attack, sensation and affect are associated; image,
behavior and meaning are dissociated. Clients with anxiety and panic
attacks may talk persistently about disturbing physical sensations and
resulting fear (affect). It may be difficult or impossible for them to
identify what they heard or saw that triggered the anxiety (image),
what they need to do to reduce the anxiety (behavior), or what the fear
actually stems from (meaning). A woman had been sexually assaulted
years ago by a man in a red shirt. She had dissociated the image of the
man, but whenever she saw a man in a red shirt, even in a shop window,
she began to panic. While she experienced intense fear, she had no
idea that these disturbing physical sensations were triggered by the
fleeting sight of a red shirt in a crowd. Being in a public space became

increasingly difficult for her, even to go shopping. She was diagnosed
with agoraphobia until eventually she could retrieve the memory and
put her fear into context.
In avoidance, affect and behavior are associated; meaning, image
and sensation are dissociated. A client may connect with a strong
distressing emotion and remember her need to take a long, long shower,
but have no body memory of the abuse (sensation), the perpetrator
(image) and the context in which the events happened (meaning).
Clients may report disturbing memories (image) and a strong
emotion connected to them (affect) but may not be able to make any
sense of it (dissociated meaning); a child might exhibit repetitive play
after a frightening event (behavior), but does not display any emotion
(dissociated affect) or appear to remember at all (image).
Memories of traumatic events can become encoded just like other

memories, both explicitly and implicitly. Typically, however,
individuals with PTS and PTSD are missing explicit information
necessary to make sense of their distressing somatic symptoms—
body sensations—many of which are implicit memories of trauma.
Which information is missing varies: for some it will be specific
facts or facts that have been forgotten; for others it may be a key,
the “aha!” that puts the facts at hand together into something
meaningful. One of the goals of trauma therapy is to help those
individuals to understand their bodily sensations. They must first
feel and identify them on the body level. Then they must use
language to name and describe them, narrating what meaning the
sensations have for them in their current life. At times, though not
always, it then becomes possible to clarify the relationship between
the sensations to the past trauma. (Rothschild 2000 p. 45)
The psychiatric community deals with trauma on a daily basis.
Attention directed at the body has tended to focus on the distressing
symptoms of PTSD, the resulting problems of adaptation and possible
pharmacological intervention. Using the body as a possible resource in
the treatment of trauma has rarely been explored (Rothschild 2000 p. 4).
Using a combination of art therapy and a body-focused, sensorimotor
psychotherapy approach may at times increase the effectiveness of
treatment.
The SIBAM model has become the essence of Levine’s “bottom-up”
approach.
Sensation refers to physical sensations that arise from the body.

They rise via nerve impulses to the upper brainstem. These interoceptors
are:
• the kinesthetic sense, with which we feel the tension in our
muscles
• the proprioceptive sense, through which we orient ourselves
in space
• the vestibular sense, which is our sense of balance
• viscera and blood vessels, which communicate our “gut feelings”
to the brain.
Image refers not only to the visual sense, but to all exteroceptors
such as taste, smell, hearing and touch. These are the sensory markers
through which we perceive the world.
Trauma Healing 165
Behavior is the only channel which the therapist can observe

directly; all others the client has to report. This involves the client’s
body language, his or her posture, facial mimicry, gestures, breathing
patterns and cardiovascular signals. In addition, at the Clay Field
behavior can be observed through the movements the hands make in
the field.
Affect includes the core emotions of fear, anger, sadness, joy and
disgust. It also encompasses the registration of contours of feeling
based on attraction and avoidance, which clients often express as
feeling “good” or “bad.”
Meaning is the collective cognitive interpretation of the previous
four elements: sensation, image, behavior and affect. A lot of trauma
therapy revolves around fixed belief systems: “I’ll never be able to do
this!” Such beliefs are almost impossible to undo on a cognitive level
unless they are based on a renewed felt sense, based on new physical
sensations, images, behavior and affect.
A typical Clay Field session might follow the following pattern—
let us call our fictitious client Kate. Kate sits down in front of the
Clay Field and reports feeling “scared.” Asked “how” she perceives
this “scared” in her body, she responds “feeling tense and sick in the
gut, as if wanting to throw up” (sensation). She then touches the clay
tentatively and reports that it “feels disgusting” (image). The therapist
might suggest trying to find a place in the setting that feels “safe.” After
a while, Kate finds the sides of the wooden box and holds on to them
with both hands, testing the solidity of the Clay Field by shaking it,
her body rocking in the effort (behavior). She reports feeling “stronger
now” (sensation). When Kate touches the clay again, “it doesn’t feel
so bad after all” (image). Now she dares to fully touch the clay and
push all the material that feels disgusting away from her body, out
of the box onto the table. As she gets more and more confident to do
so, pushing hard, almost frantically (behavior), she experiences rage
flooding through her (affect). “Get out!” she grunts. Gradually her
hands calm down, her breathing settles (sensation). Her hands begin to
explore the cleared field with growing curiosity. “I’ve got space! Lots
of space! This feels great! Ah, I can do it! I can do it!” (meaning). This
is the bottom-up approach, using the body as a resource. With minimal
interference from the therapist, through finding safety, which allows
release of affect, she moves from inability to competence. And such a
discovery is lasting, because it comes from within the body.
The body as a resource

One of Levine’s core discoveries that allowed him to develop his trauma
healing approach using the body as a resource was his neurological
discovery of “pendulation.”
Pendulation stimulates a neurological connection between the
two brain hemispheres; it moves a client out of a traumatic immobility
response and offers an alternative opposite. It appeals to a self-regulating
function in the hippocampus, which is commonly associated with the
memory function, and which is part of the temporal lobe. It receives
inputs from and sends efferents to both the amygdala and the cortex
(Ogden et al. 2006 p. 151; Levine 1997, 2003).
The amygdala and the hippocampus are part of the limbic system,
the reptilian part of our brain that has dealt since the beginning of
time with our survival. When the amygdala perceives a life-threatening
stimulus, either from within the body or from outside it, it will activate
the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system. This will
activate the fight–flight impulse through the release of stress hormones
such as adrenalin. It will demand a shutdown of large areas of the
prefrontal cortex. In evolutionary terms, too much thinking is obviously
not considered useful when we are expected to run and save our life.
Once the amygdala is alarmed, it is very hard to unscare it. It does
not shut down easily, at least not if the fight–flight impulse was not
completed, and the individual froze, collapsed and dissociated instead.
If we did not negotiate successful survival because we were too
overwhelmed, the amygdala does not reset itself back to normal. It

remains alarmed. It keeps producing adrenalin, causing hyperarousal
or continuous numbing in individuals; and they can’t turn it off—
sometimes it stays on for decades! An overactive amygdala is considered
to be largely responsible for all symptoms of PTSD (Ogden et al. 2006
p. 147f.; Levine 1997, 2003, 2010).
The hippocampus as the mediator between the cortex—our
thinking function—and the amygdala—our survival function—has
two pathways: one through which the SOS-shutdown of the prefrontal
cortex is organized; and another one through which the alarm is
called off and the amygdala is reset to equilibrium. The amygdala,
for example, will set off the alarm at lightning speed the moment it
perceives a threat, such as someone lurking behind a corner, about to
attack me; the second pathway takes longer, getting the message around
to the cortex, which will evaluate the accuracy of the perception. If the
Trauma Healing 167
message was accurate, it will activate a survival response. If, however,

it was just the shadow of a tree, the cortex sends a new message to the
amygdala: “Don’t worry, it was just a tree.” And the alarm will be called
off and the individual will calm down.
The hippocampus, however, is highly vulnerable to stress
hormones, particularly adrenaline and noradrenaline, released by
the amygdala’s alarm. When those hormones reach a high level,
they suppress the activity of the hippocampus and it loses its ability
to function. (Rothschild 2004 p. 2)
Information that could make it possible to distinguish between an
attacker and the shadow of a tree never reaches the cortex. This is the
pattern of panic attacks and PTSD. If the stress level is too high, the
functioning of the hippocampus is shut down and rational evaluation
is no longer possible. This is how clients veer out of control into ever
increasing cycles of arousal and cognitive shutdown. However,
the hippocampus is also a key structure in facilitating resolution
and integration of traumatic incidents and traumatic memory. It
inscribes time context on events, giving each of them a beginning,
middle and—most important with regard to traumatic memory—
an end. A well-functioning hippocampus makes it possible for
the cortex to recognize when a trauma is over, perhaps even long
past. Then it instructs the amygdala to stop sounding the alarm.
(Rothschild 2004 p. 2–3)
This function is crucial, because all PTSD symptoms are based on the
fact that the hippocampus has not yet realized that the traumatic event
has come to an end, that “I am safe now, I have survived! I am alive.”
This has critical implications for therapy. Safe, successful trauma
therapy must maintain stress hormone levels low enough to keep
the hippocampus functioning. That’s why it is so crucial for
both client and therapist to know how to “apply the brakes” in
therapy—to keep the hippocampus in commission and return it to
action as promptly as possible when the system goes on overload.
(Rothschild 2004 p. 3)
Overload can be easily observed by the physical signals the autonomic
nervous system transmits through a client’s body. In times of stress
the sympathetic branch becomes activated: the breath goes fast; the
heart rate (pulse) quickens; the blood pressure increases; the pupils
dilate; the skin color is extremely pale, partially flushed; the individual
feels hot and cold, with increased sweating; the skin is cold (possibly
clammy); the digestion (and peristalsis) decreases; the mouth goes dry;
and clients cry on the inhale, or their anger increases. These symptoms
are a definite indicator that the individual needs to calm down; that the
hippocampus threatens to shut down.
AUTONOMIC NERVOUS SYSTEM

smooth muscles
(involuntary)
Both are always “on” but vary in dominance
SYMPATHETIC BRANCH PARASYMPATHETIC BRANCH

Activates during positive and negative States of activation include: rest and
stress states including sexual climax, relaxation; sexual arousal; happiness;
rage, desperation, embarassement, shame, anger; grief; sadness.
terror, anxiety/panic, trauma. Noticeable signs:
Noticeable signs: Slower, deeper respiration; slower heart
Faster respiration; quicker heart rate (pulse); decreased blood pressure,
rate (pulse); increased blood pressure; pupils constrict; flushed skin colour; skin
pupils dilated; extremely pale skin colour, dry (usually warm) to touch; digestion
partially flushed, feeling hot and cold; (and peristalsis) increase.
increased sweating; skin cold (possibly Anger decreasing actions;
clammy); digestion (and peristalsis) crying on the inhale.
decreases; mouth goes dry. During actual traumatic event
Anger increasing actions; OR with flashback (visual,
crying on the inhale. auditory and/or sensory):
During actual traumatic event Can also activate concurrently with, while
OR with flashback (visual, masking, sympathetic activation leading
auditory and/or sensory): to tonic immobility; freezing reflex, stiff or
Preparation for quick movement, leading to floppy (like dead mouse, caught by cat, going
possible fight reflex or flight reflex. dead). Marked by simultaneous signs of
high sympathetic and parasympathetic

activation; dissociation.
5.1: Autonomic nervous system (Rothschild 2000)
If, on the other hand, a client breathes slowly and deeply, sighs, cries on
the exhale, has a flushed skin color, and the skin is warm to touch, then
the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system has been
activated and the client can cope with the inner and outer experience.
A traumatized client in the dissociated freeze-state, or with PTSD
symptoms, will be cognitively impaired and in emotional overload.
More important, if such a client progresses in a linear fashion, the
traumatizing material will again become overwhelming. In order to
avoid hyperarousal, panic and subsequent retraumatization the therapist
has to intervene and apply the brakes.
Trauma Healing 169
Dual awareness
Rothschild suggests that the therapist needs to “apply the brakes”
(Rothschild 2004) to facilitate the switch from the sympathetic to
the parasympathetic branch, through the stimulation of the sensory
nervous system to bring on the exteroceptors. In such a case the
therapist will guide the client to focus on the five senses of touch, sight,
hearing, smell and taste to bring the individual back “on line,” into the
present moment. Even if clients are really scared, they can realize with
some support that they are not in acute danger right now. While their
internal reality might feel unsafe, the external environment—that of
the therapist’s room, for example—is secure. Dual awareness allows
clients to recognize that even though their interoceptors signal alarm
and terror and they think something dangerous is happening right now,
an alternative awareness can be strengthened through the five senses
that allows them to perceive an external reality as safe. The trauma
has happened in the past, but internally it is experienced as happening
now. Focus on the exteroceptors allows the client to put the traumatic
experience into the past. Such a switch may be supported though the
therapist changing the client’s focus onto the sensory orientation in
the here-and-now. A therapist may, for example, ask a client to tap or
touch the arms to feel his or her own skin boundary, or describe three
things in the therapist’s room to remind him or her that the here-and-
now in this room with this therapist is safe. Rothschild calls this “dual
awareness” (Rothschild 2000, 2004, p. 3). On the one hand there is
the internal reality of the traumatized experiencing self; on the other

hand the observing self can perceive external safety here and now
(Rothschild 2000, p. 130). This allows the dual awareness that the
trauma happened then; it is not happening now.
The concept of the observing self has its roots in meditation and
gestalt therapy. It is a most useful tool to assist clients to deal with
overwhelming internal stimuli, with the traumatized individual’s reality
that danger is everywhere, and fear is constant.
At one of Rothschild’s training seminars she gives the example
of clients suffering from olfactory flashbacks. These individuals have
been in the underground during the London bombings or in Australian
bushfires; smelling smoke, real or imagined, will set off panic attacks
in them. To stimulate dual awareness, a trauma therapist with good
common sense supplied them with small aura soma bottles, filled with
pleasant-smelling tinctures. In this way, clients could facilitate the brake
themselves: whenever they threatened to veer into panic, they could

stimulate an external sense, in this case their sense of smell, to calm
down enough to be able to reassess the current situation, and let their
hippocampus know that no danger was threatening in this particular
moment.
There’s a common misconception among many trauma survivors
and trauma therapists that working in states of high distress,
including flashbacks, is the way to resolve traumatic memories.
But being in the throes of hyperarousal and flashback indicates
that the hippocampus isn’t available to distinguish past from
present, danger from safety. Under those conditions, working with
traumatic images and the emotions they engender can risk a variety
of negative experiences. Moreover…a trauma survivor’s primary
need is to feel safe, particularly in therapy. Applying the brakes to
keep arousal low and the hippocampus functioning makes this goal
much easier to achieve. (Rothschild 2004 p. 4)
Clients “must be able to know, at least intellectually, that the trauma
being addressed is in the past, even though it may feel as though it is
happening now” (Rothschild 2000, p. 130).
Dual awareness means it is important that both experiences count,
that of internal panic and that of a safe surrounding. It is very important
that the conjunction is “and” as that implies a connection between the
two experiences; “but” would imply the negation of the inner reality
(Rothschild 2000 p. 132).
Pendulation
Levine’s approach also involves the activation of the second pathway in
the hippocampus. His way of applying the brakes, however, is through
activating a client’s felt sense. The brakes he applies are based on his
reliance on body rhythms and a healing vortex.
The traumatic event is like an external force that ruptures the
protective container of our identity. This breach then creates a turbulent
vortex into which the life energy is sucked. It is common for traumatized
individuals either to be sucked into the trauma vortex or to avoid the
breach entirely by staying distanced from the region where the trauma
has occurred. In reliving the trauma, we are sucked into the trauma
vortex and experience hyperarousal: in avoiding the trauma vortex, we
Trauma Healing 171
become phobic and constricted and experience hypoarousal (Levine

1997 p. 197f.).
Fortunately, nature responds by immediately creating a counter-
vortex, a healing vortex to balance the force of the trauma. This new
whirlpool is designed to renegotiate the trauma, to mend the rupture.
Levine calls this renegotiation process “pendulation.”
The archetypal image for pendulation has to come from the body
as a felt sense of safety and somewhat spiritual elation. Such an image
can be a body memory, such as sitting safely on the lap of one’s
grandmother; or it is a spontaneously associated image that can be
sensed in the body as providing relief, joy and healing.
Levine compares the body to a jellyfish; once contracted, it has to
expand again, otherwise it cannot move. All muscles create movement
on the basis of contraction and expansion. Ninety percent of the trauma
information and the basic rhythm that will restore balance are body
sensations and movements, while only 10 percent are cognitive frontal
cortex programs. These 10 percent deal with the perception that the
world is or is not safe NOW.
So, while there is contraction from fear, there is also always the
impulse to expand. This is a natural process inherent in all life movement.
A therapist can stimulate this healing counter-vortex by encouraging
the individual to focus on to the opposite of fear, whatever opposite
offers itself at the time as a felt sense, as a quality of experience. From
then on the client, in most cases, self-regulates. Pendulation activates a
natural process that resets the equilibrium in the hippocampus.
Levine (1997 p. 199) describes this process as a “wobbly oscillation,”

a rhythmic figure-eight pattern in which the individual slowly moves
back and forth between the trauma vortex and the restorative, healing
vortex. Once pendulation has been introduced, a self-regulating
response kicks in.
The felt sense that invites one to renegotiate the trauma can be
tracked through the SIBAM model, through minimal physical sensations
and movements, mindfulness of present-moment experience, through
orienting in the here-and-now. If we pay attention, for example,
to subtle needs of the hands in the Clay Field and encourage their
movement, if we allow each client to negotiate his or her own timing
and the pace needed for integration, clients will begin to pendulate
between trauma activation and their somatic resource (Ogden et al.
2006 p. 161).
Pendulation represents the cornerstones of Levine’s approach to

trauma; it facilitates the uncoupling of arousal and dissociation from
fear-driven belief systems (Levine 2010 p. 73–95). It is a self-paced
termination of immobility to break the endless feedback loop of terror
and paralysis:
The fear that fuels immobility, which is the fear of paralysis,
entrapment, helplessness and death; and the fear of exiting
immobility, of the intense energy of the “rage-based” sensations of
counterattack. (Levine 2010 p. 90)
Slow motion and the mindful observation of minute sensations,
especially in the dissociated, frozen body parts, allow a gradual
differentiation between inhibited movements—movements one wanted
to do at the time of the accident of attack, and which were frozen in
time. The reliance on pendulation allows the gradual thawing of the
frozen rage and aggression, a survival impulse, the power of which is
vast. Pendulation makes it possible to befriend this rage without being
overwhelmed by it or turning it against oneself as depression, self-
hatred or self-harm.
All motor impulses as kinesthetic gestures in space, as body-focused
drawing movements on paper, or action cycles in the Clay Field, must
be accompanied by mindful tracking of these sensations until the
compassionate awareness sets in that these instinctual responses are life-
preserving impulses rather than something to be ashamed or afraid of.
While paralysis itself need not actually be terrifying, what is
frightening is our resistance to feeling paralyzed and enraged.

(Levine 2010 p. 91)
We have to uncouple our ego-driven impulse to control ourselves and
events from the instinctual survival impulse.
Even though trauma is always something that has happened to our
bodies and is stored in the body memory, not all body sensations are
traumatic. Fear, hunger, heartbeat and breathing keep us safe and alive!
The body can be a friend. The body as a resource consults the felt
sense for guidance rather than emotions, belief systems and cognitive
memories. It helps us to be in the here-and-now.
Trauma Healing 173
Handling trauma at the Clay Field I: Pendulation

The felt sense of the restorative vortex with which Levine works will
suggest, for example, a direct physical image and action that is the
complete and matching opposite of the trauma vortex. This restorative
vortex will provide the safe place from which a client can then
negotiate through pendulation the movements necessary to complete
the fight–flight impulse. Rothschild will initiate this process through
applying the brakes, through focus on the exteroceptors, the five senses
and emphasis to anchor in the here-and-now. Levine and Rothschild
are highly experienced trauma specialists; they are, however, not art
therapists. Art therapy always involves a third entity: apart from the
client and the therapist, there is the art work. The art work provides a
mirror for the inner world of the client; and the art therapist assists the
client to access this relationship between art work and client.
In the context of trauma therapy, work at the Clay Field has
tremendous advantages.
• The senses are highly activated in the here-and-now. Touching
the clay is always happening in the present moment. One
cannot touch something in the past.
• The felt sense becomes visible in the clay; any internal
movement can be externalized in the field, and it turns into a
tangible opposite.
• The safe place in the Clay Field setting can be a physically
accessible, touchable location.

• Once the safe place is found in the setting, any impulse relevant
to the client’s defense, such as pushing the clay away, can be
executed in the environment of the Clay Field.
• The defensive fight–flight urge is not just imaginary; it becomes
quite real in the here-and-now of the session, and its execution
demands intense physical action.
• Clients will in most cases self-regulate, pendulating between
the safe place and the trauma response, once they have been
shown that this is possible.
Levine, Rothschild, van der Kolk, Kline and others all emphasize that
no client should go near a traumatic event unless a safe place has been
established and can be accessed under stress. This might take several
sessions or even years of building resources, or it can be one single

intervention. In the Clay Field the hands need to have an alternative
place to go to whenever it gets too much, a place that offers safety and
respite from the overwhelming. This is not about avoiding the dark,
but it establishes a tangible reality for the client that there is not just
darkness, but also light; that not every place is unsafe; that there are
other options.
A client at the Clay Field will be encouraged to focus on whatever
safe, “good,” comfortable, calming possibilities the situation offers. I
may encourage an individual to hold on to the corners of the field,
because they do offer the most solid and ego-strengthening aspect of
the Clay Field. If this focal point can be experienced as safe, clients can
progress in widening circles to integrate their traumatic recall at their
own pace without being overwhelmed. Whenever a memory or the felt
sense gets too much and hyperarousal threatens, a safe place is available
where they can calm down.
Clients might use the bowl of water as their safe place while
the Clay Field is charged with threat. Thus the hands will pendulate
between “taking a warm bath” in the water bowl and the “cold and
hard” Clay Field, negotiating their level of arousal: gaining strength in
the water, and then applying this strength in the Clay Field in order
to deal with the overwhelming. However, as soon as the stress in the
clay gets too much, they can retreat to the warm bathwater in the bowl,
until they are ready for another round of confrontation.
In a Clay Field session the therapist may encourage dual awareness
or pendulation through interventions, by prompting the client:

• to lean back and breathe deeply if the hands get too urgent
• to focus on the feet or pelvis or breath, if the client is “falling”
into the Clay Field—i.e. too identified with a motor stimulus
• to hold on to the corners of the box, if the clay seems
overwhelming, because the box offers permanence and stability
in this setting, as opposed to the clay that will reflect motion
and emotion
• to add water, if the struggle with the resistant clay gets too hard
• to bathe the hands in water, to relax them in warm water, if the
events in the field are too upsetting
• to distinguish between the inside and the outside of the box
Trauma Healing 175
• to distinguish between “good” and “bad” places in the Clay

Field
• to distinguish between safe and unsafe places in the Clay Field.
To the extent that clients realize that they are capable of dealing with
the previously unmanageable, they become more courageous, until
finally the entire Clay Field is purged of whatever had contaminated it,
and it can be repossessed. Such repossession equals integration and the
end of dissociation. And the effect is lasting.
Pendulation encourages the natural ability of the hippocampus to
integrate threats and to reset the equilibrium. Fearful clients will simply
need a reminder in order to be able to self-regulate.
Work at the Clay Field is distinctly physical. It takes strength to
move 15 kilos of clay. The clay can be pounded, hit, strangled, cut and
pierced; it can be hurt (and loved) in many ways. It can be resented,
thrown out and pushed away. Which actions of the hands in the field
bring physical relief ? What feels good? Where is it safe? The physical
qualities make the Clay Field a most effective resource for trauma
healing as the material offers itself to complete the movement that froze
in the traumatic event.
Knowing, feeling, and doing—and thus experiencing—these
physical actions help to transform the way in which clients
consciously and unconsciously hold and organize past traumas
in their bodies and minds, the way they respond (cognitively,
emotionally and physically) in their current lives, and the way they
envision their future. (Ogden et al. 2006 p. 300)

In Clay Field therapy, this process happens in the subtle negotiation
between the initial motor impulse and the search for its sensory
response. The motor impulse is reactive—it answers to an event in the
past, which is often a traumatic occurrence in a client’s life. Integration,
though, can only happen if this motor impulse is acted out and filled
with sensory awareness; cognitive integration at the end of a session
will then complete the restorative experience. Ogden, van der Kolk
and Levine call this the “bottom-up approach.” Deuser views it as the
fulfillment of the initial intention in the optimal gestalt, as reference.
In a Clay Field session the therapist will encourage a client to follow
whatever motor impulse the hands feel urged to do. There will be no
activation of meaning or memory as to who is being pushed and why;
there will be no focus on what happened, on the abuser, perpetrator,
accident or anything else. The emphasis will at all times remain in

the present moment, with this particular motor impulse and whatever
it takes to complete it now. To execute such an action will alter the
somatic sense of self in a way that talking alone does not.
Such pronounced focus on the body will keep trauma memories
and the associated emotions in the background.
Because of its emphasis on regulating arousal and expanding the
window of tolerance, sensorimotor psychotherapy attempts to avoid
excessive autonomic or emotional arousal that might interfere with the
integration of information. The pronounced focus on the body often
facilitates the experience of emotion within a window of tolerance
(Ogden et al. 2006 p. 160).
The moment a client begins to move and act, whether in the Clay
Field or in real life, rather than being immobilized and dissociated
in terror, the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system
becomes activated, and the fight–flight impulse can be discharged
until the previously threatening world in the Clay Field is safe and
transformed. Now the amygdala can turn off the alarm as the client
realizes: “It’s over. I have survived. I am alive.” That aspect of cognition
is important and crucial to finding an ending to the traumatic event,
not what happened.
The restorative experience is sometimes accompanied by shaking
and self-soothing rocking. Shaking appears whenever the body–psyche
wants to complete the traumatic event. It is the completion of the
fight–flight impulse. Thus shaking in the legs will complete the urge to
run away; shaking in the arms and hands will complete the need to do
something, maybe to hit or to push someone away. Small movements in
the jaw often assist integration; they are remnants of the biting impulse.
Physiologically, shaking is a rapid succession of contraction
and release. Shaking happens whenever we have held on tightly to
something, when muscles have been contracted and are now reluctantly
beginning to relax. The body tests such letting go through a transition
period of intense intervals of tensing up and release: shaking.
Whenever muscles have been contracted for a long time—and
some clients have held muscles tightly for decades—at the moment
of release they begin to hurt. Contraction is numbing! Opening up
also opens up the pain. It sometimes helps clients to understand such
physiological insights.
Trauma Healing 177
The bottom-up approach

Levine (2010 pp. 97–131) distinguishes three primary instinctual
defense systems: attachment for security, fight–flight and freeze. If
our social group does not or cannot protect us, we run or fight for
our survival; if that also fails, we freeze and collapse, ready to die.
These survival systems developed at different evolutionary stages. The
oldest—tonic immobility—is also the strongest, capable of overriding
both younger systems. Because our social brain function, including our
thinking, is shut down in both states of traumatization (fight–flight and
freeze), it does not make sense to try and work therapeutically within a
cognitive framework. Rather, a therapist has to meet a client where he
or she is and bring them out of either shutdown or hyperarousal before
any cognitive integration is productive.
Tonic immobility
Geared by the parasympathetic nervous system, this survival function is
about 500 million years old. We share this ability with fish and reptiles and
may call it the amphibian brain. Its primitive system organizes immobilization
(playing dead), metabolic shutdown to conserve energy, and dissociation to
deal with overwhelming pain through leaving the body. Clients in the
freeze state are the walking dead. They are highly traumatized through
chronic neglect and abuse, prolonged stress or something abhorrent
that has happened to them. Such individuals are plagued by physical
immobilization of parts of their body, such as a “frozen shoulder,” or by

dissociative disorders; they have trouble with interpersonal contact, appear
to be spaced out and not present in the here-and-now. Their thinking
is easily confused, if not paranoid. They are often pale, slumped over,
collapsed, and frequently complain about a range of physical ailments such
as chronic pain or autoimmune diseases. Brain scans show hypoarousal.
What is primarily needed here is stabilization of a client.
A therapist has to be mindful that behind this paralyzed demeanor
lie terror and a tremendous fear of being harmed and overwhelmed by
pain. Opening up to memories and emotions too soon might further
distress such individuals and cause even more destabilization and
catatonic shutdown. Gentle exercises that gradually discover islands of
safely outside as well as inside the body are necessary here. The body
needs to be discovered as a potential friend rather than being perceived
as the enemy within. Such exercises can involve standing, feeling the
feet, breathing deeply, chanting “Om,” tapping of the body, holding

the body, or self-soothing movements. It is important that the therapist
mirrors such exercises, does them with the client, to show empathy and
stimulate the social defense system. Clients in shut-down find relaxation
exercises either frightening or impossible to focus on. They need to be
able to DO things to gain some sense of control over their body and
their environment. If possible, I use rhythmic, repetitive guided drawing
of very simple shapes on a large sheet of paper—the bowl shape, for
example, which is a rocking movement. I have also found it helpful to
work on escape routes, such as practicing with a client the fact that he
or she can leave the room and re-enter at will, or reject the Clay Field,
push it away. It is important to communicate that no one is forced to do
anything involuntarily in this setting, that defense is possible.
It is also important to provide clients with exercises and something
they can practice at home to bridge the time in-between sessions.
In this way, gradually the islands of safety can grow and provide
increasing stability. Many of the art therapy resources described in the
next chapter apply here.
Sympathetic arousal
As clients begin to exit the freeze state, they begin to prepare for fight or
flight. This global arousal system has evolved from the reptilian period
of about 300 million years ago. Its function is to mobilize the fight–
flight impulse in the legs, arms and jaw through the sympathetic nervous
system. Such clients appear tense, jumpy, fidgety, with tight shoulders
and neck, darting eyes and accelerated heart rate. Brain scans show
hyperarousal. They are more likely to have experienced just one traumatic
episode (even though many clients display a mixture of both systems,
sympathetic arousal with underlying older patterns of dissociation, or the
other way around). This state allows trauma exploration as long as clients
are capable of accessing a safe place under duress.
Such hyper-alert individuals need to learn safe action cycles of
arousal and settling down. Here pendulation and dual awareness are
most beneficial tools for releasing inner tension and completing the
thwarted fight–flight impulse without being overwhelmed by fear.
Tracking movements the arms, hands and legs “want” to do, in slow
motion that allows witnessing of the story the body wishes to tell,
can lead to profound and surprising insights. Guided drawing with its
rhythmic release of built-up tension is capable of making such inner
Trauma Healing 179
movements visible, and so is work at the Clay Field. Psychodynamic art

therapy exercises, using paint and vibrant colors, are also most suitable
exercises, as long as individuals can at all times access their safe place
and apply the brakes to prevent spiraling out of control.
Social engagement system

This system that mediates complex social and attachment behavior
exists solely in mammals and is only (!) about 80 million years old. It is
part of the parasympathetic nervous system and affects facial expression
and vocalization, including the muscles in the throat, face, middle ear,
heart and lungs,
which together communicate our emotions, both to others and
ourselves. This most refined system orchestrates relationships,
attachment and bonding and also mediates emotional intelligence.
(Levine 2010 p. 98)
Here clients are in a state of relative wellbeing. If they have just come
out of their successful trauma exploration, they may even feel a sense
of awe. They may feel blissfully calm and restored to wholeness. The
integration phase has begun.
Only now, when clients have moved out of immobility and
hyperarousal, will they hunger for face-to-face contact and meaning.
Their longing to bond with their peers comes back on line. Emphatic,
heartfelt human contact is needed. The sound of the therapist’s voice,
the mirroring and validation of emotions, insights and feelings becomes

important. In group settings communication with other participants
needs tentative explorations. Often shame or other self-limiting belief
systems are now ready to be dropped, no longer necessary and valid.
The new felt sense, the often unfamiliar sensations of relief and release
in the body, and accompanying emotions, need appreciation and time
to adjust to. New belief systems emerge, such as “I am not alone.”
However, they need to be tasted and tested slowly. “I am safe, not only
have I survived, I am alive and happy to be who I am.” The trauma has
ended, and this needs to be cognitively understood.
This is also the time to look back at the trauma as a past event
and to understand the survival responses of immobilization and rage
as creative solutions to impossible and overwhelming situations. It is
a time for forgiveness and self-forgiveness and the discovery of new
paradigms of being whole and healed.
Art therapy resources

During the stabilization phase, when working with traumatized children
and adults—especially those in shutdown, but also those suffering from
unmanageable hyperarousal—it will be necessary to establish resources
before we approach the Clay Field. In the art therapy context, such
resources can vary widely to suit a client’s needs. Whatever assists in
developing positive images to counterbalance the negative experiences
and to develop a caring relationship with oneself is suitable.
Such resources can be unrelated to the Clay Field and involve play
therapy, coloring in mandala templates, painting, creating collages
or a power object, as long as they provide an oasis for the client to
reduce hyperarousal and are able to quieten the inner dialog. Often
such oasis-resources need to be applicable at home, away from the
therapeutic setting, in order to survive the time in-between sessions.
They can include taking a shower, a cup of hot chocolate, holding a
crystal, walking, exercising, martial arts, Yoga, gardening or knitting.
It is essential that they be unrelated to the trauma and have the ability
to completely distract from it. Themed visual diaries and mandala-
drawing are my favorite art therapy-related tools.
Trauma clients respond badly to relaxation exercises, even though
they feel highly stressed. Relaxation, even trying to go to sleep at night,
often brings the full spectrum of fear and tension in their body into the
foreground and increases their suffering rather than alleviating it. The
body is often not a friend for the traumatized individual. By contrast,
all exercises that involve movement can become a valuable resource,

examples being martial arts, walking, running, dancing or swimming.
Existing resources such as personal achievements are a valuable
source for self-esteem. It can help to create a collage as a picture
frame for a photograph of the individual, surrounding the client with
nurturing, uplifting or protective images. One can assemble self-books
or write lists with all the things “I am good at” to remind a client of
valuable skills that easily get overlooked at times of crisis. Personal
achievements can be written on colorful papers and be assembled as
folders or success packages. I have had positive experiences creating
wands from sticks or small branches that have all the achievements,
written on colorful papers, tied around them or to them with ribbons.
Such wands have “magic” and can be wielded as batons or weapons.
Trauma Healing 181
I like to use guided imagery as a spiritual resource for protection,

if possible at the beginning of every session. The image is one of
protection for the body within a circle of light on the ground,
surrounding the client at arm’s length. The client is encouraged to
sit down inside this circle and to feel the unconditional support of
the earth; then to visualize a beam of light that connects the spine
beyond the head to the Higher Consciousness above, or to “your star”
for children (Krystal 1990). I then suggest visualizing light streaming
down from above, down into the shoulders and arms, flowing into the
hands. The hands are now charged with guidance from the Higher
Consciousness that channels universal wisdom and unconditional love.
On this basis the hands, rather than the head, can take the lead. Many
clients find this transpersonal source of protection soothing.
Anchors are a concrete, observable resource, as opposed to an
internal resource. They are objects that hold positive memories and are
able to create emotional and physical wellbeing and relief. Rothschild
(2000) mentions a supportive person, such as a grandmother, or a pet
as anchors, and also activities like swimming, hiking and gardening.
I have found the creation of power objects such as medicine pouches,
magic wands and dolls most helpful. Crystals or natural objects, including
leaves, special pebbles, pet hair and feathers, can be included; “angel
blessings” in the form of aura soma sprays, or a smudging ritual can
assist in charging such objects with “supernatural” powers. Anchors can
be made for the bedroom, to dangle in the car, taken to school, placed on
the desk, or carried in a pocket, hidden underneath one’s clothes.
Anchors created from clay in combination with other collage

materials, such as textiles, tissue paper, wool, leather, threads, fur, leaves,
sticks, paint, plasticine, lace, glitter, etc., can represent an often playful
introduction to working with clay. Their creation and discussion offers
an opportunity for the client to communicate the value and the inherent
good experiences this anchor holds.
Such an anchor may stay in the art therapist’s room and be placed
next to the Clay Field during sessions. Clients then tend to move, hold
or touch the anchor whenever they require reassurance or need to calm
down. Or, whenever in the therapy hyperarousal threatens, the anchor
can be introduced. As long as the therapist is comfortable and confident
to interrupt the client, the therapist will begin to talk about the anchor,
guiding the client’s focus away from distressing recall, until the client
has calmed down, thus preventing the traumatic event from becoming
overwhelming. Or the power object can be held by the client, or moved
closer, or even inserted underneath the clothes; a doll can sit on the
client’s lap or near the Clay Field. It is important to establish at least one
reliable resource, a resource that communicates a trustworthy felt sense,
so the client has the option of pendulating to a safe space whenever the
inner experience threatens to get too much or too scary.
Below are shown some anchors adults and children created in art
therapy sessions prior to working at the Clay Field (5.2). Some have
been placed on a piece of cardboard. Clients were asked to use clay as
the basic material, but then could choose freely from a wide range of
additional media to suit their needs and imagination.
This woman created her dog as

her anchor. She covered the clay
shape of the dog with a variety of
cuttings of wool. She grew up with
a mother who had an undiagnosed
mental illness; thus contact with her
primary caregiver was not experienced
as safe, whereas the unconditional love
of her dog is a pure source of joy and
5.2a security for her.
This anchor made of clay, paint and

glitter represents the ocean and six

beach huts, typical of the beach
where this client’s family holidayed
every summer when she was a
girl, a time she associated with
“being alone and together with
everybody.” She still finds peace
whenever she can go for a walk on
5.2b this beach today.
Trauma Healing 183
This is an angel made of clay,

feathers, wool and paint. While
creating it, the woman, who grew
up in a violent, abusive home, began
to share childhood memories in
which she would pray to her angel
for protection.
5.2c
This anchor by a nine-year-old boy
is based on the movie Avatar. It is
created from colored plasticine.
The boy explained that the avatar
is strong so that when people or
other children try to bully him, the
avatar will grow, both in his mind
and body. The avatar has a bow and
arrow and extra arrows on his back
for protection, and a spear. The boy 5.2d
expressed that he needed glitter
to shine. He was very pleased with
his creation and asked to take him
home so he would remember his
inner strength.
This is the anchor of an eight-

year-old girl. It was initiated with
a guided imagery exercise. She calls
it “heaven,” a place that makes her
feel good and safe. Inside the (shoe)
box she uses seeds and writes
“safe” on five of them and sticks
them in the box on top of some
white plasticine. She then puts in
two feathers and sprinkles glitter
around the base. She comments: “I
don’t want people to come there.”
5.2e
The safe space may be an actual location, a place the client has known
in life and associates with wellbeing—or an imagined place, or a created
space. A well-known art therapy exercise is the creation of a self-box,
where the client decorates a shoe box with collage materials. Such a
self-box can take on the function of a healing space or safe haven for
the inner child; or the box is used to lock up traumatic material, so
it can do no harm. Children can easily relate to a self-box or the less
complex self-envelope—both have a hidden, secret inside and a visible
outside, just like me and you.
The Clay Field box is suitable to represent a safe space. The clay itself
may be perceived as unsafe, but the box has permanence. The box has
firm boundaries that divide an inside from an outside. It is consistently
there and available. The boundary of the field can be reinforced through
protectors, sentries or guardian angels shaped from clay; or it can be
built up for extra protection. Especially the corners of the box, which
represent the ego, benefit from being strengthened in this context.
On this basis, perceived threats can be dealt with. The clay may
have to be cleared out and the box may be in need of decontamination
with water and paper towels to be cleared of abusive contents, but such
an act is also empowering.
In some cases the therapist might need to remind an adult client,
when nothing works, that they are controlling the setting with their
mind and it only needs to be “good enough,” not perfect.
It is important that the safe space can be remembered under stress.
Distancing is another useful resource. Physical distancing, such
as getting up from the chair, walking away, leaving the room, closing
the door or taking a deep breath, can be a valuable resource. Pushing
the clay away, separating the clay from the box—off the table onto the
floor, if need be—is another way of dealing with hyperarousal.
It is also important to listen to clients and respect their need for a
break. They may want to focus on other activities for a while, to paint
or make collages. When they are ready again, they will pick up the
theme exactly at the point where they left off.
Handling trauma at the Clay Field II:

The sensorimotor process
The experience at the Clay Field, being sensory, kinesthetic and
happening very much in the here-and-now, is predominantly appealing
Trauma Healing 185
to the right brain hemisphere. Here it can activate (mostly unconscious)

early childhood body memories and is capable of reaching deeply into
the non- or preverbal realms of our being. It is this part of the brain
that will respond to trauma, but it is also this part of the brain that has
the most effective capacity to restore balance and heal trauma.
Lusebrink associates the kinesthetic/sensory components in
art therapy activities, which he defined in the “expressive therapies
continuum,” mainly with the limbic system, which, as previously
discussed, deals with our emotions and survival instincts. The limbic
system is profoundly affected in a traumatic event (Hinz 2009 p. 39;
Kagin and Lusebrink 1978; Lusebrink 1992).
According to Kagin and Lusebrink (Hinz 2009; Kagin and
Lusebrink 1973; Lusebrink 1992), the healing dimension of the
kinesthetic component involves the increase or decrease of clients’
amount of arousal and tension. Energy can be stimulated through
kinesthetic action, or it allows the discharge of pent-up muscular
tension. Kinesthetic involvement can be simultaneously cathartic,
exhilarating and relaxing. Dance, rhythmic movement and rhythmic
sound, in particular the maternal heartbeat, have a soothing,
harmonizing effect. For example, after the Fukushima nuclear disaster,
Bessel van der Kolk mentions that Japanese Kodo drummers were sent
into the affected villages and camps to get people moving. Rather than
talking about what happened, the victims of the devastating earthquake
were provoked into vigorous, rhythmic action in order to discharge the
trapped adrenalin in the body.
Rhythmic movements are an integral part of work at the Clay

Field, both for the hands in the field and the physiological response in
the individual through lifting, tapping, rocking, swaying, contracting
and relaxing. Materials that offer resistance through weight and invite
touch through their three-dimensional aspect, such as clay, or sculpting
with stone or wood, are the preferred medium for stimulating the
kinesthetic, sensorimotor function in individuals (Hinz 2009).
The sense of touch cannot happen anywhere but in the here-and-
now. Touch is immediate. Left-brain cognition deals with what either
happened in the past or what one might plan for the future (Bolte-Taylor
2008). Touch cannot do this. Even past biographical events manifest in
the Clay Field as happening NOW. The individual re-experiences the
situation right in this moment of time. As we progress in the session,
though, the client might realize that now he or she is older, stronger,
safer, and has support, and is thus able to rewrite the past.
With Clay Field work, the dissociated aspects will often resurface
once clients have gained enough trust and competence in their own
actions. In the symbolic world of the field, their hands tend to re-enact
the traumatic event in the way it once affected their body. The hands
act as proxies for the body. They move in the clay in the same way
the individual has moved through life. When traumatic memories are
being recalled, the clay is frequently experienced as overwhelmingly
disgusting, impossible to move, very, very heavy, unyielding, frightfully
cold, dirty, sticky, or even dead. The field, however, is simultaneously
manageable in size, and the clay is ultimately neutral as a material.
This allows clients—in constrast to their experience of unmanageable
memories, body-sensations or affect—to dare to deal with the
overwhelming. The clay now invites and enables them to complete the
impulse that in the traumatic incidents made them freeze in terror. This
may or may not be accompanied with memories of what happened.
In fact it rarely is, at least not while motor impulses are being acted
out. The core focus, once clients have realized through pendulation
that they are safe enough, is always the vital urge to complete the
life movement that was interrupted through the involuntary immobility
response.
I have witnessed innumerable clients pushing clay away from
their body with all their might. They punch, strangle and hit the clay.
They visibly fight for their survival. They defend the invasion of their
personal space, which in most cases is represented by the clay that
invades their box. Clients at this stage are so involved with their drive
to act in a certain manner that questions of “why?” do not emerge

at all. They are simply driven to act in a certain manner and they
do. Such urge to act characterizes the first part of a session until the
primary gestalt has emerged. Then sometimes a realization sets in, but
it emerges in the context of “It is over now. I have been able to deal
with the traumatic event. I could defend myself and claim my space.”
Now, however, sensory integration is called for. The second half of a
session will be dedicated to rewriting the past, to move from surviving
to living, from fighting and defending and acting to being. This is the
phase where clients heal themselves; where they find fulfillment for
their needs to live. Here they are no longer concerned with surviving,
but with learning to live; with finding those life-giving impulses that
were not available in the past, but that become a resource for healing
and renewal now. When the optimal gestalt has been found at the end
of the action cycle in the Clay Field, the sense of satisfaction, safety and
Trauma Healing 187
completion will need cognitive integration, but then it is not trauma

memory that needs processing, but the understanding, through the
often unfamiliar and strange felt sense, that it is over and I am new
now, in a new situation, in a strong body, whole and healthy. This can
be crucial for clients who have sometimes been identified for decades
with the role of victim of terror and abuse.
It seems that whenever the boundary of the personal space has
been violated by a perpetrator or an event in the client’s past, the clay is
experienced as contaminated and the sides of the box appear as weak.
In this case the clay needs to be removed from the field. This frequently
happens through urgent, even forceful movements of the hands, and
the individual may experience emotional turmoil: desperation, anger,
grief, even the need to make sounds, to shout or to grunt. The strength
of some clients, even of fragile-looking women and children, in such
moments can be astounding. The 15 kilos of clay are lifted up, ripped
into pieces, pounded and bashed with extraordinary force. Often the
clay needs to be cleared out of the box and pushed a safe distance away
on the table or down onto the floor. Once the movement of self-defense
has been completed, the physical relief acknowledged, and the client
begins to calm down, the clay is often reused to build a “new” world.
And even though it is the same clay as what was rejected before, it is
now experienced as neutral or new or cleansed.
Frequently such a new world needs to be made extra safe with
reinforced boundaries along the sides of the box, or to be given a
supportive base that is experienced as pure, intact and profoundly
mine. Objects such as nests, pearls or mandala shapes are frequently

created—images that emphasize wholeness and completeness.
Whenever a client’s boundaries have been invaded through a violent
act, it is important that the final gestalt involve the box. The box has
secure boundaries and can be owned in a symbolic way. The box in this
context relates to the skin boundary. The inside of the box—empty, or
partially or completely filled with clay—represents the “inside” of the
client. Dissociation diminishes to the extent that a client can claim the
box as “mine.” To be at peace inside the Clay Field is synonymous with
being at peace inside my body.
A client’s experience of the Clay Field will allow the therapist insights
into the level of association and dissociation. As the accompanying
therapist I found one of Deuser’s core rules helpful: as long as the
hands can handle the clay, the individual can handle the issues at hand,
no matter how doubtful or emotional the client may feel. If clients
can grasp the material, they can also grasp what happened to them.
The traumatized client is immobilized, and as long as this individual
cannot touch the material and deal with the clay, other resources have
to be explored; several of these resources have already been discussed.
Trauma healing requires the completion of the fight–flight impulse; it
demands that we deal with what happened to our body; it does not
demand that we understand this process cognitively.
In more complex cases, it may take several sessions before a client
can dare to fully touch the clay. It may be necessary to build resources
with other art therapy approaches until the individual has gained trust
in the therapist and the medium, before the traumatic event can be safely
addressed. Clients—or their hands—will communicate this. They will
not be able to touch the clay or might touch only very small amounts. A
session may simply involve a brief touch of the material while learning
to breathe through the experience. Clients may only be able to touch
the clay with a tool that helps them to distance themselves from the
touch, etching patterns into the surface of the clay. Others need to
experience that they can literally walk away from the Clay Field, that
they can put distance between themselves and the Clay Field, when it is
representative of the abusive “other;” that they have the power to leave
the room or push the entire box away. In this way they can learn not to
be victimized by the encounter, but that they can take charge.
The way clients perceive the clay and relate to it gives ample clues
about their ability to handle problems in their daily life. The age of the
client at the time of the traumatic event is also visible in the way the
hands act and move and the needs they have. Some adults, taken back
into their child-self, have barely any strength in their hands, desperately
grasping for a hold, for nurturing, without getting any.
Once a client can move into the second phase of a session, taking
the step from the primary gestalt to the optimal gestalt, the acting out
of learned behavior, of motor impulses tied to past biographical events,
slows down. The hands become free to search and experiment. Now
they can find what once was not available. Guided by their libido-driven
instinct, they can explore whatever it is that feels better, more comfortable,
adventurous, daring and bold, or what gives them a sense of being loved
and safe. Now, for example, the inner child can find a hold and can bathe
in nurturing. It is in this phase of the session that lasting solutions are
found; that the equilibrium is reset through completing the interrupted,
fulfilling the need. As a therapist I profoundly and unwaveringly trust that
a client’s libido will at all times strive towards fulfillment, wholeness and
Trauma Healing 189
healing—otherwise mankind would not have survived. Our innermost

nature is connected to life, not destruction.
Some clients are aware of their story, their biography, while others
are not. It does not matter. Resolution depends on the completion of
the sensorimotor cycle. Cognitive recall and comprehension of the
distressing event is often not necessary—and when dealing with early
childhood trauma, not even possible, because cognitive abilities were
not sufficiently developed at that age. What is important, though, is
to take time to integrate the new felt sense that has now emerged; the
often unfamiliar sensation of being at peace, happy or beautiful. Now it
is important to link the newly discovered body-sensations to cognitive
patterns that can be remembered. They will help in shaping a more
fulfilling identity.
Most traumas occur in the context of interpersonal relationships.
This means that trauma involves boundary violations, loss of autonomous
action and loss of self-regulation (van der Kolk in Ogden et al. 2006 p.
XXIII). The Clay Field offers a relationship. It offers something quite
close to an interpersonal exchange. It will react to whatever impulse
the client’s hands will express in the material. It mirrors the dynamics
of relationships we have had in the past, especially formative ones. It
gives instant feedback. And the Clay Field has a boundary. Working
just with clay without the box would be nowhere near as powerful,
effective and safe.
And while we repeat past patterns of behavior, the Clay Field
process simultaneously provokes autonomous action from the client.
This may not be instantly obvious to an individual, but the setting

does not offer any rules or “shoulds.” All is possible. And if the client
does not act, nothing will happen, but if the individual does, every
movement will be magnified in the field. With increasing trust in the
process, with increasing confidence, these possibilities will be seized.
The libido will be enabled to take charge and begin the process of
self-regulation.
While it can at times be too overwhelming for clients to work with
clay, the Clay Field offers them the option of a manageable environment.
It can be astounding how even within minutes the clay can change in
an individual’s perception from cold to warm, from unyielding to soft,
from heavy to light. The clay has distinct physical qualities which all
come into play. It will appeal to a client’s full repertoire of sensory
perception. Yet, while the memories might be fully or partially recalled,
the hands are moving, expressing their response to the unfolding events.
As patients learn to tolerate being aware of their physical

experiences, they discover physical impulses and options that
they had abandoned for the sake of survival during the trauma.
These impulses and options manifest themselves in subtle body
movements such as twisting, turning, or backing away. Amplifying
these physical impulses and experimenting with ways to modify
them ultimately bring the incomplete trauma-related action
tendencies to completion. (van der Kolk in Ogden et al. 2006
p. XXVI)
This is also how Levine works with the felt sense. In addition, the Clay
Field has the advantage of mirroring these physical impulses, and it
invites experimentation; clients can try out what works and feels good,
what brings relief and what does not. The material and the body will
give instant feedback. It is the therapist companion’s responsibility to
ensure that sensory awareness comes into play, not cognitive perception,
not just blind acting out of motor impulses. The client is supported in
developing an increasing awareness of the felt sense. Sensory awareness
leads to the arrival at Deuser’s optimal gestalt, which is synonymous
with the restorative healing vortex Levine speaks of.
In this sense, Clay Field therapy is much more closely related
to the sensorimotor approach to psychotherapy as mapped out by
Levine (1997; Levine and Kline 2007), Rothschild (2000), Ogden
et al. (2006) than to the creation of symbolic representations that
characterize so many art therapy sessions. Clay Field sessions do not
necessarily end up with the creation of symbolic objects; many do, but
many don’t. For a significant number of clients, emotional completion

and psychological fulfillment have been achieved when, for example,
the clay has been moved out of the box as “sticky and disgusting,”
with palpable relief that the client could now clean herself of abusive,
unwanted touching.
Traumatized individuals, as a rule, have serious problems attending
to their inner sensations and perceptions… They often feel
disgusted with themselves and usually have a very negative body
image. (van der Kolk in Ogden et al. 2006 p. XXV)
This disgust is instantly mirrored in the clay. Clients will project their
negative body image into the clay. In the Clay Field, however, they can
act out these inner sensations, which will, without doubt, eventually
lead to the trauma. Now, however, rather than helplessly suffer the
terrible, clients can begin to react to it. They can strangle, hit and fight
the clay or dispose of it.
Trauma Healing 191
Usually after the clay has been discarded and retrieved, reshaped
and tested a number of times, object constancy (Winnicott 1971) can be
achieved: the once threatening clay can now be accepted as supportive,
as a reliable source of attachment. Sometimes the empty and clean box
is then hugged as “mine.” Or clients will lie with their arms inside the
box, after they have dug the elbows in to find the most comfortable
spot, resting their head on the clay as if on a pillow. Accompanying
images may be that the clay is perceived as breast, arms, lap or cradle;
such images, however, are body memories rather than created objects
of breasts and cradles.
The following images (5.3), taken at the end of a number of
different Clay Field sessions, illustrate the felt sense in the context of
the optimal gestalt, as completion of the traumatic event. They clearly
mirror a body resource, a physical, emotional and mental arrival at
trauma resolution and the incorporation of the healing vortex.
All these examples facilitated lasting changes in the clients’ lives.
They did not just bring intermittent relief, but a lasting resolution to a
lifelong, stressful problem.
The clay has been cleared out, and

this client can rest in the space she
has created for herself. She grew
up in an orphanage together with
her twin brother, for whom she was
considered responsible. He clung to
her, and she could never experience

her own space as a child. This
one is “mine” and it is safe. It is
also utterly her own ground in an 5.3a
existential way, as she never had
secure attachments and a reliable family of origin; here she can relax
and be at home within herself. Her felt sense has found the healing
answer to her lifelong trauma of abandonment, on the one hand, and
having to be overly responsible, on the other.
These hands rest within each other,

they have come together and rock,
in unison with the client’s body.
This client had grown up in a
violent, abusive family. Her father’s
aggressive behavior towards her
mother manifested in this woman
as an acute imbalance between the
hands. She could not coordinate
5.3b
any movement when she started.
Her left hand was frozen in terror,
just as her mother had been. The
resolution brings harmony and
loving, soothing contact and
connectedness.
Here all the clay is gathered and

pressed into the body of the client.
“It is mine.” In previous stages this
client pushed and pulled, caressed
and punched the clay, acting out
highly ambivalent feelings of
rejection and attraction. Now,
early childhood attachment is re-
established. A love for a parent that
5.3c was then unsafe and ambivalent can

now be reclaimed and held on to
safely and with love. This occurs
frequently in the context of what
Winnicott calls object constancy.
Trauma Healing 193
This clay-baby appeared as a trauma resolution and was an awe-

inspiring surprise for the woman who created it. She had been
sexually abused as a very young infant.The consequence of the abuse
was that she was fostered out into another family. She was too young
at the time to have conscious memories of these events, except
intense body memories, which had haunted her for a lifetime. She
had been in therapy for quite a while, and this session was not the
end of her art therapy process. It did, however, become a significant
turning point in her life.
Initially she could barely touch the clay. Her hands shied away in
fear. Then, with growing certainty, the entire mass of clay was turned
over, bashed, strangled, and pushed out of the box, then put back
into the box, rejected again and pushed out, then pulled back in and
clung to, and pushed out a third time, all with great intensity—motor
impulses that reflected her biography of loss and rejection. However,
in the resolution phase of the session she gently gathered the clay,
handful by handful, with increasing reverence, until this child emerged,
completely unplanned. With a loving, sensory response she could
rewrite her story. This baby is her retrieved inner Self. She can re-
attach to her inner child, from which she had dissociated at the time
of the abuse. Here she can give it all the love, care and protection
she needed then and now. And simultaneously this is a step towards
healing the severed relationship with her mother. In the context of
her process she is both—mother and child.
The clay may be used to experience skin contact that is loving and
nurturing. Either the Clay Field in its entirety is experienced as a skin,
which a client can touch like a mother or a lover through leaning into
it, caressing it and feeling it—and clay in this context can be amazingly
responsive, as if it were breathing and very much alive—or the clay is
used for gentle, nurturing self-touch, as body paint. Frequently clients
will rest their head in the clay, hide clay inside their clothes, press it to
their body, hug it and kiss it.
Jennifer has lost both breasts due to breast cancer; all her life she has
cared for others and lacked self-nurturing and love from her mother. At
the beginning of the session she can barely grasp the clay. Her fingers
do not get anything from it. They claw the clay, but it does not “feed”
her, does not give anything. Adding lots of water, she gradually begins
to cream her arms with clay, then her face, her neck, and finally she fills
clay into her T-shirt, pressing it against her chest, hugging it, cradling
it until she suddenly bursts out laughing. She has created breasts!
When optimal gestalt images come up and take on shape in the
clay, they are not intentional but emerge from a sensory memory pool.
If the hands are aligned with the libido and are trusted and “allowed”
to do whatever they need to do, they come into a knowing that is hard
to describe and sometimes miraculous to witness. The hands act with
an innate wisdom, which the individual has learned to trust.
In this way the Clay Field offers itself as a container for attachment
needs. The material invites earliest sensory memories of touch; it allows
the expression and the repair of a state of being that is preverbal, pre-
cognitive and intensely body-focused. This core difference between
Clay Field therapy and many other art therapy approaches—certainly
any cognitive psychotherapies that are still based on words—cannot
be underestimated. In the Clay Field the hands will act first and
understand later. Even with an accelerated heart rate and terror written
all over their bodies, individuals will remain capable of acting. With a
few prompts they can learn to self-negotiate pendulation to manage
their distress, and from this basis they can respond to their immediate
need as it presents itself in the world of the Clay Field.
Levine (2003) bases his approach on the profound trust that our
animal nature, our survival instinct, the libido, or what is called the
kundalini in Hinduism and Buddhism, will always strive towards healing
and balance. He claims this is best achieved with as little cognitive
interference from the ego as possible, as an allowing of things to happen,
rather than controlling events. Deuser’s key intervention is “follow your
hands.” Van der Kolk and Ogden et al. (2006) emphasize that especially
traumatized clients need to learn to become careful observers of the
Trauma Healing 195
ebb and flow of internal experiences, which is so unlike the moment of

trauma, when everything freezes.
Only later, once the hands’ action is fulfilled, once the Gestalt is
complete, will reflection set in. Now clients want to understand and
often need time to integrate the profoundly changed sensory messages
they are receiving; how full of breath and alive they can feel, how
energized or relaxed. In groups I notice frequently how individuals are
amazed that other participants look friendly or understanding, when
their conditioning tells them others should be hostile and critical.
The body remembers. It remembers its injuries and traumas, but it
also remembers its needs, its instinct to survive and to heal. The hands
are representatives of the body in the symbolic world of the Clay Field.
They are capable of finding solutions by connecting with the most
ancient parts of the brain, bypassing cognitive concepts in an often
astounding and creative way.
Part III
Working at the
Clay Field with
Adults
Chapter 6
The Nine
Situations
According to Deuser, the creator of Clay Field therapy, the nine

situations can be seen as railway stations along the journey. They are
fundamental stages in the process of finding the way to “me,” to self-
realization. This chapter investigates how these situations are arrived at
in the Clay Field. They are designed to structure the process and make
it more transparent for therapists. These stages are partially based on D.
W. Winnicott’s (1964, 1971, 1986) theories on a child’s developmental
phases, but also relate to the human need:
• to find fulfillment
• to realize individual possibilities
• to create mythical correspondences.
Deuser speaks about the “obligation to one’s own realization” (2009).
This is not cognitive, ego-based realization, not planned, directed
action, but based upon a movement-driven, sensorimotor impulse
that is deeply connected to our libido. The resources of our libido are
198
The Nine Situations 199
vast; it channels the powerful survival instinct that will always aim to
rebalance, to repair the broken and disturbed. This life force connects
us to what in eastern concepts is called the kundalini; it connects us to a
core-identity, similar to what C. G. Jung defined as the Self.
Any Clay Field session can involve just the first two situations or all
nine. There is no value judgment on how much needs to be achieved.
The completion of a situation depends on developmental needs and a
qualitative outcome, rather than on quantitative goals.
1. Reliability: being reliable to me

Perceiving myself in my body
Here we have all the factors at play that bring a client into a session.
How a client enters the art therapist’s room (voluntarily or involuntarily),
how the client feels about the upcoming session (fearful, ashamed,
excited, or…) and how clients place themselves in the art therapist’s
workspace. This is when the greeting rituals take place.
Children will take in the entire situation as one undifferentiated
environment: who and what brought them to the session, the therapist,
the room, the art materials, the Clay Field; at least initially they cannot
distinguish between the varying components. If they feel overwhelmed,
they will retreat into themselves, sit on their hands, or be restless and
fiddly, or refuse to engage. I will later describe seven-year-old Max,
who would sit with his back to the Clay Field for most of the first
sessions.
Adults may engage in lengthy discussions with their arms folded,
ignoring the Clay Field in front of them. Others will take a significant
amount of time to roll up their sleeves, put on an apron, tie their hair
back, adjust the chair, etc. This first situation describes all the necessary
rituals clients need, to find a reliable inner certainty, within their body,
within their physical presence. The therapist must accept the client’s
need to find a safe-enough base as a starting point.
2. Reliability: relying on something other than me

Shifting focus onto an opposite
Now clients begin to perceive the Clay Field in front of them. They
perceive it as an unknown that may or may not support them. They
hesitate. Is this other-than-me reliable?
At the age of seven to eight months infants develop a fear of
strangers. As they begin to perceive a world other than “mother,” they
fear to “fall” into the other and be lost.
In this situation at the Clay Field we experience all the issues we
have in trusting someone and something other than me; the “me” of the
infant in this case is the symbiosis the child feels with the mother up to
this point, a symbiosis which is experienced as a participation mystique,
as an undivided oneness of mother and child. Hesitation, reluctance or
even fear oscillates with the need to reach out to an other, to relate to
an other-than-me. This is where we find the wish “to find myself in the
other,” the wish to explore the undiscovered world which has entered
into the field of my vision.
Clients may test the clay with a fingertip, give it a little tap. They
may now hold on to the sides of the box, shift the box into position, or
they shift themselves into position to the field or move the bowl of water.
The hands explore the sides of the box, the boundary, the table on which
the box sits. Adult hands will have an awareness of the box’s boundary;
children’s hands, and those of adults who have regressed to their inner
child, will “fall” into the field as a given space. This is due to the fact
that children are not in charge of their world; they have no choice; the
world is a given space in their perception. Especially disempowered and
traumatized adults and children will struggle with hesitation, if not terror,
as to how trustworthy and reliable this “other” in front of them may be.
This girl is very aware of the field

in front of her; however, she does
not yet dare to touch it. Her hands
are folded in her lap. This is her
first session. She is torn between
curiosity and fear, between the urge
to explore and the need to be safe.
6.1
Situations 1 and 2 may be transitioned within minutes by most clients;

there will, however, be others who will take many sessions before they
are capable of even touching the Clay Field with a fingertip. Children
might be aware of the presence of the Clay Field in the art therapist’s
room, but, while eyeing the field, may choose other activities for a
number of sessions until they are ready.
3. Finding orientation
Finding reliability in what is present
This is the age of the toddler who plays “peek‑a‑boo” or hide and seek;
children who will cover their eyes with their hands (or hide themselves)
and delightedly exclaim “gone,” only to discover the magic that they
are still “there” as soon as they remove their hands or reappear from
their hiding place. Identity can get lost, but it can be found again!
Mother may disappear, but she will come back. I may disappear, but
I can re-emerge from darkness and confusion. This is how we acquire
trust.
Can I be there in the Clay Field without getting lost, devoured or
overwhelmed? Can I touch this and still come back to myself ?
This phase is the most interesting one from a diagnostic point of
view. How do clients make contact with the material? How is their
first touch, this first encounter with the Clay Field? To the untrained
observer nothing happens here. A client will just put her hands onto the
clay to get ready to work with it. Yet, the way in which we do organize
this first contact is most telling. The hands need to find orientation in
this world that presents itself to them, and they need to make contact
and find something reliable and trustworthy in this contact.
Finding reliability through orientation

Many clients’ hands will wander around the field at this stage, sensing
the boundary, mapping out the space with their hands, determining
the size of the world they encounter. The hands will clearly reveal how
confident and capable, or how terrified and lost the client feels; and this
will inevitably reflect the individual’s biography.
6.2
These hands use the boundary of the box for orientation. From this safe
vantage point they explore the field. The pinkie and ring finger rest on
the sides, while the other fingers take tentative steps into the world at
hand. The thumbs as the executers of the vital impulses are stretched
away from the clay. This woman had come to the end of her working
life and her existential question was not about doing more, but how to be.
A middle-aged woman places her hands on the field. Her eyes are
closed. Her hands move very, very slowly; they look tense and almost
frozen in terror. She barely touches the material. When asked, she
describes the Clay Field as “huge,” a vast expanse of almost cosmic
dimensions. She feels afraid and utterly lost. With a firm voice, like
a football commentator, I coax her to move, and to move a little
bit further, and yet a bit further, until she reaches the boundary of
the box. A wave of relief rushes through her body. She touches the
boundary and exclaims, in tears: “I am alive!”

Even though this client was in her fifties, she was still living with
her mother, despite this being an abusive relationship; she had never
left home, being terrified of life. She was not in charge of her life,
rather feeling lost and lonely in a terrifying, unpredictable universe.
Finding reliability through movement

Deuser considers this third situation as the most valuable when it comes
to haptic diagnosis. In his analysis of videoed Clay Field sessions, he
will spend most time looking at these first tentative movements, while
my students think, “The session has not even started yet!”
The hands will instantly react to the first touch. And while
individuals may perceive qualities such as “nice” or “disgusting,”
they rarely notice how their hands instantly respond and find the
movements they need. In the gestalt formation process the stage of
intention manifests here; the intention of the movement necessary to
find the optimal gestalt. Whatever biographical material will become
relevant in this session, it will appear in its first impulse as confident
contact, or as a tentative tap with a fingertip. Is there pressure on the
base of the hand or in the fingers? Which diagnostically translates as: is
this client approaching the field with vitality or more from the head? Is
the urge in the hands a need to want something from this world in the
Clay Field or to reject it?
The contact with the clay quite literally reflects the core relationship
the client has with the world at large. Is this other-than-me a friendly,
giving place or an unyielding, stark, hostile environment? When the
hands reach out, do they find support, nurturing, abundance, a place to
play, to explore and safely to be; or are the hands tentative and afraid,
expecting to get hurt, overwhelmed and rejected? If the hands feel
safe, they will continue to explore the material; they will dare to move
it, press into it, push it, lift it up and out. If the hands experience this
given setting as hostile, they will display a spectrum of movements that
can range from tentative and shy to instant freeze and dissociation in
terror. The therapist has to be exceptionally vigilant at this point of first
contact, in order to pick up any “danger” signs and support the client
to gain trust and basic orientation. If the client dissociates, which will
be visible in frozen movements of dead-spider-like hands, the therapist

companion will need to introduce pendulation until the client has
found a safe enough place in the setting to reduce hyperarousal—only
then it is safe enough to proceed.
While the right hand of this woman

can rest solidly on the material, the
left hand shies away. The fingers
immediately overstretch, as soon as
they come into contact with the clay.
The following process revealed that
she sensed the material as revolting
and she had the intense urge to
clean out the abusive “stuff” in the
6.3a box. Part of her, her right hand, is
capable of handling the world she lives in. However, childhood abuse
and violence come into play as soon as her left hand touches the clay
and distrusts such contact. It is important to acknowledge that this
was not conscious or accompanied by any memories. It was simply a
reaction of her hands, reflecting her biography.
The right hand of this woman is

reasonably comfortable in the field,
whereas the left hand squirms in
agony, trying to get away from
the material. While this client was
outwardly well adjusted today
(right hand), she had grown up (left
hand) in a violently abusive home.
6.3b
Twenty minutes later the left hand
has escaped into the water bowl,
where it rests, still twisted in terror,
while the right hand attempts to
make the field safe enough, so
the left hand can dare to enter the
world. The right hand continued
to care for the left hand until it
could heal and Rose (her process
is documented in detail later on) 6.3c

could find balance.
Scratch drawings appear frequently

at this stage. They represent a
first contact with the clay without
penetrating it. The fingers draw
lines, patterns or even images into
the material, remaining on the
surface. This little girl had drawn
channels across the entire field with
her fingers. The left index finger
now appears to look for something, 6.3d
but she does not yet dare to destroy
the given space through digging
into it.
4. Reaching object constancy

Finding a hold
Now the hands of the client begin to explore the clay. The hands dig in;
they poke, knead and squash the material. They rip pieces of clay out,
pile it on top of other piles and press it down. The hands experiment
and find out, they can survive! They are able to find a relationship with
the material and a hold. They can do things! The hands of clients, and
therefore the clients themselves, find certainty in the organization of
their proximal sense, their sense of touch. (The other proximal sense
is taste.)
D. W. Winnicott observed toddlers playing with piling building
blocks on top of each other, only to knock them over, and then rebuild
the pile. All parents know this game. Children learn competence in
this way. They learn that they can do things; that they can create and
destroy. We do the same, as our hands dig in and grasp the clay.
Myths of correspondence and encounter come into play at this
phase. “Once there was…” a giant, a dragon, a dark forest, a far away
land. Myths and fairy tales tell us of the great, dangerous other and
how we can survive the encounter, having retrieved a new strength or
competence.
Wendy is in her mid-forties. She encounters an oppressive feeling

in the Clay Field, which at the end of the session she relates to her
childhood experience of emotional abuse, resulting in alcohol abuse
in her past, and current bouts of depression.

She “hates the mess,” the stickiness of the clay, the chaos. Very
quickly she experiences “rage.” Her hands clear out all the clay and
vehemently deposit it on the floor in great splashes. Then she gets
rid of the box as well and puts it on the floor. She is relieved, but
her hands are now searching. The table is empty. Gradually she picks
the clay up from the floor and piles it onto the table in front of her
without the box. After a while her hands create handles, good solid
handles. She has got a motorbike! She straddles her chair, holding on
to her clay motorbike handles. She is in charge! I can virtually see her
hair fly in the wind. She feels energized and alive and “wild.” She has
found a hold. She tells me later the feeling of elation lasted for weeks.
A middle‑aged woman arrives tense and “prickly” for her session.

She feels irritable and does not know why.
In the clay she digs up lots of material. For a while her hands are
lost in chaos. Until she begins to shape a half-circle, an arch stretching
from side to side. She holds on to it. She tests it and recognizes with
delight that it feels like the “walker” she had when she was an infant.
Suspended in it, when she was little, she could hold on to the circular
railing, while her legs learnt to walk. A sense of relief and courage
floods through her body. She is supported, she is safe and she can
move forward, even at times when she feels weak and instable.
Whenever this phase is missing, not only does it expose deficits in our
biography, but it also has consequences for the continued process. We
need to acquire trust in the setting of the Clay Field; we need to find
something to hold on to in the clay.
This final optimal gestalt illustrates

a hold. The client found certainty in
creating “a boat” at a time when her
working life had come to an end
and she was searching for a new
direction. This way she had a safe
space and a sense of direction and
control in an ocean of unfamiliar,
uncharted territory ahead.

6.4a
This appeared at an early stage
during the process after an initial,
almost frantic bout of activity of
the hands in the field. Here they
find a first hold, similar to a railing;
something the hands can cling to
for balance and orientation.
6.4b
The fear is palpable in the right

hand of this client. She really needs
to hold on tight in order not to
get lost and overwhelmed. This
woman grew up in a chaotic home
environment with an alcohol-
addicted mother.
6.4c
Acquiring emotional constancy through creative destruction

Once clients have found an initial hold, they begin to grasp the clay
with increasing competence. They explore the quality of the material;
they begin to take on their own doing.
Any penetration of the clay with the fingers is an act of destruction.
Any indent will change the smoothness of the surface. Also, to chuck
pieces of clay out of the box, to strangle, squash, hit and reject the
material, represents a destructive act that changes the shape, the texture
and the emotional quality of the clay.
Any act of creation demands destruction; first the destruction of an
existing order and then the creation of a new one. Object constancy
is acquired through sequences of destruction and gain, of loss and
retrieval, of dissolution and preservation. Whatever survives it all, can
be. Then it is truly mine! Clients retrieve a treasure from this ordeal,
something that is profoundly meaningful and precious to them,

something that has emotional constancy and cannot be destroyed. We
strive to attain creative constancy and continuity: our hands intrude—
they destroy, they are effective in their destruction and create new forms.
We encounter the makeup of our early emotionality, the ambivalence
towards our “creative destruction” (Spielrein 1986).
Clients who have, at one stage in their lives, been overwhelmed
by a destructive force, be it through emotional, physical, sexual abuse
or other trauma, will have lost their trust in the power of destruction
and will consequently also be unable to create. Such clients will either
barely dare to touch the clay—especially traumatized girls tend to
be overly shy and withdrawn—or, as traumatized boys often react,

they identify with the aggressor and attempt to be loud, boisterous
and hyperactive; they fear to get hurt when showing vulnerability, and
therefore avoid their feeling side. Such clients may be active, aggressive,
and may frantically do things in the Clay Field, but they are just as
unable to create unless they allow themselves to feel. The therapist has
to assist such clients to unterrify their world and to restore their trust in
the power of creative destruction.
Often the retrieved treasure is a symbolic parent who was
emotionally unsafe in the past, but who is now transformed in the
Clay Field into something reliable, in order to fulfill the developmental
need to love and trust the other-than-me. In such a case clients are
inclined to hug and embrace and kiss the clay; they like to lean on it
or rest their head on it. Recurring images are a mother’s “breast,” or
the entire clay becoming a “body” around which I can wrap my arms
and love it safely and feel loved by it. Some clients need to have their
hands and arms wrapped inside the clay by the therapist. This way
they are held safely in a womb-like embrace in order to integrate a
developmental need.
According to Deuser this fourth situation relates to the anal
phase. The creative impulse is discovered through discarding “shit”
and discovering gold. At this stage we find creation myths in which a
treasure is retrieved.
In most cases clients fight with the clay in order to achieve object
constancy, but they do not discard it. Emotional ambivalence is
expressed through pushing the material away, only to draw it close

again. Some use all the clay; others only retrieve something important
from the field, but do not touch the rest of the material. The struggle
is about owning and loving the other-than-me safely and reliably,
especially when such love for a parent, for example, in the past was
unsafe and ambivalent owing to abuse or absence.
To acquire object constancy can be profoundly healing and be
accompanied with huge relief. I have seen many clients hugging all
the clay in one great big lump, crying into it, resting their head on it,
caressing it, loving it as: “This is all mine!”
Children do not venture any further than this fourth situation.

They are dependent on caregivers and need to achieve object constancy
to be able to form healthy relationships with others. However, most
adults also do not develop any further, at least not until they reach the
second half of life.
This rock looks as if it emerges

right out of the ground. It has
been birthed. It is experienced as
precious and solid and profoundly
“mine.” This is a child, held safely
in a parental embrace. It is held in a
clay environment the young woman
never touched, insofar as the
6.5a surrounding clay still constitutes
the other-than-me aspect of her
parents as unquestioned providers—quite different to later situations,
where all the ground has been moved and claimed and is owned.
This is typical of the stage when

object constancy is achieved.
Something lost has been retrieved,
is pressed against the body, hugged
and embraced. Such profound
physical contact is important. The
client could lean into this supporting

beloved; she could rest in this
6.5b embrace, she could completely,
undoubtedly own and love it, safely.
This is how we can regain and reclaim secure attachment. This woman
could finally feel safe in her love for her father, even though the clay
was never explicitly named as being him. Yet, all previous ambivalence
towards the material has been overcome here, and deep love and relief
flooded through her body.
This woman claimed the empty

field as “mine.” She achieved object
constancy through finding her own
reliable place in the world. Her
mother had died at her birth. She
grew up in an orphanage together
with her twin brother, for whom
she was considered responsible
throughout her childhood, because 6.5c
he clung to her. To have a place of
her own in which she could live safely was “unbelievable” for her. She
hugged and rocked the box with radiant joy.
It does not matter, if the retrieved aspect of the soul appears like a
humble lump of clay (which it is not in the client’s experience!) or if it
is exquisitely shaped. Only the emotional and biographical resolution
is of importance for each individual.
5. Reaching subject constancy

Establish my own position in a foreign space
Being able to trust the other, clients can now become aware of their
subjective presence. They become conscious of their role as creators
in the Clay Field. Now there is not one who is lost and found in the
other, but a relationship is established between oneself and the other,
between subject and object, between “me” inside the field and “you” as
“not me” outside of it.

Here we find emotional ambivalence. There is the experience of
controversy, of tension between likes and dislikes, between closeness
and distancing. Ultimately individual needs demand attention and the
establishment of “my space.”
At this stage the field frequently gets cleared of lots, if not all, of
the material. After the hands have struggled in vain to adjust to the
demands of an internalized authority, after they have failed to comply
with the many “shoulds” in object constancy, rebellion sets in. Clients
now disengage from “the other” and dare to throw “the other” out
and position themselves in the field. Some clients know who they are
rebelling against—their father, mother, partner, abuser or the entire
family—but often enough there is no story attached to the emotions.
This process can be easy and overdue, or painfully ambivalent.

Ambivalence manifests as release and throwing out material, followed
by regret and retrieving it into the box, back and forth until clients have
found the necessary courage to claim their own. Ultimately the dragon has
to be murdered in order to release the princess it guarded. This situation
relates to hero-myths of ego-formation, of transformational change. Ego,
in the Clay Field, is usually represented as something erect and central,
and the surrounding field has been worked through and is claimed.
Deuser associates this situation with the second half of life when
it is no longer so important to define ourselves through others, but
when we become aware of our own unique identity. Here we find the
onset of what Jung called the individuation process (1968, 1972, 1990).
In giving this sense of self a space, we need to release all the clay
that is associated with an external authority, the soul material that was
contaminated lovingly or viciously by others. Whatever is sensed as
“not me” will be placed outside of the field. At times it is more painful
to do this to loved ones; it can be easier to separate from hated, abusive
events in one’s biography. The gain is an inner place that is utterly and
reliably “mine.” The cleared ground of the Clay Field will be frequently
experienced as inner ground, synonymous with the pelvic floor in the
body. Identity here becomes deeply physical through the felt sense.
6.6a 6.6b
6.6c 6.6d
A field is smelled and inspected

and deemed “dirty” (6.6a). It gets
cleaned and cleared from abuse
(6.6b); it gets washed with water,
dried with a towel, and only then
the ground can be fully owned
as “mine,” uncontaminated by
the unwanted influence of others
(6.6c). Now Francis can “move in.” 6.6e
She beats a rhythm in the box and
enjoys the sounds she can create (6.6d). In this way she claims her
world, and within it her self, for which she is accountable and identical
with (6.6e).
For an extended period the clay

was pounded and examined in this
case. Certainly every grain had been
touched in ambivalent bouts of
attraction and rejection. Finally the
client could “dare” to go within, to
explore aspects of her inner world.
To allow her sensuality to surface
was huge for this woman who 6.7a
suffered from acute bouts of PTSD,
which left her dissociated from her body more often than not. Here her
hands venture inside and discover all sorts of wonderful sensations. The
figure can be related to the inside of her body, in particular her pelvis.
Her touch is gentle, loving, sensual, curious and accepting of her self. She
makes friends with her body.
This “Buddha” was embraced by

the client as a long-lost part of
her identity, as a symbol of her
creativity and spirituality.
She struggled with self-doubt
and self-value issues, and this figure
was an inner answer to her quest.
6.7b
Before the field was cleared of everything she needed to let go of;
only then could this aspect of her higher Self manifest.
Here, too, subject constancy has

been acquired. In this session the
client had unexpectedly recalled—
to her horror—a rape, and as a
consequence of the rape an abortion
when she was still underage. This
had happened several decades ago.
With much emotion she cleared and
cleaned the entire box. She then 6.7c
established soft boundaries to hold
her. Towards the end of the session she experienced her pelvic floor as
healed after she had tended to it with lots of water and gentle caressing
strokes. How open and surrendered her hands look. She is absolutely at
one with herself and at peace.
6. Finding one’s own ground

Centering
Now the inner ground gains significance. The bottom of the
box becomes alive and the foundation for an inner space that is
simultaneously experienced within the client’s body, especially in the
pelvis. This process may require that a client clears out the entire box,
washes and cleanses the bottom, feels the “silence” of the bottom, rests
the hands on it with a rare sensation of tranquility. Or the client brings
the bottom to life and plants and establishes a new order, new fertile
growth. It may mean that a client really connects with the ground, like
a huge tree sending its roots deep into the earth—or that water is used
to make the bottom slippery, so nothing gets stuck on it and a figure
can move freely in the given space. Attachment or non-attachment,
either one can be significant and necessary. The boundary of the box
may need emphasis or reinforcement to protect an inner sanctuary. In
all cases the bottom of the box is a living, specified entity that has
meaning and is charged with a life force that is felt inside the client’s
body. The vertical axis of the spine becomes anchored in the pelvis, just
as something inside the Clay Field becomes anchored in its relationship
to the bottom. Deuser links this state to the second half of life, when
the inner world as a spiritual place gains significance.
Clients retrieve a distinct sense of self within themselves at
this stage. Many times the ground is ritualized; mandala shapes are
established as centering designs which imbue the space with a spiritual
significance or special powers. The Clay Field takes on the meaning of
a sacred space.
Myths there relate to places of creative order, and of spiritual
presences, such as angels surrounding the space. The field is often
referred to as sacred, as renewed, as a “new earth,” as a temple.
6.8a 6.8b
Three different clients, each

with their individual version of
centering. The first sphere had to
be free to move. The box had been
cleared of old attachments and now

allowed “the freedom to be me.”
The second one is asserting a central
place, standing up inside it, having
claimed and “healed” the ground.
The third was a small container that 6.8c
the client kept pressed to her heart
for an extended period of time,
experiencing deep sorrow until she
could place it in the center of her
cleaned and cleared field.
Vertical centering
Clients now also become aware of a virtual point of balance that seems
to hover above themselves and the Clay Field. The experience here is a
paradox, in which the inner and the outer, the subject and the object,
the “me” and the other begin to communicate and correspond in an
intangible, yet very tangible way. The client’s felt sense is wide awake
and in tune with the actions of the hands in the field.
Before, the ground was claimed as a spiritual place; now the “above”
becomes charged with a “true self.” I like to refer to this virtual point
as the Higher Consciousness, as the source of universal wisdom and
unconditional love.
The client’s experience is one of mystical correspondences, of
synchronicity. It is a deeply satisfying, happy, peaceful place to be.
The client’s Self is activated as the source of true identity, as divine
uniqueness. This Self is larger than life, it is clearly transcending the
ego; it unifies and balances previously conflicting personality aspects.
Actions in the Clay Field may involve a blessing with raised hands,
giving “reiki” to the creation in the field, or a baptism with water from
above.
Frances 6: This woman was

receiving with her hands; it is a
gesture of prayer or an opening up
in surrender to a higher force from
above.
6.9a
Frances 7: She then continued to
“bless” her new-found ground.
Frances is pictured under
Situation 5, where she establishes
subject constancy within herself.
The figure she then created was
removed further on in the same
session, to make space for a greater
identity than her ego.
6.9b
7. Shadow integration
Self-correspondences, object accordance
The manifestation of the Self will call forth the shadow, its core
opposite. Light’s opposite is darkness. Here we find the encounter with
the ultimate terrible, with the most feared—and we have to deal with it.
This is not ego-shadow, but core-shadow. It is something much bigger
than us. Ego-shadow issues are about social adjustment. Core-shadow
has much to do with trauma, with the unacceptable and overwhelming;
also with fate. Here the hero encounters the dragon.
This is no longer the unconscious or unknowing acting out of
biography. Here individuals are fully aware of what is happening. They
have to face the unbearable and deal with it. They encounter traumatic
events from their past and have to retrieve the split-off aspects of their
selves. Shadow integration is soul-retrieval.
A young woman was confronted with her dead child in the Clay
Field. She had worked the clay, and suddenly and unexpectedly the
body she touched was lifeless. She screamed, she begged to run away,
while her hands were glued to the clay. The unbearable that she had
not been able to accept and deal with confronted her. And even
though she wanted to run away, she could not. She had to stay; her
hands would not let go. She picked up her child and cradled it; she
rocked it and grieved for it, until she could put it back into the field,
cover it with a cloth and finally accept the inevitable.
That day she could go home and finally dismantle the shrine she had
erected for her daughter, who died at birth seven years ago, but she
was never allowed and able to hold her and bid her farewell. Then
the dead body had just been whisked away; exactly the opposite to
what her hands would not let her do.
For others it might be the abuser, manifest in the clay as an opposite,

and the individual is fully aware of this terrible presence. And maybe,
despite everything that happened in the past, the individual can now
find strength and an understanding of sorts that will allow compassion
for oneself and the shadow.
Anna had been sexually abused by several perpetrators in her

family from the age of four to ten. Accordingly she had poor body
image, low self-esteem, and lacked confidence. Often she would only
whisper and was mortified to be seen by others. She pretended to
be invisible in order to keep herself safe.
In the Clay Field her hands create with surprising certainty a large
phallus, using all the material. She is horrified when she opens her
eyes. She flattens it and punches it. However, in the next session, the
same happens. With unerring persistence her hands again pile up
the material until this huge penis stands erect in the middle of the
field. She begins to laugh. She laughs, and hugs it, with tears streaming
down her face. “This is me! This is me!” She could accept that she
had built it and that just as much as this erect tower represented her
destruction, it also was her beacon of light, her power and strength.
This was the beginning, she became visible.
This baby was not a planned

image. It came as a total surprise
for the client. She had suffered
sexual abuse as an infant and had
been consequently placed in a
foster family. In the clay she had
acted out the abuse and rejection
by battling with the material,
strangling it, drawing it close to her
6.12 chest, throwing it out of the box,

punching it, collecting it back into
her lap, crying on it, cleaning it, purging it, bathing pieces of clay in
the water—until she could, with increasing awe, handful by handful
retrieve her lost inner child and give it the love and nurture she had
always craved.
Jennifer suffered all her life from survivor’s guilt; her twin sister
had died in utero, while she lived. She had never discussed this with
anyone. It was her secret, unspoken idea that she was the one who
had muscled herself into life, “killing” her sister in the process. She
knew this idea was “crazy” and that objectively she could not be
blamed for a murder she had committed when she was a fetus, but
subjectively that was exactly what she had done. None of this was
mentioned before she began her session.
In the Clay Field her hands divide the clay into two piles and
shape two largish lumps; they happen, they are not intentional. With
horror and awe she realizes they are her unborn sister and herself.
Restlessly she moves both around in the field. She bumps them into
each other. Eventually her hands begin to hold them lovingly. She
picks up her twin and connects with the soul of this dead sister. She
caresses her. Gradually the insight rises in her as a certainty that this
sister was severely disabled and would have never been able to live.
She begins to cry with relief. She holds her twin close to her heart,
pressed to her body. After a while she gently places her outside of
the field in a cradle-like shape. She then creates a nest for herself as
a fetus and claims the entire space in the field for herself, guilt-free.
She finally understood, not intellectually, but intuitively, why her
sister had died. She understood her life-purpose and accepted it;
while at the same time she felt compassion for her twin. On this
basis she could lay her guilt feelings to rest; at peace, she could
forgive herself. She could finally separate from her twin and claim
her own life.
8. Destruction as self-realization
Taking on the consequences of one’s own realization
What now opens up are the consequences of the previously gained
wholeness. This new Self comes with an ethical obligation. Questions
about the human condition arise. From the uniquely individual,
spiritual place the view expands into a universal landscape. The Self
is no longer an island, but finds a new context in a much larger world
than previously perceived. People believe, for example, that they are
cooperating with events rather than controlling them, that they are
aligning their strength with existing forces, even those in opposition.
It is a kind of flexible will, sometimes called intention. Others feel
they are being called to do certain things, to stand up for a cause, even
if they are afraid or uncomfortable about it and know they will not
receive any material gain from such actions.
This is an expansion of consciousness. The impact of this response-
ability is felt throughout the body and the hands in the Clay Field. The
laws of manifestation are instated; we sense the footprint we can leave
in someone’s heart, or on this planet. Whatever I do to myself will
affect others.
On the other hand, individuals may need to perform acts of
separation in the Clay Field, liberating for themselves, but in full
consciousness that this will affect others or their world profoundly.
Many times this is in the context of accepting a guilt larger than a
personal one, even though the individual was profoundly affected by
the consequences of a particular event.
Bandula is 40 years old. She grew up in India in a traditional Sikh

environment.The men in her family, and her father in particular, were
a violent, abusive authority. When she picked a husband at the age
of 20, rather than accept an arranged marriage, her father and uncle
beat her almost to death. She had to spend weeks in hospital.
For an entire hour she struggles with crippling ambivalence,
wanting to clear the field of all clay, yet fearing the consequences
of such a courageous claim for her own space. As one hand moves
forward, pushing clay out, the other hand will pull it back in. She cries
and cries, but she cannot do it. She is too afraid. To “disown” her
family is also a cultural crime.
In the second session she is ready. With great care she clears
out all the material. It helps her to be “respectful” rather than

charged with affect; and she arranges the “family” as unstructured
lumps of clay on the table outside of the box. She breathes with
intention through her anxiety. She cleans the box with paper towels
and water. Then she reclaims some of the material and builds a tall,
upright “dancing figure” that can slide and twirl in the field, whenever
she wets the ground and makes it slippery. She is delighted. As a last
move she pushes the “family” to the edge of the table, as far away as
possible—and lets her figure dance.
She has freed herself in the past from the abuse. Then it was
for her survival. Now she can live. She acknowledges not only the
abuse, but also the love and gratitude she feels for her family. She
asserts herself and claims her own space. In this act she accepts
the guilt—to disown your family is one of the worst crimes in her
culture—and through this acceptance releases her guilt. She knows
there is no other way.
9. Accepting one’s humanity

Integration with one’s own other
This stage is rare and emerges from deep inner work. It requires that a
client takes on the own condition as a “creatura.” It is based on the deep
realization that my own is just as much part of me as the other, that
all conditions are mine. It allows insight into my own injury, my own
existence, and accepting it as myself.
Everything has consequences, everything affects another,
everything is connected. Whatever I do, whatever I think, it changes
the world, inside and outside of me. Not from an ego-perspective, but
through vibrational connectedness of all life-forms. There is no longer
a heaven or any other external authority, the entire cosmos is inside
me and around me, is part of me; and I am part of it. The own Self,
but also the core-shadow, the ultimate terrible, need acceptance and
integration. Love, joy and tears, courage and terror, all are part of one’s
human condition.
It is an experience that can be a curious blend of the voluntary
and the involuntary, of choice and surrender. With an inner calling one
feels strongly drawn in a particular direction or to a certain task, and
is simultaneously convinced that one was somehow “supposed” to take
just these steps. One might call it vocation; it is definitely not accidental,
it is deliberate, but it lacks the iron will of ego-driven intentions.
In all these later situations the actions of the hands in the field
become highly individual, and they are far removed from the
unconscious emotionality one finds at the beginning of the journey.

Here the hands really open up to become highly refined sensory
organs, with an ability to see, to hear, to taste and to smell the events in
the Clay Field. The hands are also keenly aware of their movements in
space, even when they do not touch the clay. The hands may hover over
the field, perceiving the “aura” of the landscape below. I have listened
to intricate descriptions of the colors in the clay, or good and evil places
in the field that were sensed with the outstretched hands from above. I
have observed clients giving “reiki” to the clay, purifying and healing it.
Lena touches the Clay Field and her hands shy away in terror.
Something “terrible” is inside there. As she opens up the surface of
the clay she discovers a “mass grave.” With horror and great care
she takes all the clay out and cleans the box. She then blesses the
ground with reverence. She proceeds to shape small “souls” and
places them in rows in the emptied out Clay Field. She cries and she
sings in Hebrew. She sings for each soul. She gives each soul a stone,
a prayer and a grave. Everybody in the group witnessing this is crying.
Lena is a second-generation Holocaust survivor. The thought of
the thousands of anonymous dead bodies in mass graves, souls that
have never been named and honoured, weighs heavily on her. They
are her people. She is one of them. The songs and Hebrew prayers
that come to her are a surprise. She did not know she knew them.
The next chapter will illustrate these nine situations with a number of
case histories.
Chapter 7
Your Story
This chapter tells the session stories of four clients. I hope that this will
illustrate the points I have made in the previous chapters. All names
have been changed to protect the clients’ identity.
“I am being held”
Jody’s story
The following process is an illustration of issues that can arise in the
second and third situations: Reliability: relying on an other-than-me (2) and
Finding orientation (3), as I have outlined it in the nine situations in
Chapter 6. It is a step-by-step observation of two sessions with a highly
traumatized client. We may call her Jody. Jody suffered sexual abuse by
five different perpetrators, all family members, from the age of one to
14. She is now in her mid-fifties and is affected by severe symptoms
of PTSD, especially insomnia and panic attacks. To touch the Clay
Field fills her with acute fear. She cannot trust anyone and the Clay
Field takes on all her issues of insecure, traumatized attachment and
222
Your Story 223
unwanted, terrifying touch. Her trust was abused from such an early age
onwards that she has no memories of healthy and safe attachment. She
has also never experienced having enough power to defend herself. She
was so young when the abuse started that even a simple exercise such
as standing up in front of someone is agonizing for her. She has got
“no legs,” because the abuse started before she learned to walk. Jody
has been in long-term psychotherapy and art therapy. In her process the
Clay Field takes on the role of the other, the caregiver that cannot, and
eventually can, be trusted. It is utterly moving how the toddler in her
engages fully in the events as they unfold.
Because the sheer presence of the Clay Field poses such a threat
to Jody, we spend the previous session on the creation of an anchor. An
anchor is a concrete, observable resource, as opposed to an internal
resource. It is an object that holds positive memories and is able to
create emotional and physical wellbeing and relief. She creates her Lady
on the Rock, a small female figure of about 10 centimeters in height that
sits on a lump of clay, the rock. This lady has been an imaginary friend
throughout her childhood. One could call her a protective mother
figure, unlike the biological mother Jody has had. Her anchor is shaped
of clay and sits on a flat piece of cardboard.
Elizabeth L. is the observer. The record of this session is taken
from her notes; my comments are inserted in italics. She writes: “Prior
to this session, I become increasingly aware that working in the Clay
Field presents as an intensely threatening experience for Jody. She has
therefore, after discussing this situation with Cornelia, decided to work
with ‘just the water.’” I have also provided an empty Clay Field, to help
reduce Jody’s arousal level, because the clay terrifies her.
First session
On the table in front of Jody is an empty Clay Field box. To the right
is another Clay Field filled with clay; to the left is a bowl of water.
As Jody takes up her position at the table, she speaks of becoming
increasingly aware of “a paralysis that comes from within.”
Cornelia’s guidance is: “It is important for you to take charge.”
“Take what you need, rather than do what you should do.”
At this point, I notice that Jody is paying considered attention to
her right wrist; caressing it gently and lovingly. Cornelia encourages
Jody to shut her eyes and offers a guided visualization, as follows…
“Imagine a circle of light on the ground around the three of us,
forming a symbolic tepee reaching up to the Higher Consciousness
above us all in the center of the circle.” Jody is to ask the Higher
Consciousness to “Keep the space safe.” Then Jody is asked to place
a circle of light around her on the ground, and when she exhales,
to become aware of the ground, and to become aware also that “the
earth supports you. As you sit, imagine a beam of light traveling up
your spine and connect it with your Higher Consciousness. Then ask
that energy from the Higher Consciousness to flow down to give you
guidance, protection and the insights you are ready to receive.”
Jody sits for quite a while in great trepidation; eyes intensely closed;
hands gently folded in her lap. I notice at this point some nervous
twitching around her mouth, and a movement that suggests trying to
free up her jaw to allow it to move. Jody continues to just sit, anxiously
contemplating the situation at hand.
Cornelia’s intervention at this point is to suggest that she
“experiment with how far away from the table you would like to sit,”
and then “you can even stand up if you like.”
I make this suggestion to give Jody a choice. I point out to her that she can
pendulate. She does not need to be drawn into the trauma vortex of overwhelming
contact with the “other.” She can leave. She can distance herself. She has discovered
this in a previous session. So my comment here has the purpose of reminding her
of an inner resource she has already claimed.
Jody spends much time tentatively exploring the edge of the table,
and then she remarks, “I feel like I am sitting with the Lady on the
Rock.” Cornelia offers to bring her to the table, which she then does.
Jody opens her eyes to rearrange the table as follows: water to the left;
the Lady on the Rock, directly looking at Jody, is placed on top of the
full clay box, with the cardboard support for the form almost entirely
covering the threatening surface of the clay. This Clay Field, complete
with Jody’s anchor, is situated to the right, and the empty box directly
in front of her.
So Jody has now established a second resource, her anchor, the cardboard
base of which accidentally covers the entire full Clay Field, which poses a much
greater threat than the empty one in front of her.
Jody remarks that “she provides me with a sense of groundedness…
something familiar, and she gives me great comfort.” Jody then asks
the presence of the Lady on the Rock to “give me strength.” Then she
closes her eyes once more and returns her hands to her lap.
After a time, Jody reaches out with both hands and takes the bowl
of water, and carefully places it on her lap, then allows her hands to
come to encircle the bowl. Slowly she begins to approach the inside
Your Story 225
of the bowl just with the tips of her fingers. She dips her fingers in the
bowl, tapping gently to get the feel of the warm water.
The bowl of water can be understood as a mediator. It is a foreign object,
but it is not quite as charged as the Clay Field. The empty Clay Field is another
stepping-stone towards the clay-filled Clay Field, which is now safely covered
by her anchor. It is important to take these tentative steps by Jody very seriously.
They allow her to manage her level of anxiety. To the extent she has “escape
routes,” alternatives to pendulate to, she can begin to self-regulate.
Cornelia reassures her by encouraging her to “take her time.” Her
right hand feels the surface of the water and explores it gently, and
then the left hand feels the rim of the bowl. Eventually, the right hand
is immersed in the water and the left hand massages her right wrist
with the water. Jody takes time to hold the wrist in an attitude of deep
reverence. Jody then continues to “anoint” her right wrist with the
water. At this point, Cornelia again encourages Jody to just “take your
time.”
Jody’s hand movements are now becoming stronger, pushing
the water up the right forearm and pulling down again. After being
engaged in this process for some time, both hands then begin to
explore the bowl, feeling the surface first with the right hand, and then
with the left. As she continues, Jody begins expanding the range of the
exploration, and eventually reaches right around the rim. Jody appears
to be more actively engaged with both mind and body; both hands
working together in a unified way.
Next her hands begin to examine the outside of the bowl as well;
both hands together run down the outside of the bowl, occasionally
dipping back into the water, and then continuing the exploration of
the outside. Her attitude is expressed as a sensitive and caring caress.
After a while Cornelia’s intervention is to ask: “How is that?”
Jody: “It’s more free.”
Cornelia: “You are beginning to appear more comfortable.”—“Take all
the time you like.”
The bowl of water still sits in Jody’s lap. After a brief moment the
movement changes to thumbs rolling backwards and forwards. Jody
begins trying out new movements, first with the right hand, immersing
it more deeply into the water, and finishing with repetitive dipping
movements engaging both hands together. Jody appears to enjoy the
experience of becoming more active, and also of exploring more and
more of the bowl.
Jody then begins scooping up the water, holding the water in cupped
hands and then pouring it gently and reverently from one hand to the
other. The experience is a clearly defined process, first of hearing the
water, then of holding the water, and finally letting it run back into the
bowl. Later she begins scooping up the water once more and tipping it
from one hand to the other, accompanied by a full-body rocking motion,
all this while continuing to nurse the bowl on her knee.
Cornelia: “How is it feeling now?”
Jody: “Easy!”
Next, a huge shift in her energy occurs. Jody’s fingers crawl out of the
water and tentatively feel for the edge of the empty box in front of her.
She picks up the bowl in both hands and gently places it in the empty
Clay Field box. Jody continues to explore the inside of the bowl. Her
hands move to explore the outside and, after a while, inside once more.
Then, both hands dive into the water.
There is hardly any dialog between Jody and myself. I just check occasionally
to confirm my impression that she is OK; and that she knows she is not alone. The
process is mainly nonverbal. She is also dealing with an inner preverbal age, the
toddler inside her. And she is now clearly capable to self-negotiate, managing her
anxiety, even discovering joyful play.
Much more actively now, Jody starts twirling the bowl around,
bringing the water up the sides of the bowl, and then she begins to
bring just a little water out of the bowl and into the box. She continues
scooping the water out of the bowl and into the empty box in an
energetically swirling motion, using both hands. She continues quite

eagerly and confidently until eventually she picks up the bowl and tips
the last remaining water into the box.
Next, Jody places the bowl upside-down in the center of the box
and begins massaging the outside of the bowl with both hands, turning
it around and paying interested attention to the noise it makes as it
moves around the surface of the base of the box. First she slowly moves
it to the left and then to the right, and then continues back and forth,
from left to right, for quite some time. Then she moves the bowl up to
the top left-hand corner, then down to the bottom left-hand corner; up
and around and across once more.
Cornelia: “How is this?”
Jody: “It’s still there!”
Your Story 227
At this point Jody is acutely and intently listening to the sounds

produced by her dragging and knocking movements as she explores
the full surface of the base of the empty, water-filled Clay Field. She
continues energetically and confidently to knock the upturned bowl
against all the edges of the box as the noise becomes increasingly
louder. She continues…up, down and across as the water begins to
splash outside the box. She is testing all the boundaries.
Cornelia: “How is that?”
Jody: “Unbelievable.”
Cornelia: “Can it hold you?”
Jody: “It is”…and then more emphatically…“It is!”
Eventually Jody leaves the bowl and begins feeling and exploring the
sides of the box, first with just her fingertips traveling all around the
perimeter of the box.
Cornelia: “How does that feel?”
Jody: “Soothing.”
And then, with flat hands working together…
Jody: “I’ve got a relief.”
Cornelia: “How is the bottom?”
Jody’s flat hand begins paddling and feeling the bottom…gently and
inquisitively patting the water, and then her flat hands press firmly on
the base. Next she initiates some dragging movements with her fingers
which produce a different sound, and then…solid pushing into the
base of the box with both hands.
This is an important step. Jody begins to trust that this box not only has firm
boundaries that can contain her, but the bottom can also hold her, support her.
My following interventions are designed to enhance this discovery, to make it
more reliable for her.
Jody then seems to become curious about the surface under the
bowl. She gently lifts up one edge of the bowl to make contact with
the surface directly under the upturned bowl, gradually extending the
range of her exploration to encompass the full surface of the foundation.
Jody: [excitedly] “It’s all there!”
Jody then continues to experiment with this new noise (almost a

squeaking sound) as her fingers drag across the base of the box, the
bowl still upturned over her flat hands like a turtle’s shell.
Cornelia suggests: “You may like to move into the water up to your
elbows!”
Jody begins leaning into the box and gradually allows more of her
forearms to enter the water. She then becomes aware of another new
noise that she is able to initiate by gently tapping the water with her
fingers as she splashes some water out on to her chest.
Eventually, she allows herself to rest there in the water for a while.
Cornelia: “How does that feel?”
Jody: “It’s solid!”
Cornelia: “Is it safe?”
Jody: “Yes.”
Cornelia: “Can you be there?”
Jody: “I am there.”
Cornelia: “Are you being held?”
Jody: “Yes!” “It’s nice.” “I don’t think I have ever felt like that before.”
This is utterly new information for Jody; not as a cognitive insight, but as a felt
sense that she will be able to remember from now on.
“I don’t feel tense like I did before.”
Jody then opens her eyes and remarks: “My right hand is not sore
now.”—“I wasn’t able to pick things up or push against it before.”
As Jody continues to play in the water, contemplating deeply all
that has emerged, she looks at her Lady on the Rock and expresses with
deep gratitude: “She was holding the box all through.”
And then, looking back at the box once more, she gently but proudly
announces to us both: “No cracks, no holes, and all the boundaries are
still there!”
A few days later Jody writes to me, citing Bob Dylan, as she sums
up her experience in this session. She says: “Perhaps for me it was like
this… I lost myself and I appeared and I suddenly found I got nothing
to fear…I am still here.”
This is exactly how children reach object constancy. The fear of
being overwhelmed by the “other,” of disappearing in it, of getting lost,
Your Story 229
can only be conquered by the experience of loss and retrieval, by “there”

and “gone” peek-a-boo games that children love to play, covering their
faces with their hands. Trust in another human being can only be gained
through separation and return; mother will leave, but she will come back,
and because she will come back I can trust her. Such early learning about
attachment is crucial. Jody behaves in this session like a one- or two-
year-old. The banging noises she makes towards the end are completely
childlike. The trust she has gained is palpable.
Second session
Several weeks later Jody has a follow-up session. She is afraid of the
session and has hardly slept the night before. “I feel like going crazy.
Creating a fuzz.” Yet, she is determined to continue with her process.
In this session she moves on to the third situation: finding a hold.
The hold is represented by the Lady on the Rock, which I have kept
for her from last time.
This time she is able to place the Lady on the Rock directly into
the clay-filled Clay Field, initially with and then without the cardboard
underneath, together with a large crystal she brought to the session
that also has a protective function for Jody. We check her anxiety level
several times. It reduces the moment the Lady is placed in the field
and the crystal next to her. She has applied two anchors, and with
this support in place she begins. Initially she is very, very tentative in
touching the clay; gradually she becomes more confident.
Jody pokes the clay in front of the Lady with her left index fingertip
and then the front of the box, also with her left index finger.
Cornelia: “Do you like the dryness? Do you need water?”
Jody dips one finger into the water and climbs with that finger over the
front edge of the box. With concentration she picks up a tiny amount
of clay and rolls it between her fingers. Her right hand still lies lifeless
in her lap.
Jody: “Soft and a bit hard.”
She places the tiny ball in the left bottom corner of the field, removes
it, rolls it in her fingers, squashes it, rerolls it and places it in front of
the Lady on the Rock.
Cornelia: “Is it safe?”
Jody: “Hm, like it belongs there.”

She begins to form another ball and goes through the same movements,
places it in the left bottom corner, squashes it, re-rolls it and then puts
it in front of the Lady. When she creates the fourth ball, she begins to
use her thumb.
Next she begins to carve slight grooves with her fingertips. Any
residue clay is placed in front of the Lady on the Rock.
Cornelia: “How does this feel now?”
Jody: “All the same, all the way through. It does not change. It’s all the
same underneath.”
Cornelia: “Nothing hidden underneath?”
Jody: “Hm, all the same.”
Jody now begins to make a larger hole, still with only her left hand.
Any excess clay is placed in front of the Lady. She digs down to the
base of the box.
Isn’t it amazing that her hands act exactly like a very young child; every
discovery will be carried back to the (symbolic) caregiver in a “Look, Mum, what
I discovered!” She pendulates as a one- or two-year-old would between venturing
out into an unknown, dangerous world, and returns to the safety of the Lady on
the Rock whenever she needs it for assurance.
Cornelia: “How is the ground?”
Jody: “It is solid! And connected!”

Jody adds water and smoothes and flattens the pulled-out clay.
Jody: “Softness about it…and a solidness.”
Cornelia: “Can it support you?”
Jody: “Yes!”
Cornelia: “Really test that!”
Jody now uses the full hand, enlarges the hole, rolls her hand in it,
squashes and molds it.
Jody: “It’s all mine. It’s all the same.”
Cornelia: “You can do whatever you want. It does what you want.”
Your Story 231
Jody: “Yeah!”
Cornelia: “Say it: I can squash it, I can squeeze it.”
I encourage her here to empower her. Somehow she expects the Clay Field to react
like all the perpetrators she has known in her life, that it will hurt her. Here I
emphasize that she can be in charge.
Jody: “I can squash it, I can squeeze it. It stays the same. It goes where
I want. I just can’t believe it stays the same. No things in there. No
hurts.”
Cornelia confirms this insight. Jody’s hand now chews the clay, punches
it, flattens it, pokes into it with her index finger.
Cornelia: “How does your other hand feel?”
Jody: “Oh, I have another hand?”
Her right hand in her lap moves the fingers, they are stiff. Her left hand
gives the right some clay. Remaining in the lap, the right hand now
forms a ball.
Cornelia: “Take your time. Give your hand time.”
This is an important step. Now both hands begin to move and tentatively to
cooperate, because up to now the hands have acted out the trauma-related
separation between her brain hemispheres. Up to now only the left hand has
been active. The left hand acts out the right brain hemisphere’s impulses. Now a
crossing over into cognitive processing has begun.
Jody closes her eyes. Both hands now squeeze balls, the right in the
lap, the left in the box.
Cornelia: “How does this feel?”
Jody: “Warm, soft.”
Cornelia: “It looks comfortable.”
Jody: “It fits. Not heavy. It’s light.”
Her right hand places the ball in the field. Her eyes are still closed. She
takes more clay and joins it with the old ball. Now her left hand begins
to explore the entire field with the flat hand.
Cornelia: “How does it feel?”
Jody: “Same! Silky.”
Now the right hand follows. It crawls like a spider into every corner of
the field. She makes bunny hops. She tries out touching the clay with
her knuckles, fingertips, flat palm, forcefully.
Cornelia: “How is the top corner?”
Jody: “Same!”
She smiles.
Jody: “All soft…surprising…lovely.”
Jody: “Not at all scary. It’s OK. It’s all mine! I can do with it what I want.
It feels nice now.”
Both hands move together now. Feeling, stroking and patting the clay;
climbing around in it on the fingertips, jumping and poking. She smiles.
Her hands can actually play now like a little girl.
Jody: “It’s good. It’s good.—Nothing happened. I expected something
to happen. It’s being the same is so important.”
She opens her eyes and repeats the last sentence several times in
amazement.
Considering that Jody is someone who suffers from severe, at times

paralyzing symptoms of PTSD, such venturing into the clay is a huge
step. From the first moment she saw the Clay Field three sessions prior
to this one, it was synonymous with abuse for her. It was the threatening
“other” that had made her childhood a living hell. She could never touch
the field until now. And when she did, nothing happened! She expected
so much that something terrible would happen. It was unbelievable for
her that it didn’t. That it was the sense of “same” all through, on top, at
the bottom. That the field, to her utter surprise, was solid and reliable.
This introduced a whole set of new sensory possibilities to her felt
sense. Her hands moved in the clay like those of a one- or two-year-
old and fulfilled her emotional and developmental needs at exactly the
point in her life when the abuse began and she dissociated from being
in her body. She discovered healthy attachment to the Lady on the
Rock, showing her all her discoveries, presenting her with the balls she
had created, just like a one-year-old would. And she can begin to hop
and jump and play in the Clay Field like a little girl.
You may also observe how simple, yet how crucial the dialog is.
How with every learning step integration of the felt sense is encouraged.
Your Story 233
Because not only does the Clay Field become safe and reliable and
“same” in the process, but so do her body and her ability to relate to
another. She has begun a process of rewriting her biography as a felt
sense. A first step towards healing her trauma has been taken.
2. “Balance”
Rose’s story
I had worked with Rose infrequently for a number of years. Whenever
she got stuck or experienced difficulties she was concerned about, she
came for another session. This time she had marital problems. She felt
disempowered in her marriage and therefore resentful towards her
husband. She wanted to investigate how she could change. Rose is in
her mid-thirties.
Rose has spent many therapy sessions dealing with the after-effects
of her upbringing, not only with art therapy, even though art therapy
proved to be the most successful modality for her, because it was
nonverbal and helped her to access early childhood and sexual trauma
more readily than other forms of therapy.
What revealed itself in this session had to do with her parents’
relationship and how it affected Rose. None of this was discussed
at the beginning of the session; I was, however, familiar with her
biography.
Up to the age of ten Rose slept wall to wall next to her parent’s
bedroom; the wall was thin. On a nightly basis she witnessed her father
“raping” her mother. Her mother never seemed to solicit or enjoy sex,
and these violent encounters were frequently enforced through her
father’s beatings. She would describe her mother as a “doormat,” but
as the only daughter she also felt a deep and fateful alliance with her.
She feared her father. The exposure to such dysfunctional parenting
throughout her childhood had left Rose confused about partnerships
with men and her sexuality. She could not rely on instinct, often did
not know what was “right” and what was actually antisocial behavior;
thus she consulted me quite frequently about relationship problems.
What unfolds in this session can also be viewed as the drama of a
trauma-affected brain, acted out through the hands. As Wilson (1998)
points out, the left hand is connected to the right brain hemisphere;
and in Rose’s case, as we shall see, the left hand stores early childhood
attachment trauma; the right hand is connected to the left brain.
Gradually her hands negotiate contact and connection until they can
move together, which they could not at the beginning of the session
(7.1).
Another perspective on this session could be to consider Rose’s
hands as role-playing her parent’s marriage; how she internalized their
dysfunctional partnership, how it is written into her body; and how her
hands during this session learn and enact how to be in a cooperative
and loving relationship: the right hand acting out the male, father
aspect, the left representing her inner mother.
In the very first movements of

Rose’s hands the whole parental
relationship dilemma is revealed.
Her left hand, as her “female,”
intuitive side, almost instantly goes
into a spasm and cannot touch the
clay. Her right hand, as the “male,”
cognitive and logical side, linked
to the left brain hemisphere, can—
7.1a
tentatively—rest on the material.
7.1b 7.1c
The imbalance between her father and mother that she experienced
throughout her childhood goes right through her body. She cannot
coordinate both hands. For a long time her left hand either tries to
get out of the field, or rolls on its back in order to avoid touching
the material. Her left hand looks as if it is squirming in agony; the
fingers are rigid—yet she cannot leave the field! The camera took a
picture every ten seconds. I have got 100 photographs of her left hand
immobilized in the trauma response. Her right hand did not move once
Your Story 235
during this entire time; though her right hand appeared relaxed, it was
also totally unresponsive to the needs of her left hand.
The parental drama was right there, happening in the Clay Field.
When I realize that Rose is paralyzed

and cannot break out of immobility
herself, I finally intervene. I simply
point out to her that she does have
the water. Almost immediately she
puts her left hand into the water
with visible relief. It interrupts the
dissociated state of her left hand
and enables her to pendulate. From
7.2a then on she self-negotiates all
further movements of her hands.
7.3b 7.3c
After quite a while the right hand follows the left hand into the water.
The right hand then instigates it to move the bowl of water onto the
field. Both hands spend a long time bathing. The right hand begins to
pour water over the left in a nurturing gesture.
7.3d 7.3e
Next the right hand begins to check out the field.

After she has placed the water bowl back on the table, the
movements of the right hand become increasingly urgent. The corners
of the box are checked frantically over and over again. All the while the
left hand rests strangely twisted in the water bowl.
Rose’s right hand is especially concerned about the boundary
around the field. She traces it literally hundreds of times in a desperate
effort to make the field “safe.” This phase lasts over 500 photographs,
approximately the equivalent of 20 minutes! Occasionally her right
hand attempts to dig into the field, but it is instantly distracted by
concerns of safety and goes back to checking the corners, the boundary
on the inside and outside of the box. Her actions are concerning and
frantic; she is now moving, taking charge, but with the erratic behavior
of someone who is very, very afraid. Her left side is more “deposited” in
the water bowl than resting. It is certainly not receiving any attention.
7.4a 7.4b
7.5a 7.5b
7.5c 7.5d
Your Story 237
Gradually the right hand etches a mandala pattern into the field.
I ask Rose if the water is still warm enough, in order to attract her
attention to the left side. When she disagrees I intervene and pour fresh
warm water into the bowl. Instantly the right hand needs to secure
the boundary again (7.5c). It is visible now how twisted her left hand
is in the water bowl (7.5b). However, shortly after this her right hand
discovers that she can draw “magic” patterns on the outside of the box
(7.5d). This finally does it. The Clay Field is safe!
I find it significant that only now, for the first time, Rose’s upper body bends
forward and she becomes physically more engaged. Deuser states that the child
archetype manifests in the Clay Field as balance, as coordination between the
right and left hand, and it constitutes the uprightness in the spine; the spine as
the axis that links the left and right side, which represent the mother and father
archetypes. The child is outstretched between the polarities of the parents and has
to negotiate its existence, its uprightness, between these two forces. The greater the
incongruence between the parents, the harder it is for a child to be in balance, and
to be upright. Self-esteem and self-value manifest physiologically in the erectness
of the spine. We all know the slumped-over posture that goes along with negative
self-belief. Rose can hold herself up, but she is rigid in this and little engaged in
the process, because her sense of balance is so seriously affected by her upbringing.
She can either be on her left side or she can be with her right side, but she cannot
bring the two together, until now!
I hope you can appreciate what significant change happens at this
point. Rose’s hands come together and they explore each other, as if
this is the first time they have ever done something together.
The right hand acts protectively. It guides the left hand, creams it
with clay, nurtures it, “shows” it the field. They move together (7.6).
Together they retrace the boundaries, over and over again, as if the
right hand needed to reassure the left with regard to their mutual safety
(7.7a–c). Now the safe place is established as a felt sense.
7.6a 7.6b
7.6c 7.6d
7.7a 7.7b
7.7c 7.7d
7.7e 7.7f
Your Story 239
What follows is more creaming and more securing; though awkward

and unfamiliar in their movements, both hands are now together
(7.7d–f ). The right hand clearly acts as the protector of the left hand.
After both have deeply understood that the field is safe, the right hand
begins to open the ground for the left hand (7.7f ).
Next the left hand begins to sink into the ground (7.8). It rocks
rhythmically and soon Rose’s entire body follows. She rocks gently,
and with gentle rocking movements the left hand digs itself further
and further into the clay until her entire underarm up to the elbow
is covered (7.8a–b). This happens exactly at the central point of the
mandala that the right hand had created before. Next the right hand
assists the left by further opening the ground and then covering the left
hand with clay (7.8c–d).
7.8a 7.8b
7.8c 7.8d
Rocking is self-soothing and belongs to our earliest body memories of

being comforted. While Rose rocks, both hands can now penetrate the
clay for the first time. It has taken 40 minutes into the session before
she could dare to do this. Arriving into the clay, to be coated with it
and held in it, will simultaneously connect her with her physical body,
quite literally invite her to incarnate, whereas up to now her trauma

response has been to be widely dissociated from it. Deuser interprets
the coating of a limb in this manner as a gesture to strengthen, nurture
and heal.
After her right hand has piled more and more clay on top of the
encased left (7.9a–b) it makes an attempt to open up the enclosure
around the left hand (7.9c–d). Rose’s body now follows the movements
in the field—she leans into them—but despite intense digging and
attempts to free the left hand, it does not want to come out (7.9e–f )!
7.9a 7.9b
7.9c 7.9d
7.9e 7.9f
Your Story 241
So the right hand encloses the left hand once more, this time applying
lots of pressure for assurance. Rose really leans into it, using her entire
body weight for several minutes. Next she goes even further and coats
the left hand even more, so that it is completely encased, including the
fingertips (7.10a and b). And only after this assurance of a safe hold is
her left hand ready. The right hand uncovers the fingers, touches and
massages the left fingers and inside of the hand. Then the entire left
hand and underarm is “birthed” and welcomed into the world (7.10c
and d).
7.10a 7.10b
7.10c 7.10d
I dare to suggest that her left hand, which is the one connected to
the right brain hemisphere, where early attachment trauma is stored,
undergoes a full developmental cycle of pregnancy and birth to quite
literally “recover” from the abuse she witnessed during her childhood.
Her mother most likely also suffered the husband’s violent treatment
throughout her pregnancy with Rose. I suspect this, because also
towards the end Rose emulates developmentally very early self-soothing
through rhythmical rocking.
This is such a good example of pendulation between safety and
risk. Rose entirely self-regulates throughout this process, totally relying
on her felt sense, whatever feels right, safe and good, and what does
not. Only this sensory experience guides her actions.
If you closely watch the wrist of the left hand now (7.11a), it
is assisted to do exactly the opposite movement from when it was
submerged in a strange twist in the water bowl at the beginning (7.5b).
Now the wrist is stretched backwards (before it was curled inwards); it
is held and connected, whereas before the hand was unsupported and
isolated. Whatever the exact body memory is behind this gesture, it is
certainly significant that it is now being reversed. Both hands come
together and rest in each other; again, Rose rocks gently.
7.11a 7.11b
Rose now leans with her elbows into the clay and pushes the material
around with her arms. What follows is a vital release of energy (7.12a–d).
She pummels the material with her fists, digs, grabs it in big handfuls,
presses it, back and forth, finally taking charge of the Clay Field with
intensity. She hits and strangles the clay; she throttles it. Her motor
impulses suggest anger, even rage, likely in response to the violence she
once witnessed. These movements are profoundly empowering. She is
no longer a victim—or identified with her mother’s victimization. She
is strong! She is taking charge.
7.12a 7.12b
Your Story 243
7.12c 7.12d
Now she adds water. All of a sudden her hands are really comfortable
in the material. They are being held in it. They are safe in it. They
dig themselves into it as if to find the most comfortable spot in the
material. They have found a hold (7.13a and b). And then, when
peaceful saturation sets in, she rocks and rocks and rocks, her hands
resting within each other, joined in harmony, her entire body following
in the movement. She gently rocks for several minutes (7.13c and d).
7.13a 7.13b
7.13c 7.13d
In reflecting on Rose’s session I would like to look at her first and final
movements. Her primary motor impulse has found its sensory healing
response in the optimal gestalt.
Her initial movement was one of painful dissociation between

both hands. They could not coordinate movement, could not even be
together in the same space (7.14a).
Next, the left hand expressed the dissociated immobility response
to the traumatic events in her childhood, while her right hand acted
out the fight–flight response, also linked to her trauma.
The primary gestalt is achieved when the field is finally deemed
safe, at the point when her right hand draws the mandala etchings into
the field and the “magic” markings on the outside border. At this point
her sense of panic stops in the right hand and the paralysis in the left
softens; she begins to calm down. This arrival at the primary gestalt
is always charged with a certain amount of satisfaction from the ego,
but it does not represent a lasting solution. This can only be achieved
through allowing time for the actual sensory response to fully teach
the felt sense a new way of being! This happens in the second half of
the session, when her left hand is put through a whole range of new
learning experiences, guided by the now caring right. After her left
has been encased for healing and strengthening, both hands learn to
move together and to cooperate. She restores her traumatized sense of
balance (7.14b).
Rose’s process is a moving illustration of the fourth situation—
object constancy; how to find a hold and how to acquire trust in
the tension between destruction and creation. What was initially
emotionally unsafe is now transformed into something reliable; she
fulfills the developmental need to love and trust the other-than-me.
It is the manifestation and integration of the healing vortex as a

response to her traumatic upbringing, when she was helplessly and
acutely unsafe in her home environment.
My only two significant interventions were to suggest the water
bowl to Rose’s left hand as an option for pendulation, and to reinforce
this pendulation for a second time by adding warmer water to the bowl.
All other actions on Rose’s part were self-negotiated and self-regulated.
I would only accompany her with occasional check-in questions to
support the perception of her felt sense, such as: “How does it feel?”
“Yes, breathe deeply; take your time,” etc.
Your Story 245
7.14a 7.14b
It must again be understood that the session was primarily nonverbal,
and that Rose had her eyes closed the entire time. Only at the end, after
Rose had opened her eyes, did we mention her biography, and then
only briefly. She did communicate to me though, weeks later, that the
session had changed her profoundly. She wrote: “I am still feeling on
the inside in an integrated way that I don’t think I have felt or been
able to sustain before. I don’t think I realized that I was carrying such
trauma, and only now that I am not at the mercy of trauma, trying to
resolve, do I actually feel at rest inside. And free to think coherently.
Not this ‘I have it, have it, this is for you, this is for you,’ rather quiet
rest. I feel safe at rest! Wow, that is really profound for me.”
3. “It’s all mine”

Lisa’s story
Lisa is in her early forties. She is single and has no children. She grew
up in a Catholic orphanage, where her life was rigidly controlled. Her
mother died when she was born. Her father could not cope with four
older children, newborn twins and the financial pressure to provide,
so Lisa and her twin brother were placed in an orphanage under harsh
conditions, while her older siblings stayed with her father. Most of her
childhood memories involve her brother’s needs and the understanding
on the part of surrounding adults that it was her responsibility to take
care of him. Because he was difficult, she could never really be a child
herself. Unsurprisingly, the after-effects of this challenging upbringing
still affect her today.
I have known Lisa for two years, during which time I have worked
with her infrequently with a number of modalities. This is her third
Clay Field session. She works throughout with her eyes closed. Lisa
barely takes the time to touch the clay, not even for a second. She
rushes right into it and spends the first part of the session clearing out
all the clay with great urgency in order “to get space for myself.” She
barely connects with the clay, but just rushes to get it out as quickly as
possible (7.15).
7.15a 7.15b
7.15c 7.15d
The clay in her perception just “takes up all the space.” It is synonymous
with her twin brother who always clung to her and “never left her
alone;” “I had to share everything.”
She cannot see any potential in the material. “It is just everywhere”
and she cannot breathe; she has got no space of her own. The thought
of creating anything with the material does not even occur to her. She
just wants to get it out. She rips lumps of clay out of the field and
dumps them on the table in front of her.
She breathes hard and works with great urgency. All that is
important is to get the material out, out, out.
Lisa makes sure to get the “stuff and clutter” out of the corners
(7.16). She pays particular attention to clearing the sides of the box.
The need to ensure her boundary is tangible.
Your Story 247
As a “soul space” the Clay Field can only contain what is “mine.”
Attachments to others—beloved or hated—need to be addressed. In
this case it is her brother who takes up her space and he needs to leave.
This does not mean a severance of the relationship, because she loved
him dearly, but a healthy distancing, a distinction between me and the
other.
She piles the clay up in one big bunch and pushes it far enough
away on the table, so it cannot touch the box, her space. Then she
washes her hands (7.16d). Something is “done.” All this happens fast
and with great urgency.
7.16a 7.16b
7.16c 7.16d
That much affect, such motoric urgency in the hands, is a clear indicator that she
is reacting to events in the past, without the need to define what these past events
entailed. With the cleaning out of the box and her ability to finally relax she has
reached the stage of the primary gestalt. There is relief and a sense of solution,
but real change has not taken place.
Next, Lisa turns to the bowl with warm water. She places her hands
in the bowl and virtually collapses into it. After a while she begins,
with some encouragement, to breathe deeply and then to cry bitterly
in heaving sobs.
The warm water allows Lisa to

reconnect with a state of being
where she does not have to do
anything, where she can simply be,
and be OK as she is. She is sighing
deeply as she rests and states several
times: “I don’t have to do anything!”
Different to the previous phase
where she rushed to get all the clay
7.17a
out of the box, now she takes her
time. She takes a long time. She rests, now at peace. The water is warm.
This resting period being over, Lisa now discovers things she likes
to do as opposed to all those tiring activities she has to do. She actually
becomes very animated and takes a spatula to create waves in the water.
She stirs and splashes with increasing vigor. She says that it is
something she was “never allowed to do.”
You may notice the turns she takes with her hands; one holds the
bowl, the other stirs, and in-between both hands stir together.
7.18a 7.18b
The use of a tool suggests that Lisa, though adult, is reconnecting with a
developmental need, a lack in her childhood, where using a tool is synonymous
with competence.
The spatula (not even offered as a session-related object—she has
picked it up for stirring) is actually a way to distance herself healthily
from the regressive quality of the water. It bridges the phase from
maternal engulfing to paternal structure. Similar to the marbles that can
be introduced into too liquid clay, the spatula gives her a sense of form
and control—a sense that will eventually lead to the ability to fill her
space, rather than just be overwhelmed by it, once the loss of her mother
and her symbolic retrieval in the form of water has been integrated.
Your Story 249
Here is a child! She does not have

to be responsible, she does not have
to do anything; she can play. She
can have innocent fun. She can
splash.
To the extent that she gains
movement and competence the
spatula becomes obsolete. She now
experiments with the noises her
7.19a
hands can make with the water.
She shows off her skills with

delight. “Look, this is what I can
do!”
This is not an adult woman
speaking. She has regressed to be
a little girl.
7.19b
Next she creams her hands and
underarms with water. It is a gentle
caressing movement, which she
deeply enjoys.
Such nurturing-creaming motion

relates to earliest infant needs in the
contact with the mother. Through such
touch babies understand with their entire
body that they are loved and cared for.
Lisa is here completing another, even 7.20a
earlier developmental need.
In the process of dripping water

her hands now actually experiment
with the separation of the symbolic
water-mother. She can be in and
out of contact with “her.” She can
distance herself from the water
without losing it. For someone who
has lost her mother at birth this is
a profound nonverbal resolution of
7.20b
her conflict.
In this phase she scoops up water

in her hands. She can “own” the
water. It is “mine.” She can contain
it rather than being submerged and
contained in it.
The water-play lasts for over
20 minutes.
7.20c
If this sounds too intangible, it might be important to remember
that the hands act as proxies in the Clay Field; that in the strange
metaphorical environment of a Clay Field therapy session whatever
happens to the hands, and whatever they assert themselves to do, is
provoking changes in the client’s entire body, her entire being. It is also
important to understand that each of these phases took a significant
amount of time. They were not just fleeting gestures.
However, the moment Lisa goes

back into the now empty Clay
Field, her hands collapse. All her
life she has dreamt of being alone,
and now that it has happened, she
goes numb and does not know
what to do.
The space in the field is over-
whelmingly empty. Her hands look
7.21a exposed and abandoned. These
feelings will most likely relate to
Your Story 251
her traumatic past, her separation from her mother at birth, and never
having had a space of her own.
The sensation, however, is also

utterly new and unknown. She has
never been here before. She has no
concept and experience of how to
deal with this unfamiliar state of
being.
In my intervention, rather than
relate to the obvious terror that
now develops in the freezing of
her hands, I emphasize that she is 7.21b
in an unknown space and that she
should give herself all the time she needs to explore what her hands
want to do. I explain to her that she has from now on no previous life
experience, so she does not know in her head what to do; she can only
rely on her hands. I also encourage her to breathe and assure her that
she is not alone.
Here her sensory explorations begin.
Her overwhelming need seems

to be to have a space of her own,
rather than to be nurtured and to
connect more with the mother she
never had. At least this is how she

continues.
Very tentatively she begins to
draw shapes with her index fingers.
She shyly explores the space she
has gained. Even as an observer I 7.21c
can sense how huge this space must
feel for her hands. She acts like a little girl taking her first baby steps
in a very big world.
In the following sequence Lisa follows a number of important
impulses that give her increasing confidence, safety and a hold, until
she can claim the entire field.
7.22a 7.22b
The boundary of the box gives
safety. I encourage her to explore it,
which leads to the urge to clean the
box in order to claim it as her space.
She uses water and paper towels.
7.22c
Now she places her hands in it
and tests the ground. She leans on
it. Can it hold her? Can it support
her? She embraces the box, she
tests the boundaries.
7.22d
7.22e 7.22f
Your Story 253
She leans into it. She rests in it. It

is solid.
It can hold her, contain her.
7.22g
She “sleeps” in it with deep sighs
of relief.
7.22h
Then she lifts up the box, hugs it,
puts it on her head, hugs it again,
presses it to her body, makes noises
with the edges on the table (i–k).
She can hardly believe it. “It is
mine, it is mine,” she repeats over

and over again.
7.22i
7.22j 7.22k
In this case the box takes on the function of the beloved object with
which object constancy is sought and achieved. Lisa’s story illustrates
the Situation 4: acquiring emotional constancy through creative
destruction. She can reject the clay, she can reject the box, she can stir
the water and be “naughty,” yet the box survives it all; the relationship
continues, despite her rage, her despair, she retrieves something constant
and tangible and reliable.
It might be insightful to look at how Lisa began and how she
finished. The reafference principle (Holst 1973) suggests that every
motor impulse at the beginning of a session in the Clay Field needs to
find its sensory “echo.” Deuser defines the optimal gestalt as the sensory
response to the initial motor impulse.
7.23a 7.23b
Lisa virtually “fell” into the Clay Field at the beginning. She began
very much as a child would, without considering the boundary or the
position of the field at all. This is one of the indicators for the therapist
that childhood material will come up. Adults will most likely position
themselves in relation to the field, make contact with their hands with
the sides of the box, or the table, or even move the field into position.
Children will accept it as a given space and plunge into it; they are not
in charge of their own boundaries.
Lisa’s first move, then, was to frantically get rid of all the clay, which
was clearly connected to biographical distress in her life, without this
being verbalized. However, when the box was empty, this most wanted
event actually posed a threat to her. Even though she had always
desired to have a space of her own, she had no concept of what to do
with it. She is confronted with her loneliness and the abandonment
she experienced in her biography. This is the primary gestalt. And this
primary gestalt is charged with trauma. Apparently she learnt to keep
Your Story 255
herself busy in the past. She could always do things, but when she
rested and felt herself, terror set in.
Now, with my suggestion to focus on the water, she begins to
pendulate. She collapses into the water bowl and completes a whole
round of infantile urges. When her hands return to the empty field, the
shock is still tangible. Now, however, she has acquired new resources
to bring to the situation. She cleans the field, which means that she
actually brings the restorative qualities of the water into the field; she
explores it with her fingertips; she tests how reliable it is; she rests in
it. All these are sensory experiences that give her felt sense very new
informations.
At the end, as the optimal gestalt, the empty box is actually full
(17.23b). It is filled with her sensory awareness, her Self. It is visible
how much in charge she is now. She is in control of this entire space.
Even her elbows poke out in an assertive manner. This relationship is
solid, it is trustworthy and she has got space in it. The Clay Field as
object constancy is reliably there for her needs.
4. “I am precious”
Jen’s story
Jen is in her fifties. I have seen her infrequently for sessions for a number
of years. This is her third Clay Field session.
The aspect of her biography that comes into play in this session will
only be mentioned briefly at the end during the cognitive integration

phase. Jen was sexually abused by an employee of her parents at the
age of four. The family ran a time-consuming business from home;
both parents were working long hours and there was little time for
children. When the abuse was found out, the employee was sacked,
but Jen did not know that until much later (as an adult). The abuse was
never named, other than “he was not a good man.” Her father thought
she would forget him. In later years her older brother was the one who
continued the pattern of sexual abuse. Throughout her childhood it
was left up to Jen to keep herself safe. There was no one to protect her.
Her solution was to become as invisible as possible; it also left her with
a lifelong sense of being worthless.
7.24a 7.24b
7.24c 7.24d
The initial contact with the clay shows enormous tension in Jen’s hands,
her fingers are seriously overstretched. Next she sinks her fingers into
the clay and tries to take it, but immediately withdraws them. She
neither dares to take, nor to touch. And then very quickly she dives
underground into hiding! This is what she knows.
7.25a 7.25b
She stays inside the hole for quite a while, but nothing happens in
there (7.25a). From the inside she undermines the clay, pushing
quite intensely, until she can connect with all the corners of the box
underground, gradually peeling the clay away from the bottom of the
Your Story 257
box, without lifting it up (7.25b). Next she takes a cup and begins to
pour water into her underground cavity; one cup, and then another one
(7.25c). The water makes all the difference. The warm water stimulates
her actual needs! She begins to lift up the clay, all of it, and ejects it
from the box in one huge effort (7.25d–h).
7.25c 7.25d
7.25e 7.25f
7.25g 7.25h
Next, Jen makes sure that the ejected clay does not touch the box
(7.26a). Then she begins to clean the sides (7.26b) and rests her hands
inside the field, discovering her new-found ground (7.26c). She touches
herself, owns her space and assures herself of her boundaries. All of this
happens quite quickly, almost abruptly. And now she does not quite
know how to proceed (7.26d).
7.26a 7.26b
7.26c 7.26d
Up to now Jen has reacted with a range of motor impulses that mirror
patterns of survival in her biography. The hiding in invisibility was
her strategy to survive; living underground was her way to keep safe.
The water poured into the cavity, though, seems to instigate change; it
seems to give her a taste of other, more expansive possibilities.
The clay needs to be ejected whenever something has been
internalized that cannot be accepted as mine. The clay then seems to be
contaminated and charged with an intense quality of alienation. Sexual
abuse at the age of four and later at eight is certainly an invasion of
personal boundaries that will charge any touch with intense aversion.
The empty field is her primary gestalt. The ego is satisfied that she
has finally been able to defend herself and has rid herself of unwanted
touching.
This is not what Jen said or what we discussed, and I doubt it
would have been consciously on her mind. Her hands are driven by
motor impulses; she follows deep inner urges to restore her healing
vortex. This is driven by her libido, not by conscious deliberations. Also
Your Story 259
the impulse to finally uncover what has been hidden until now—such
a liberating and necessary act—was solely initiated by an inner urge
and not by thoughts. Her father and her mother both knew what had
happened, but kept the lid on and covered the abuse up. Now it is out
in the open.
Jen resorts to the safety of the water bowl (7.27b), which is more
accessible and softer than the Clay Field, which does not yet hold her.
It is too big and too unfamiliar. Her hands cover each other almost
shamefully, as if exposed. She places the water bowl in the empty field
and leans into it (7.27c); I encourage her to take her time and to breathe
deeply. She begins to sob. A wave of grief shakes her. After a while she
begins to wash her face (7.27d). She ends up with a coat of clay and
water on her face.
7.27a 7.27b
7.27c 7.27d
This is significant! As a four-year-old she lost her face, and no one was
there then, to comfort her in her terror and grief. Now she is held and
she restores her identity.
Her hands complete another response to the trauma. Not only did
she need to reject the abuse and clear it out of her inner, personal space,
she also needs to be able to “face” the world again. Only with this
reassurance in place can she proceed, and take what is hers and claim it.
7.27e 7.27f
Jen takes more material. Once the material is outside of the field it
becomes neutral, unless it is clearly defined. Thus the clay she takes
now has got nothing to do with the past situation. This is new. And
now she is actually capable of taking a handful of clay. This was not
possible when she started.
She shapes a small ball, then penetrates it with both thumbs
(7.28a), opens it up and places two small “pearls” inside it (7.28b).
She does this very gently and carefully. For a woman who has been
sexually violated as a four-year-old, this is not an accidental movement!
She presses the precious little container to her heart (7.28c) and cries
bitterly. She rocks and cries while holding the precious container
with the two eggs in it (7.28d). She bends over and sobs (7.28e), and
then rocks more. Next she begins to rock with her outstretched arms,
holding the small container safely in her hands (7.28f ), rocking her
hands from one side of the field to the other. Eventually she places
the little container in the centre of the field (7.28g).
7.28a 7.28b
Your Story 261
7.28c 7.28d
7.28e 7.28f
7.28g 7.28h
What becomes clear with absolute certainty now is that in order to

keep this precious little container safe, all the clay has to go away as
far as possible.
With great conviction and energy Jen pushes all the clay off the
table onto the floor (7.29a). She wraps the container into her apron
(7.29b) and rechecks the field (7.29c). Only then does she very gently
release the little container as if it was a bird (7.29d–f ).
7.29a 7.29b
7.29c 7.29d
7.29e 7.29f
The new environment is, however, not safe enough. So Jen crawls
underneath the table (7.30a) in order to retrieve more material from
the previously rejected pile on the floor. With the additional clay she
forms a protective layer around her treasure (7.30b). Then she centers
the piece. It is now safe, centered, honored; she is standing her own
ground, clearly visible and valued: precious (7.30c).
With open eyes she repeats several times: “I am precious. I am
precious. And it is safe to be seen.”
Your Story 263
7.30a 7.30b
Jen’s process is about the acquisition

of subject constancy (Situation 5),
the acquisition of one’s own ground
(Situation 6) and centering. She
quickly finds a hold, by tunneling
underneath the clay, a move clearly
reflecting her biography. Jen’s very
first impulse is to simply take clay
from the field, but then she shies
7.30c
away and goes into hiding. She
does not have the confidence to
take something she wants. But this changes! Gradually she tunnels
underneath, until she can completely separate from the other that is
“not me,” by evicting the entire mass of clay from the field.
Object constancy is gained through sequences of destruction and
gain, of loss and retrieval, of dissolution and preservation. Whatever

survives it all, can be. Jen, however, does not look for making the other
reliable. She needs to claim her own ground and her own “immortal”
Self. Thus the entire mass of the clay has to be disposed of. Apparently
none of it is associated with being “mine.” The clay is rather charged
with the abuse and a sense of contamination, which she clearly treats
without any ambivalence.
In Situation 5 (subject constancy) a treasure has been retrieved
from the ordeal of destruction, something that has emotional constancy
and cannot be destroyed, and therefore it is “eternal” and precious
and profoundly “me.” The symbolic dragon as the mass of clay has
been slain in order to release the treasure, the princess it guarded: the
precious little container. Subject constancy relates to myths of ego-
formation, of transformational change.
Subject constancy is very much the theme of the second half of life,
where it is no longer so important to make the other reliable, but to
discover the own Self as a reliable, trustworthy, inner source. The grief
and relief Jen experiences over the retrieval of the small nest-container
is deeply moving.
This precious Self, however, also needs a place, an inner ground.
Jen’s inner ground had been violated and abused. She spends much
of the session testing and exploring the empty box. Will it really be
pure and safe? Is it really me? Is it worthy of the precious nest that she
eventually releases into the field?
Gradually her hands bring the bottom of the box to life and it
can become the foundation for an inner space that is simultaneously
experienced within her body, especially in the pelvis.
In it she can center her precious nest as if in a ritual space.
7.31a 7.31b
If you look at the reafference principle again, the final, optimal gestalt
(7.31b) is the perfect echo of the opening in the ground into which Jen
disappeared at the beginning (7.31a). Her kinesthetic, affective motor
impulse is based on having no worth and needing to lead an invisible
underground existence in order to survive; her sensory response is to
be whole and precious. The healing vortex has manifested and been
integrated: she simply “is,” valued and present in her own space.
These are enormous steps. The felt sense of worthiness and safe
visibility had a lasting effect and was the beginning of significant
changes in Jen’s life.
Part IV
Working at the
Clay Field with
Children
Chapter 8
The Differences between

Accompanying Children
and Adults
There are some significant differences in approach when working with

children to working with adults at the Clay Field, or when working
with clients with a weak and those with a strong ego. “Normally
neurotic” adults tend to be over-structured, too much in their head,
often dissociated from their feelings. They need immersion in their
emotions and sensorimotor experiences. Children need to strengthen
their conscious abilities; they need to make sense of their emotional
and sensory overload. In the language of neurology, children need to
stimulate their left brain hemispheres, their cognitive, ordering skills,
whereas overly controlled adults need to reconnect with their right
brain hemispheres to connect with feelings, dreams, the felt sense and
often their spirituality.
In this context it might be perfectly OK to accompany an adult
in silence, with a predominantly nonverbal approach that gives ample
space for sensory discoveries. When working with children, however,

it is important also to generate the story that tells their adventures in
the field. Their genesis, their cosmology, has to be extracted from their
biology.
Many years ago I found it helpful to link these different approaches
to initiation rites as they are practiced in indigenous tribes (Eliade
2005; Elbrecht 2006 p. 56). Boys’ rites always involve, irrespective of
cultural differences and varying levels of sophistication, the separation
of the boys from the mothers, and the generation of creation myths that
do not involve the biological function of the maternal. Thus young men
at this stage become creative storytellers, actors, dancers and musicians
as they develop a cosmology that provides them with meaning and
spiritual guidance, independent of their mothers, their biological origin
and needs. In the process they learn to control their bodies, to withstand
266
The Differences between Accompanying Children and Adults 267
hunger and pain, to become skilled at hunting, building and exploring

new worlds. They learn to manipulate matter and events, conquering
nature. All our cultural striving has its origin here.
Independent of our gender, girls and boys alike undergo these rites
of passage as modern individuals. As children we need to separate from
the overwhelming dependence on the maternal, be this our family of
origin, peer groups, workplace, or our emotions; all those forces that
swamp our ego, our sense of competence, uniqueness and independence.
Children at the Clay Field, for example, like to distance themselves at
times from direct touch by using tools. They explore constructions of
high towers or bridges. They map out football fields and emulate rules.
They create house sites and explore social rites. They have adventures
in dangerous landscapes, encounter threatening beasts and begin to tell
the stories of their heroic achievements.
Similar to boys’ initiation rites, the generation of stories, the
development of skills and the overcoming of danger and threat
builds ego as the necessary conscious agent that makes us capable of
functioning in the world and becoming conscious of who we are. We
learn to reflect our potential and realize it.
At the Clay Field such clients have their eyes open, and an active
dialog with the therapist describing the events in the Clay Field will
be necessary—not at all times, but for children it is important to make
sense of what their senses created, that submersion at the Clay Field
becomes anchored in cognitive comprehension. The shift from a right
brain sensorimotor activity to left brain cognition has to be encouraged.
This—more consciousness-driven—approach, however, might even

be irritating or distracting for adult individuals who are well adjusted in
their social functioning and who are cognitively aware of their identity.
If, in this context, we look at female initiation rites, some interesting
parallels can be drawn. Girls are in all cultures initiated individually,
first at the onset of menstruation, later at childbirth. Theirs is a merging
with the Great Mother, an acceptance of their biology. They now learn
to become aware of their innermost nature as the creators of life. Female
initiation rites involve surrender to a greater force than I. They teach
how to connect with nature. Girls learn that they incorporate the vast
life-generating force of nature.
In a similar way one might say that in the lives of adult men and
women there comes a time when the inner need arises to reconnect
with our senses, our body-rhythms, our libido and emotions, our nature
per se, to find wholeness. Here the therapy needs to encourage a shift
from too much left brain activity towards the more sensory, nonverbal,
kinesthetic right brain hemisphere.
Now the Clay Field process is predominantly nonverbal; direct
contact with the clay becomes important, sensory immersion supports
reconnection with early childhood memories and an ancient inner
knowing. We set out to find the one I have always been; not the one
I became through learned behavior, not the one I acquired through
skills, but the one I am, eternally and wholly.
Here it is important to have the eyes closed, that the therapist
promotes nonverbal immersion in kinesthetic motor impulses that help
to forget the sophisticated aspects of the personality. Now knowing
emerges from direct sensory touch and connectedness. Talking and
cognitive interventions become irritating and disruptive. The therapist
becomes the holder of a sacred space, the guardian of the ritual vessel
in which transformation needs to take place.
Let us also remember that trauma predominantly affects the right
brain hemisphere and impairs the function of the left half, especially in
children and adults who have suffered early attachment trauma. In such
cases, before a crossing over to the left hemisphere is encouraged, trauma
healing through sensorimotor immersion is necessary. Only when
developmental needs have been satisfied, when pendulation between
the trauma vortex and the counter vortex has reset the equilibrium,
only then does cognitive integration become important.
Stages in children’s work

sessions at the Clay Field
These session-stages are the child’s equivalent of the nine situations

at the Clay Field that I have previously mapped out for adults. Pre-
adolescent children will not venture beyond the first four situations.
Their goal is to find an adequate relationship to the world around
them; adequate so they can fulfill their age-specific skill level and their
inner potential. They will need to develop secure attachments, object
constancy and a creative way of coping with the adversity of life. Only
with the onset of adolescence, once the dependence on caregivers
diminishes and the young person becomes increasingly independent,
will the conflict of inner world versus outer world come into play.
Children are not in charge of their own lives. They are dependent
on a multitude of factors beyond their control. This alone creates a
difference from working with adults, even though similar stages play a
role with mature clients. The way a child behaves during these stages
allows the therapist significant diagnostic insights.
Other factors that differ from working with adults at the Clay Field
are:
• Children will always work with their eyes open.
• A photograph is taken of their creation at the end of a session.
• Some fields may need to be kept intact until the next session
(wrapped in moist towels and covered in plastic) in order to
allow continuity.
• Created “beings,” which are charged with important emotions,
may have to be safeguarded by the therapist in-between

sessions; they need to survive and be given permanence.
There are also a number of clinical rules and ethical concerns with
regard to the ownership of children’s art work. Children’s creations in
an art therapy environment, even though they may look most touching
and appealing, are confidential. They are not suitable for public display;
they may even endanger the child’s wellbeing, if taken home, due to
the content they disclose. What if the art blatantly reveals that abuse by
a parent has taken place, but protective services have not yet intervened
on behalf of the child (Malchiodi 1998)? Thus the therapist may have a
folder or a special box, in which the child’s art work is kept. Paintings
and photographs can be displayed in the art therapy room, as for many
children it is important that their creation is valued in this way.
There are four key situations in a session that a therapist should be

aware of when working with a child or an adolescent. They relate to
the nine situations described earlier.
1. Child enters the room and makes contact.
2. Child sits down at the Clay Field and finds orientation.
3. Child makes contact with the Clay Field and finds a hold.
4. Child creates at the Clay Field to find object constancy.
In the following I will briefly describe significant aspects of these key
situations.
1. Child enters the room and makes contact

The therapist has to be mindful that the child encounters a new
relationship and a new relational space. Children can only act within
their possibilities to express themselves in such a situation.
The setting requires that the child should relate to something
entirely unfamiliar: the therapist, the therapist’s room, the Clay Field.
This need is in conflict with the urge to stay safely within. So what
can give the child an emotional hold, an assurance, a certainly, enough
security to dare to open up?
It is highly likely that there is also tension between the voluntary
and involuntary presence of the child. Who brings the child? How was
the contact made? How is the therapist’s relationship with the parents
or caregivers of the child? Which factors have led to this encounter? Is

a parent or teacher or caregiver present during the session?
How can the child in this context present his or her intentions?
Most children will oscillate between curiosity and openness and the
urge to hide their needs. Insufficient social or emotional safety will
manifest as restlessness and lack of concentration.
Tension will be experienced between the child’s inner centeredness
and confusion (uncenteredness); and between the child and the
therapist, who can be viewed as a partner or as distant or as demanding.
Is the child committed or would he or she rather be somewhere else?
Can children in this environment find enough orientation and safety to
attend to their own needs in a continuous way; or do they disrupt their
intentions and get sidetracked?
Transitional objects may need to be introduced to make the
relationship possible and the unfamiliar environment more acceptable.
Only when children find some resonance in their way of orientation

can they step out of themselves and make contact and be able to
experience the session as something happening for “me,” rather than
something done to “me.”
A child will either feel lost or can recognize the offered possibilities
and be contained and present. Just as adults have rituals at this stage
such as “Good Morning” and talking about the weather, children need
rituals that have to be re-established with every session. Thus a child
can expect with a relative certainty what will happen and need not
react with withdrawal. Some therapists I observed offered children a
cup of hot chocolate at the beginning of each session to establish the
therapeutic relationship as a nurturing one; others had certain greeting
rituals or they involved the positioning of transitional objects in a
particular place at the end of one session and the reacquaintance with
them at the beginning of the next one, such as a teddybear or doll, a
friend, who could survive the in-between-time and remain in contact
with the therapist. For many children it is also important that their art
works survives until the next session that scenes created in the Clay
Field will be there, when they return.
2. Child sits down at the Clay Field and finds orientation

Now a new relational space opens up: the child and the Clay Field.
Again, only when children experience a stable, reliable context can they
open up and experiment with their own possibilities.
Children rarely orient themselves by holding the box, seizing up its

quality, as most adults will. They rather take the table, the room and the
therapist as orientation points; or activities become their way to find
a certainty: “Today I want to make a car!” “I can do…” Children who
ask: “What do you want me to do?” really are asking: “How can I find
stability, a hold?”
The child will hesitate, reassure and test, if the context is reliable.
The child has to negotiate between certainty and uncertainty, between
the impulse to do something and the hesitation, even withdrawal of the
impulse and the assurance to be OK.
If unsure, hands are left behind the back, in the lap, underneath the
legs until they dare to touch and test the field and the table. Children
may lean backward into the chair or forward towards the field. The
body-language is one of fear to trust or of physical presence.
The therapist is experienced by the child as an extension of the

field, as part of the process. Does the therapist sit opposite or at the
side? Where does the child sit? All these orientation factors play a role
in their social context, in relation to the child’s needs and in relation
to the Clay Field.
The goal at this stage is to make the various relationships between
chair, table, room, Clay Field, body, child and therapist reliable. These
polarities are important and will play a role at a later stage, whenever the
child will need reassurance of safety in order to cope with something
potentially overwhelming.
The child needs to find assurance and hold in its own actions,
and it will need to be able to perceive “the other” and relate to it. The
measure of trust versus concerns and fears has to be negotiated. If the
child hesitates to begin, the therapist may now touch and work in one
quarter of the field as the child’s assistant or as an invitation for the
child to join in, to co-create and in the process gain trust.
3. Child makes contact with the Clay Field and finds a hold
Now children will begin to touch, mark and penetrate the clay in the
field and experience how the material resonates with their actions. The
therapist observes the child’s vital presence and the blockage or flow
of these actions. The need is to explore the possibilities within the
individual and physical limitations.
Children’s hands perform acts and they will experience their effects
and affects and psychosocial values. As they scratch, poke, spear, take,
grab, they will feel merciless or compassionate or overly challenged.
They will alternate between unconscious motor actions and intentional
qualitative actions. Pleasure in the movements, in the contact with the
clay, and also satisfaction in symbolic actions, such as to safeguard or
hurt someone, become prevalent; just as unsatisfied desire, negative
fantasies, outbursts, antisocial tendencies, stereotypes, blockages and
lack of libido will manifest. Tension in the fingers often points to abuse.
At which point does a challenge become overload?
The developmental process follows its own laws: to pierce, to
penetrate, to go in, to take, to let go, to divide, as I DO THIS.
Children will oscillate between action and retreat. As they
participate and reorient themselves, they will have to negotiate between
old, internalized values and newly discovered ones. This is a very subtle
process in terms of what fits and what does not. Autonomy has to be
negotiated, versus shame and doubts. Own vital needs require to be

strengthened, versus conformity in the relationship with the parents, or
versus overly adjusted or too distant behavior patterns.
Children here learn to focus, to concentrate and to direct their
energies. They will perceive themselves and their bodies in contact with
an opposite other: the Clay Field, the therapist, their creation. They
will develop communication and resonance with their own actions. The
goal at this stage is to increase competence, to build trust into their vital
sensorimotor impulses, to achieve emotional satisfaction and presence.
They will need to find a reliable hold and orientation in the Clay Field
world.
Emotional certainty is gained through loss and retrieval. This is
how we play hide-and-seek or peek‑a‑boo with very young children.
Two-year-olds love to cover their faces with their hands they are “gone”
and then, with they are “there” again.
Creative destruction brings certainty; through loss and retrieval
we learn continuity. This magical primitive process is of immense
importance, especially for children who often experience terrible loss
and instability. In this context glass marbles, or crystals, or other objects
may be hidden and found in the Clay Field, or the child will experiment
with the destruction and retrieval of treasured and traumatic aspects in
his life.
4. Child begins to create at the Clay

Field to find object constancy

Now children are ready to objectify their emotional and social needs
and conditions. The field expresses and realizes their experiences. They
become focused in their actions and gain emotional and social certainty.
They move from the flow phase, from sensorimotor impulses towards
a gestalt; the clay takes on symbolic meaning and form. It also takes
on story. Many children will need to talk about what they are creating,
naming the events as they unfold.
The basic need here is to work out the tension between social
adjustment and individual creative potential. In the process personal
conflicts and experiences gain form, they are acted out and solutions are
found. Children whose parents have separated, or are at war, frequently
build walls, moats or divisions in the field that map out the opposing
forces as landscapes. Only one half of the field might be filled with
action, while the other half lies vacant, or other power imbalances are
symbolically staged. Solutions might be found through connections:
bridges might be built and roads or waterways are tunneled to allow
contact between the different scenes. In this way children are capable
of unifying the parental forces within, which will assist their psyche
to regain balance, even though the child has no power to change the
actual situation.
In cases when one parent is absent through death or illness, care
images are frequent, in which a needy object is nurtured and healed, or the
hands take on roles in which one is ill, and the other the helper/healer.
Imbalances in the relationship between the parents, such as the
delegation of inappropriate love relationships to a child as mother–son
or father–daughter alliances, are often dealt with through the creation
and destruction of the insufficient parent. Integration happens through
destruction. The kneading action of the hands is similar to chewing
food. Only through destruction can inner permanence be gained.
Gradually the ability grows to create reliable relationships, to create
balance between polarities; and to create reliable actions, which signal
competence and will assure wholeness as permanence of the Self. Such
reliable creations and constructions are quite different from constructs
in the field that do not last and do not work.
At the point of the primary gestalt children will experience
themselves in relation to their creation as filled with self-esteem, and feel
valued—or they will collapse into helplessness and disempowerment.
In the latter case core needs are delayed or dismissed. If the therapist
steps in at this point she might comment without affect on ALL actions,
especially if the child is disabled or developmentally delayed: “Now
Karen pokes a hole, Karen pours water into the hole, Karen splashes
the water…Karen is really courageous here; Karen is doing so well.” It
is important to emphasize the name of the child. This way the ego of
the child is strengthened and sensory awareness is stimulated. I have, by
the way, also used this form of intervention with severely traumatized
adults and found that it can lower the anxiety level significantly. If
the therapist companion takes on the cognitive function and acts as
a benevolent, objective observer, the fear of being overwhelmed
by emotion, of disappearing in the Clay Field and not surviving,
is markedly reduced. In this way a therapist can support a client to
discover object constancy.
In other situations the therapist may become the child’s assistant.
She will become employed by the child to create certain objects,
which are either deemed too hard by the child or are charged with
too ambivalent feelings, like the young boy who created a crocodile,
but then asked the therapist to do the teeth. He delegated part of the
responsibility for his aggressive impulse, his ambivalence about it, to
the therapist.
At this stage the drama of mother–father–child and family is played
out. Care, grief, balance and the re-establishment of authorities such as
step-parents or other caregivers are negotiated. Themes are:
• natal and postnatal physical needs, which are frequently acted
out with and in water
• distancing and own reflections of events, which might help to
gain more objectivity
• emotional and social rebalancing and adjustments
• assurance and safety for developmental needs.
Here the child learns social integration, self-esteem and competence.
Emotionally, children will build identity, certainty, consistency, and
claim their own ground as opposed to a diffuse identity and feelings of
inferiority. In the tension between initiative and guilt children learn to
become responsible for their actions.
Children’s developmental phases

There are a number of approaches from which view the developmental

phases of children as they appear in the Clay Field. I will draw from
Brockmann (2004, 2006, 2007); Brockmann and Geiss (2011);
Deuser (2004, 2006, 2007, 2009); Geiss (2007, 2009); Gerspach
(2006); Kirschmann (2006, 2007); Tschachler-Nagy (2006); Weinrich

(2006); also on personal communication with colleagues, especially
Liz Kinnane, and on my own experience. To be familiar with these
developmental phases is also helpful when working with adults, as
we all, at times, regress to early childhood in order to retrieve lost
and dissociated aspects of our selves. The hands will move in the age-
specific way, depending upon the developmental need, independent of
whether the client is seven or forty-seven years old.
Pre-kindergarten children: The Clay Field as container

Here Clay Field work is predominantly kinesthetic and sensory, even
though it also has a perceptual/affective and cognitive/symbolic
component (Hinz 2009; Kagin and Lusebrink 1978). The kinesthetic
sense gives feedback from body movements, rhythms, and actions.
Young children need kinesthetic action, such as rocking, for soothing
purposes. When they use art materials, they are not so much interested
in outcomes as in actions, in doing things, often with a strong need to
repeat certain actional patterns.
The preschool, pre-kindergarten experience of the Clay Field is
that of being one with it. It will not be experienced as an opposite
other; rather, it is a holding space in which the child can be physically
and emotionally contained.
The child here needs to experience emotional and physical reliability
and safety in a fundamental way through the core senses of touch,
depth and balance, through boundaries, and through contact with

another person. Healthy children have secure attachments; however,
many who come to therapy are not so fortunate.
The basic experience of a relationship at this age is through touch,
be this with a person or with a thing. Children realize themselves
through actions. Through touching things they understand the other
as different from self. In this way they learn to deal with limitations,
with creative continuation, and destruction. Learning here is focused
on the discovery of one’s own potential through actions and imagined
actions that provide emotional fulfillment and orientation. Children
need reliable orientation points, reliable boundaries, and reliable
attachments in order to feel safe. Repetition of such actional patterns
allows integration.
Children want to be perceived in their limitations and possibilities.
They want to be valued in their actions, for these to have meaning and
to further the continuity of growth. Children need the knowledge that

there are people in their life who are available, who understand and
with whom they can communicate. Children who are told at least once
that they are “special” are far more resilient than others with similar
difficulties.
The clay at this stage gets squished and squashed and pierced with
lust and lots of water. The sponge is possibly the most important tool;
water is added with abundance. Quite frequently young children will
actually physically sit or stand inside the field and experience being
contained in it. The clay in this context is often diluted with water to
the extent that it is a liquid, slushy mud, which can be creamed onto the
skin or is capable of containing either the hands or feet. Water in the
field or a bowl of water is used to bathe the hands or feet, to contain
them like a symbolic womb. Intrauterine hands will rest dreamily and
hardly move, whereas “born” hands will have an urge to splash and
explore. Even for adults it can be profoundly healing to reconnect with
the safety of the womb. If need be, the therapist will create a container
in the clay in which the child can place his or her hands. The therapist
might even cover the hands so they are safely held; warm water poured
into the cave-womb is nurturing. In this way pre- and postnatal needs
can be addressed. Children with attention deficit disorders calm down
surprisingly when safely held in the clay in this manner. It is the Clay
Field equivalent of a hug. It can help if the therapist places light pressure
on the “clay belly” in which the child’s hands are contained. Young
children in a women’s shelter demanded this playful form of safety as a
session-ritual once they had experienced it. I observed several children

enter the room and put their hands expectantly into the field as soon
as possible, waiting for the therapist to wrap them in clay and water.
The hands are at all times representatives of the whole person. To be
lovingly contained and nurtured is a core need.
Ultimately it is necessary to retrieve something permanent from
this primal, slushy bog. This is the stage of physical and social birth.
If children do not move towards something more structured and solid
by their own impulse, the therapist can introduce marbles, crystals or
pebbles into the clay to produce the experience of something firm that
cannot be diluted, something that has form and permanence. Most
children will eventually create islands, nests, eggs, and emerge from
the devouring unconscious mass with something concrete, permanent
and tangible that often needs to be kept safe by the therapist. Such
emerging egos need to be held, nurtured and kept secure.
A seven-year-old girl—due to trauma developmentally much

younger—spends several sessions creaming her hands with liquid
clay. She now asks permission to do it with her feet as well. She
climbs into the box, squats down and dreamily pours diluted clay
over her feet. Gradually she begins to rock, then to move, then to
move in a circle, still squatting. As she gains rhythm she adds more
firm material until her actions create a “mountain” between her
feet. “Look, what happened!” she exclaims proudly, and stands up.
Afterwards she is less distracted and overwhelmed in her daily life.
She has retrieved herself from the overwhelming, undifferentiated
mass of the unconscious. (Geiss 2007)
Preschool children: The Clay Field as functional field

Preschool, kindergarten children will use the Clay Field as a place to
organize their actions and to experiment. Sequences of actions are
created, things are connected, combined, sorted; goals are set and
possibilities tested as to what works and what does not. It is important
to have safety in these actions, to be able to relate them, show them to
the therapist, to experience the pleasure and pride of having created
them.
Here we have an active ego that is discovering the world through
pure action, through doing things. Actions are put into a context,
things are being connected, contained, brought together, sorted, piled
up. The therapist must be aware of exaggerations, the denial of loss and
guilt, of negative fantasies, or sudden outbursts of affect.

All activities lead to a discovery of purpose and meaning through
one’s own application, to the discovery of new effects and the experience
of success—and failure.
Increasingly, first qualitative figures emerge that represent actions or
needs. Spaces are designed, such as water channels, tunnels, roads and
tracks. Pizzas are baked, soups cooked. Scenes of things that happened,
of hidden longings or of important events are created. Continuation
is searched for in manageable, cyclical sequences and meaningful
fantasies. The therapist has to look out for artificial activities, fake
maturity, dominating behavior, inner frozenness due to trauma, shame,
or the child feeling overwhelmed.
Anna (six years old) suffered severe pre- and postnatal malnutrition
due to a physical condition. In the Clay Field she creates a large lake
with an island that is inhabited by small beings. One of these is very
hungry. She stirs up a clay-water soup in a container, into which she
beds the little one. Every session she feeds the little being in the soup
more solid clay. After three sessions the being has grown enough
and is well fed and can join the others on the island. (Geiss 2007)
School age: The Clay Field as organized space

Children reach school age, when they can organize the Clay Field into
meaningful connections, combinations and events. The field is now
experienced as an opposite one can relate to. Only then is the child
also capable of relating in other social contexts and of finding hold and
orientation in them.
Here the child has the ability to work the material through
kneading, grasping, bulldozing it. High and low, close and distant, top
and bottom, small and large, powerful and powerless are noticed as
qualities. Marks are turned into objects. Traces with the fingers become
roads and ditches. Different parts of the field are connected with bridges
and tunnels. Roads and tracks give direction and have the purpose to
connect. Space is explored, gained and conquered. Gates and doors can
open and close and reflect daring and withdrawal.
A seven-year-old boy arrives in an animated manner for his eighth

session. He is excited, announcing that he knows what he will do
today. He excavates lots of clay out of the center of the field and
builds a “dangerous mountain” with the material. He then fills the
empty space with water, claiming that this is “a very deep lake.”
He asks the therapist for a glass marble, because a clay ball would
melt in the water and “not survive” what he plans next. With grave
severity he rolls the ball around the deep lake and then ascends
the dangerously high mountain with it. The therapist acknowledges
the risk he takes and supports him in his courageous endeavour.
Profoundly satisfied, the boy leaves the session. He has managed to
leave the safety of the known behind and survived his venture into
the unknown world. (Geiss 2007)
Primary school children: The Clay

Field as space for own creations
At school age the field gains meaning as a qualitative-emotional field
of action. The impulses to do things now become stronger and demand
discussion and reflection. Impulses, affects and solutions are viewed in
the context of their social meaning and significance. The urge as well
as the hindrance to do certain things is felt. Is one allowed to create
“that”? Orientation now happens through opposites, through what is
and what is not.
The field becomes a universal space in which world orders are
mapped out and in which their representatives have meaningful
encounters. Landscapes have meaning. Environments that represent the
organization of life are created, such as homes, work places and football
fields. These environments have rules; they operate in the context of
a certain order, have social hierarchies, relationships and “impossible”
connections.
Boundaries are pushed and violated to test them; rules are violated.
Some children experiment with antisocial impulses in order to establish
certainty for the ego.
Dennis (nine years old) designs a box-car arena in the field. He

makes the ground really slippery and lets the cars slide across and
crash into the sides with real gusto. He then creates a garage, in
which the cars can rest.
His question is: How can I manage my inner drive, where do I

find boundaries and where do I find rest and safety? (Geiss 2007)
Others design adventures, or create disaster scenarios and find solutions

for rescue. Some cover their faces, arms and hands with clay for safety
and stability, reconnecting with the maternal touch.
The therapist has to be mindful of unexpected disconnections, distortions,
constructs, sudden secrets that cause disasters. At pre-puberty, children
tend to repress frightening feelings. They “can’t remember” events they
would have disclosed previously. It is important to monitor a child’s
inability to form reliable relationships, which manifests as the creation
of pure fantasy worlds; and whether the child is incapable of finding
certainty in the sequence of events and cannot give them any meaning.
Affect has to be adequate rather than disproportionate to the event. The
drive to do things may be hindered either too much, or not enough.

Emotional strength allows children to deal with ambivalence. Solutions
are then found on the basis of such ambivalence.
Socially this phase is still pre-operational. The child is not necessarily
in charge, but is also dependent. Magic forces—and parental authority
figures—are also at work. Thus the child has to find a way to deal with
the impossible, the uncontrollable, the evil.
Secondary school children: The Clay Field as my space

For older children the field now becomes a space they can fully own
and position themselves in. “It is mine!” The primary order of unity
with the self is re-established. The child takes possession of the field,
has it, owns it, can also destroy it, take all the material out, move it all,
lift it all, feel its weight and fullness. The motto is: I can, I do.
This powerful competence is offset by taboos, denial, not being
allowed to, by shame. Children are also confronted with conditions
in their life that can’t be changed; they have to find ways to adjust
to these, to question such existing worlds, and in the process learn to
understand how things work.
Figures and transitional objects are placed in the field. Tools
are used, handprints are made. The field is squared and divided into
sections of meaning and significance; the field is being centered.
This might lead to concrete depictions of games and rules that
display a world order or the creation of stories, which interpret “my
world.” “Terrible figures” may need to be dealt with.
An eleven-year-old boy creates a huge dragon that he then finds so

frightening that it has to be caged underneath a shoe-box until the
hero has gained sufficient strength to deal with it. (Geiss 2007)
Daniel (nine years old) reacts with strong aggression towards siblings
and peers after the separation of his parents. In his first session he
approaches the field and instantly clears out all the clay and pours all
the water into it. He announces that this is a “greatest ocean and that
it is immensely deep and that a storm is raging that threatens to sink
all the ships.” He then builds a raft from the cleared-out material and
places a shipwrecked man on it. The mast is broken, the sail torn, he
is in the middle of the ocean: “He has got no chance of surviving,”
is his commentary. The therapist expresses her compassion for
the terrible situation the shipwrecked man is in. Could he retrieve
nothing from his sunken ship? They discuss the man’s ordeal at
lengths. Finally Daniel forms a mobile phone out of clay. He appears
deeply satisfied.With this phone he calls the captain of an ocean liner
to come for rescue.
Daniel experienced the shipwrecking of his world and designs
his own rescue. Shortly after this session he finds a family friend in
his daily life, who becomes a father substitute. (Geiss 2007)
The creation of meaningful scenes, landscapes and stories has the

purpose of telling about the development of the self, coming to terms
with fateful events, the impossible, and creating renewal. In the process
opposites have to be reflected, philosophies developed, decisions made,
vital needs defended and lost aspects of self retrieved.
The therapist has the function of assisting with the reflection of
events and significant fantasies. It is also important to monitor the
deformations of figures, of hollow constructs and exaggerations.
The intersubjective exchange between “mine” and “yours,” of
dialogs, of swapping of roles and figures, is important. Even masks and
role-play and posing may occur in order to show and communicate
events.
Adolescents: The Clay Field as creation

of own worlds and realities
We have now reached adolescence. The themes here are inside versus
outside, me versus you, male versus female, and the conjunction of
these opposites. Sexual issues are rampant. Through this process the
Self as inner unity, as spiritual and ethical source, is gained. The chance
is to experience oneself as purposeful and having a goal.
Adolescents are conscious of their inner life within the box versus
the life outside, around them. They are now a lot less dependent on
their caregivers and can afford to set their own boundaries and rules.
Rather than “rules and shoulds,” a respectful relationship with oneself
and others develops.
Adolescents become conscious of the consequences of their own

actions and those of others, and may need to deal with related fears,
anger and guilt. Issues may seem overwhelming, intangible or very
frightening, and it can be helpful to remember that all heroes get
assistance, if they ask. The ego faces the hero-quest, the dragon fight,
in order to gain permanency.
Once the treasure is gained, the optimal gestalt emerges as the
resolved I—not so much as oneness, but as a concrete opposite to
which the adolescent can relate emotionally, socially, physically and
spiritually.
This phase can be dominated by morbid fantasies, the obsession
with death and dying, and negative transcendence. It might be necessary
to retrieve lost and dissociated aspects of oneself and to re-member
them. In order to heal childhood trauma many might need to go back
to earlier stages. Especially those with drug addictions will need to re-
experience the phase of early bonding, of being held; they will need to
establish boundaries and safety.
Adolescents will create soul-landscapes that represent “my world,”
“my life.” A home or homeland will emerge that counteracts the sense
of abandonment that they experience when leaving old securities
behind. This inner home represents spirituality and permanence versus
impermanence. The work at the Clay Field is ruled by their own timing,
by inner centering, not of objects, but of an inner order.
For children, just as for adults, the Clay Field will address
developmental deficiencies or aspects of the personality dissociated
due to trauma. In all these cases individuals will regress to earlier

developmental stages in the Clay Field until the lost and split‑off parts
can be integrated.
The same applies for children with disabilities. The Clay Field is
part of the curriculum at many schools for the disabled. Here, too, the
rule applies that developmental needs yearn for fulfillment. In such a
case a ten-year-old might work like a three-year-old in the Clay Field
until the necessary learning for that age level has been completed.
Disabled children need more time, but with patience and ongoing
therapy astounding results have been witnessed at the Clay Field.
Chapter 9
Working with
Traumatized Children
Physical and sexual abuse, murder, domestic violence, random violence,

assault, medical procedures and accidents expose children to all the
reactions we once attributed only to adult survivors of war. When
children witness violent events, including those on television, and

especially when they perceive relatedness to the victim, coupled with
personal vulnerability, it can leave them exposed to PTSD reactions
(Steele 2003 p. 140).
Treatment is relatively easy with children who have been exposed to
one traumatic incident, but are otherwise well adjusted, cared for, have
secure attachments and a safe home; here one can restore equilibrium
sometimes within only a few therapy sessions. However, children
who have been exposed to multiple stressful and confusing events,
overwhelming incidents over longer duration and frequency, sometimes
years; children who have been chronically sexually or physically abused
by a parent or trusted adult, or multiple perpetrators—such children
will require the mobilization of sophisticated strategies and individually
tailored therapies (Gil 2003 p. 153). Such children may never be ready
to process traumatic memories, but require primarily the ongoing
284
Working with Traumatized Children 285
building of resources, as well as behavioral and psychoeducational

adaptations (Klorer 2003; Steele 2003; Rothschild 2011).
The human brain comes online through the interaction between
mother and child. We are tribal creatures, members of the human family.
Through our interpersonal neurobiology we constantly affect each other.
This is without conscious memory; however, our entire physiology,
our immune system, digestive system, breathing patterns and heart rate
depend on it. Our perceptual senses awaken through the mirror neurons
in the brain. (van der Kolk 2011) These are vastly more powerful than
the verbal, cognitive communication systems we acquire later in life.
The human brain is born prematurely and continues to develop
throughout childhood into young adulthood. Good enough attachment
for infants is crucial in the development of the brain. Babies are totally
dependent on their caregivers. They will look out for the mother from
the earliest moments of their life. Their mirror neurons will pick up
continuous clues of communication from this formative relationship:
emotions, facial expressions, sounds, touch, being warm, being held,
feeling safe. Infants can experience intense states of excitement that
are modulated by a mother’s responsiveness (Levine and Kline 2007;
Pally 2000; Rothschild 2000; Trevarthen 1995; van der Kolk 2011;
Winnicott 1964, 1971, 1986). Face recognition and the sound of a
mother’s voice are stored in a specific area of the right brain hemisphere
that allows the brain from then on to self-regulate and maintain a
pattern of information flow within itself (Schore 1994 p. 188). The
assurance that stems from the interaction of face-to-face contact with a
primary caregiver, of smiling and cooing, and being held, is needed for
an infant to tolerate the experience of separation.
Knowing that the standard response to threat is “fight or flight,” it
makes sense that an infant, with neither option available, will have
a different response. Unable to flee the chaos, from conflict and
loud quarreling to outright violence, many adaptations take place.
The little body may squirm, its muscles stiffen, its digestive organs
contract, its back may arch, etc. Finally it just collapses in apathetic
resignation. Even more disturbing, the growing brain organizes
itself to be more reactive to survival, functioning at the expense
of the limbic and cortical areas responsible for the modulation of
impulse and emotion. The infant brain becomes hyper-alert to the
perceived danger: In other words, the brain becomes programmed
in such a way that feelings of terror and helplessness become a
“normal” state of being.
This early molding has vast repercussions for the child’s emotional
and behavioral development, as well as for its hormonal and immune
systems. Prolonged exposure to a stressful environment leads to
numbing and shutdown as the fear and pain become increasingly
unbearable. This eventually develops into lifelong patterns that
are commonly (mis-)diagnosed years later (usually when the child
begins school) as Anxiety Disorder, Attention Deficit Disorder,
Hyperactivity, Dissociative Disorder, Conduct Disorder and/or
Depression. (Levine and Kline 2007 p. 34f.)
The stage is set for a host of learning and behavioral problems. Levine
and Kline (2007), O’Brien (2004), Rothschild (2000), Schore (1994,
2003a, 2003b), Teicher (2000), Trevarthen (1995) and van der Kolk
(1996) all state that unbearable psychic pain or anxiety harms the
development of the brain in infants who experience relational trauma.
Especially early life trauma and insecure attachments in infancy
damage the neural pathways; the hippocampus, which mediates between
the survival instinct and the cortex, inhibits the exchange of information
between the hemispheres, and prevents emotional experience being
processed into language (O’Brien 2004; Schore 1994, 2001). This
may affect children’s development long-term, impacting on memory,
cognition, learning, personality and moral development. Early childhood
trauma causes permanent alteration to the development of the neurological
pathways in the brain, especially in the left hippocampus, resulting in
problems with processing memory. The amygdala is part of the limbic
system; it is the brain’s emotional processing center. The amygdala
is in charge of our survival. The amygdala and the hippocampus are

deeply involved in responding to traumatic events. The amygdala will
remain in a state of alarm when a person has been subjected to stress
and psychological abuse, unless the assurance can be processed that “I
am now safe!” This requires a secure enough environment and secure
attachments (Levine 2003). Otherwise stress hormones will be released
from the hippocampus on an ongoing basis, shading every aspect of life
into a potential threat. Such clients will feel jumpy, agitated, with few
alternatives and few cognitive tools to process feelings and events. They
live in a permanently overwhelmed state. When emotionally stimulated,
traumatized children lose the capacity to make sense of their feelings;
they cannot adequately assess situations, but rather go from stimulus to
response, unable to use the thought process in-between; this will result in
either aggression or numbing of feelings (O’Brien 2004; Schore 2001;
van der Kolk 1996).
Positive attachments between infant and caregiver result in healthy

development of the right brain hemisphere. Matthews (1999 p. 17)
researched the normal development of children’s drawings and found
“the basis for the expression of emotion and representation of objects
and events form within an interpersonal arena between caregiver and
infant.” (O’Brien 2004). Mollon (2001) equates the right hemisphere
with Freud’s unconscious mind, the part of the brain that processes
emotional information. Jung already based his Analytical Psychology
approach on the insight that images were more closely connected
to the unconscious than words. O’Brien states that art-making and
imagination are stored in the right brain hemisphere from earliest
infancy (O’Brien 2004), Ogden (2006), van der Kolk (2006), O’Brien
(2004) and Rothschild (2000) all agree that during our earliest infancy
experiences are processed through the right brain hemisphere; also
seeing, imagining, dreaming, emotions and the art-making process
activate the right brain hemisphere. Whether we actually see an object
or imagine it, whether we dream it or hear it, the same parts of the
brain are activated as if the action were taking place. We have evolved
specialized mechanisms for visual processing of the human body; the
human brain contains cells in the right temporal lobe responding to
the human hand, face, body posture and movement. “Art defines our
humanity by portraying the brain’s representation of the world” (Latto
1995 p. 91).
The right brain hemisphere is concerned with creativity; it
understands metaphor, dreams, experiences, emotions, trauma and
relationships. All these are processed there before they become attached
to words, and are then stored as memory in the left hemisphere (Edwards
1979; O’Brien 2004; Schore 2001).
Van der Kolk (2011) points out that it is immensely difficult to
change the abnormalities that develop in the brain cells due to early
infant traumatization. Trauma and separation cause the most elementary
reactions in the body; they also vitally affect breathing, eating and
the digestive system. The traumatized child feels godforsaken, totally
alone and helpless. Thinking is confused and the surrounding world
is perceived without any objective; individuals react indiscriminately
to how others make them feel. Therapeutically what needs to be re-
established is the functioning of the mirror neurons; the neurobiological
response to one’s own movements through another. Van der Kolk
(2011) even suggests the mirroring of a client’s movement in dancing
and theater groups is therapeutically far more successful than talking
therapies. He also points out that engagement with the client’s story
often has too much focus on the wounding and will create unmanageable
attachment to the therapist.
The Clay Field is the ultimate mirror. It reflects every movement,
every imprint of the hands. The kinesthetic sense, including touch, is
primarily nonverbal, more so preverbal. It is the first sensory function
to develop, linked to early childhood experiences before the age of
three. Only after the age of three will information be shifted from the
right to the left brain hemisphere, where words and labels dominate.
Work at the Clay Field is capable of reaching these early infant stages
and picking up an individual at the point where developmental needs
remained unfulfilled, where traumatization set in. A therapy based on
words cannot do this. Work at the Clay Field allows children to fulfill
earliest biographical needs, including pre- and postnatal needs. It enables
them to rewrite their story according their innate developmental needs.
It can reinform the felt sense, where a child had to adjust to damaging
environmental disasters and lack of attachment, with a sense of holistic
satisfaction and being safely held.
The first rule of any trauma therapy is safety. Physical safety has to
be assured; triggers for retraumatization have to be removed. It is also
of vital importance to establish a reliable relationship with the therapist
before any deeper aspect of the trauma is addressed. In particular
traumatized children whose trust has been violated through abuse by
a caregiver are highly skeptical and will observe the therapist with
hawk’s eyes. The therapist will need to be as transparent as possible
and explain her actions in a way the child can follow and understand.
Children need the assurance that they will not be harmed again in this
relationship.
As mentioned in Chapter 5, resources need to be built to establish
skills sufficient to allow distancing and pendulation from the traumatic
event, whenever this is necessary. Children are usually very wise in
regulating their capacity to cope, as long as the therapist can respect
their urge to distance themselves from the incident when they need to.
In such a case a child may not want to go near a particular art exercise
that may evoke overwhelming memories, but rather to play or have
a story read, sometimes for several sessions, until he or she is ready
to face the unbearable event again. Especially useful are fairy tales or
purposely written modern stories, which recount successful navigation
through traumatic events until arrival at a happy end.
Useful resources for working with children

For children, an oasis might be to do a puzzle, or simply to craft an art
piece, rather than undergo “therapy,” when they need time out.
The creation of a self-book, soul-cards, a magic wand, or a picture
frame around their photograph allows a young person to focus on their
achievements.
Young children can learn to contain emotion by pouring water
into differently sized containers—a surprisingly simple, but effective
exercise.
Anchors can be created from clay, plasticine and collage materials
as magic objects that allow shifting the focus from helplessness onto
something empowering and protective. The object invites the child to
communicate values and safe aspects of his or her life.
A safe space can be established in a particular corner of the
therapist’s workroom, with cushions, perhaps a cardboard house; or it
can be created as an art work, or as a place in the Clay Field. Building
a “safe environment” for an animal miniature (Gil 2003 p. 160) from
collage materials or clay can reduce stress significantly. In the clay such
a safe space can incorporate sentinels or other figures whose task it is
to safeguard the space.
A seven-year-old boy creates a swimming pool in the box with

lots and lots of water. He then asks the therapist to shape a life
guard for him that will stand at the side of the pool and keep watch.
(Kirschmann 2009)
Another useful tool is distancing. Children can be taught to view

what happened as if on TV. They hold the remote control and can
stop the process, whenever it gets too much. Or their story can be told
through a created or found toy figure in the third person; or as a story:
Once upon a time…
A nine-year-old African boy has been adopted into a white family in

Australia. He has experienced the assassination of his entire family
and most of the people in his village during civil war. He then spent
a number of years in a refugee camp. Over several sessions the art
therapist creates a picture book with him. It is the story of a little
elephant that lost his tribe. The little elephant has many adventures,
including hunger, seeing the ocean for the first time, and traveling
on a big boat—experiences the elephant finds very frightening and
strange. Eventually the little elephant finds another family. Even
though this new tribe has a different color, he learns to feel at home.
The boy would co-create the narrative of the story and complete
and color in the pictures the therapist had drawn.
Games are a creative and playful way to discharge hyperarousal, to

actually move in space and act out the fight–flight impulse. Levine
recommends this as an effective tool, especially when working with
children. He and his co-workers initiated, for example, a ballgame
for orphans in Ache after the tsunami in Thailand. He stimulated the
adrenaline impulse to run as fast as possible by passing two wicker
balls around in a circle of about 40 children, with several therapists
sitting interspersed around the circle. One wicker ball was introduced
as a rabbit, a frightened animal, which needed to be encouraged by the
children to run as fast as possible; the other was identified as a tiger
chasing the rabbit. The predatory animal can be culturally adapted as
coyote or fox. The two balls were passed around in the circle, the tiger-
ball chasing the rabbit-ball with much squealing and agitation. The
game is designed for participants to identify with the two animals and
to enact through them the fight–flight impulse. The chase will allow
the release of pent-up adrenalin; it supports the completion of the
survival impulse of running away; and it empowers through identifying
with the tiger-aspect. Next the children lifted up a large parachute cloth
that was placed in the center of their circle and created huge waves.
They actually took charge of the horrendous experience that had
robbed them of their families, their homes and their entire life context,
along with hundreds of thousands of their peoples who had perished
in the flood waves. They created waves with the parachute cloth, then
to find safety underneath the very parachute sail. Huddled underneath
the large cloth, the whole group would sing: “We are alive, we are
alive!” and then rest, in order to allow the message to be processed that
the traumatic event was over. This exercise was repeated a number of
times. Tests two years later showed none of the children suffered from
post-traumatic stress disorder. The fight–flight impulse had been
completed. The children had been able to move through their fear, and
profoundly understood that they were now safe. Thus the body-psyche
had no need to remain in hyperarousal in order to guarantee survival.
(Video documentation by Levine, shown at the Trauma Conference in
Weggis, Switzerland, August 2008; Levine and Kline 2007 p. 424.)
Levine and his co-workers have developed a number of games and
puppet plays, as well as a collection of nursery rhymes, for the purpose
of discharging trapped stress hormones in the body when working
with children. In all cases there needs to be an expertly fine-tuned
balance between stimulation through motor impulses, which then cause
discharge, and rest afterwards to allow sensory integration.
Transitional objects
Another aspect in this context is the introduction of a transitional object
as defined by Winnicott (Winnicott 1971, 1964), especially when
working with children. Winnicott studied the transitional object as an
emotional substitute for the mother in her absence, such as a blanket
to suck on while the breast is not there. Such a blanket can be talked
to, it can be loved and cuddled; and it can be hit and kicked when the
emotions are ambivalent—and it survives. Art products can become
transitional objects which may become imbued with meaning beyond
what they are in reality (Malchiodi 2003 p. 54).

A transitional object in work at the Clay Field acts like a totem that
provides security and permanence. Such objects can be:
• toys such as hand puppets, teddybears or dolls, which can
represent a more accessible authority figure than the therapist.
The teddybear will then sit at the side of the field on the table
and can be asked for advice whenever necessary.
• hand puppets that act out an aggressive impulse; the crocodile
is a favorite. In this case the crocodile is angry, not the
child, which might help the child to delegate an otherwise
inacceptable emotion.
• animals the child or therapist shape from clay as substitute
parental figures. Such figures can then be hit, killed, hurt,
pummeled and cop the child’s anger about the parent’s divorce,
for example. This shifts the unbearable and unsafe loyalty
conflict onto a secondary authority figure. It allows the child
to release emotions and act out the age-specific death wish of
“peek-a-boo.”
• animals the child or the therapist shape as a substitute for the
child, such as a “mouse that is afraid”—and which subsequently
will need food, shelter, nurturing, which the child can then
provide.
• animals that as proxies undergo the trauma the child has
experienced. Such animals have accidents, falls, get hurt, die,
have operations, move house, loose parents, etc.
• animals the child or therapist shape as a carrier for a specific
emotion in order to assist release.
Children (and adults) might create spheres or objects that are deemed
as precious and that are placed outside of the box, or with the therapist
for safekeeping while they release negative emotions in the field. It
is important that such special objects survive while the client “falls
apart.” After the cathartic event the object can be integrated into a now
discharged field.
A three-year-old girl comes to a clay session because she will no

longer allow her mother to touch her. She sits in front of the Clay
Field, but does not touch the material, then she shifts down on to
the floor and in an agitated state shuffles on her bottom around
the room. The therapist shapes a hand-sized clay goose and places
it on the boundary of the box looking into the field. The girl shows
interest in the goose, touches it tentatively with one finger, giggles
and touches it a bit more. They talk about the goose; more giggling,
and then the girl takes the goose into her hands.
Next the girl begins to shake violently. The therapist allows
her to discharge without interrupting her, without saying anything.
And words begin to erupt out of the little girl, initially in an
incomprehensible and uninterrupted flow. Gradually the therapist
understands that she witnessed her grandfather strangling her
grandmother. With this terrible secret released, her focus returns to
the goose she is still holding. She begins to tap the Clay Field with the
goose’s beak. Then she taps directly with her fingers, her fingertips
acting in the same way as previously the goose’s beak. Gradually she
deems the field safe. And with this realization, that the clay is not
“bad,” the spell is broken. She puts the goose aside, pours water
into the field and begins to knead it, push it, and play in it. After four
sessions her mother can touch her without problems. (Deuser 2008,
verbal communication)
I think this case history speaks for itself. In witnessing the violence
between her grandparents the girl had come to associate touching with a
life-threatening event. Interesting is how the therapist unwittingly created
an animal with a prominent neck! The goose as the transitional object
helped the girl to test touching the clay. Since the goose could touch the
clay without anything life-threatening happening, so might she.
For some children it may be important that such a transitional
object “survives” in-between sessions and thus provides a continuum.
In this case the art therapist has to find means to keep the transitional
object intact, which can sometimes be tricky if it is made of clay and is
likely to dry out or fall apart between sessions.
Strictly speaking, and certainly in working with adults, the Clay
Field is the ultimate transitional object. It provides the reliable continuum
that survives every session, all the client’s emotions and actions, can be
hit and battered, and will still be there at the next session.
Stages of trauma healing with children

Stabilizing
Secure attachments make trauma therapy relatively easy. Children who
have been held safe and feel loved by their parents can deal with a
single traumatic event quite successfully. Multiple traumas, long-term
trauma, lack of attachment and lack of safety, especially in the early
years, will make any therapy a challenge, and there will be no quick fix.
Such therapies will need to be co-created by client and therapist; they
are always unique and individual and follow no simple recipe.
Different art therapy exercises, play therapy and other activities
that will help to cultivate resources might need to be developed first,
or alternate with Clay Field sessions. Such resources can be designed
to increase self-esteem and competence, and help to build emotional
and spiritual anchors, magical objects that will protect from harm.
The theme of safety, access to a physical and emotional safe space, is
paramount. The child will need the assurance that he or she will not
be harmed in the relationship with the therapist. That trust needs to

grow strong enough, before any destabilizing trauma memories can be
safely addressed.
Depression, anger and anxiety are common in this population, and
gender seems to make a difference in how children cope with these
emotions. Traumatized girls tend to show more depressive symptoms,
be initially shy, and need to discover their strength; traumatized boys
will often be overly loud and aggressive and have to discover their
tender sides. “One often sees the male abuse victim drawing violent
battles and monsters, clearly identifying with the aggressor, which
Kramer (1971) states is a defense the child uses in order to feel less
frightened and powerless” (Klorer 2003 p. 342).
Anna is six years old and lives with her mother in a women’s shelter.
For several sessions she draws little heart shapes with only one finger
in the surface of the clay. She only whispers. During one session the
therapist discovers that her foot has slipped out of her sandal and
is dipping secretly into a puddle of water (left by the previous child)
underneath the table. The therapist asks her if she would like to put
her feet into the Clay Field? She agrees joyfully. Anna clears out all
the clay to create space for her to get in! When she finally climbs
in, she becomes almost boisterous. She asks the therapist to wrap
her feet in clay. She then smears liquid clay onto her hands and arms
and onto her face—and finally stands up and exclaims loudly: “I am a
monster!” She obviously enjoys the session and insists on repeating
the same for the following two sessions. After these three sessions
she appears as if she has arrived and is capable of dedicating herself

to her issues with intensity. (Kirschmann 2009)
Mustafa, six years old, also lives in the women’s shelter. He has
witnessed his father’s severe violence against his mother. He is very
tense. In the group he wants to be the strongest and overextends
himself regularly with this self-demand. He describes his father as the
strongest man in the world. At the Clay Field he usually clears out
the field in a hectic manner. He then hits the piled up material and
yells loudly. At times he almost loses himself. He does not notice that
his hands are hurting. The therapist suggests “that his hands might
need a rest.” Relieved, he creams his hands with soft clay and washes
them in warm water. He willingly allows the therapist to wrap his
hands in clay. He can finally allow some tenderness of feeling, which
he associates with victimization. (Kirschmann 2009)
Anna needed to discover her strength, while Mustafa needed to stop

acting out and allow his vulnerability to be felt, before both could
begin to face their issues.
The stabilizing phase is also dominated by themes around safety
and protection. Children will create homes and caves as safe spaces.
A four-year-old boy, who also lives at the women’s shelter, digs a hole
into the field into which he places a “worm-mother and her baby.”
The hole is then sealed to make sure no predatory bird can eat them.
(Kirschmann 2009)
For therapists it is important to be mindful that only children who

are stable enough to access their resources under stress are capable of
dealing with traumatic events. If children cannot “apply the brakes,”
distance themselves from past events when they threaten to become
overwhelming, if they cannot reorient in the safe here-and-now, in the
present moment, or access something empowering they can do, the
risk of further dissociation and retraumatization is high (Levine 2010,
2011; Rothschild 2000).
Exploration
Only now can the actual trauma confrontation begin. The client will
pendulate between the safe place, the resources and what happened.
Children will act out their traumatic experiences mostly symbolically

through role-play and through the repetition of certain events in the
Clay Field, which gradually develop towards alternative outcomes (Gil
2003; Kirschmann 2009; Malchiodi 2003; Steele 2003).
Büsra is six years old. Not only did she witness violence between
her parents, she was also present when her two-year-old brother fell
to his death out of a window when she was five. After a stabilizing
phase of four months she tells incidentally a story about a little fish
who fell down. The therapist reminds her in the following session of
this “story.” Büsra creates a little clay fish and then a bed for him. She
suggests drying him and painting him in the following session. In the
meantime she kneads several presents for the fish. Only then can
she talk about the real situation and grieve and discuss her feelings
of guilt. (Kirschmann 2009)
Intense feelings and emotions such as grief, anger or fear will be

communicated. Loyalty conflicts involving the parents will emerge; also
longings for a different life in which the parents, for example, are still
together. The theme of good and evil occupies many children’s minds.
What initially looked very black and white, however, might gradually
acquire shades of grey. The father may not be entirely bad and the
mother not entirely good. Such ambivalent feelings require hard work
from children.
During role-plays children can also show care for dangerous,
predatory, “evil” creatures: a shark gets a sun hat in order “not to get
too warm,” even though the shark is not allowed to swim in the Clay
Field, because it might eat the small fish (Kirschmann 2009).
Children still have access to their magical thinking and are far
more capable than adults of distancing themselves whenever they are
at risk of being overwhelmed. They also have no trouble delegating
conflicting actions to the therapist:
Luke stages a battle between good and evil knights. His father
belongs to the evil knights and is thrown into a dungeon and killed
with cannon balls. The cannon balls, however, the therapist is asked
to shape. Thus the overwhelming responsibility for such an act is
shared. (Kirschmann 2009)
Should too much come up in the Clay Field, other techniques that are
less intense can be suggested. Painting often emphasizes the experience

of color rather than that of a motif. The felting of balls allows gentle
self-touch and centering without any threat. Some children just need
to pause and have time out for art and craft activities, or playing, or
having a story read to them. It is important that the therapist listens to
such requests.
The wish to distance oneself from the traumatic content should
always be granted. Children will self-regulate according to what they
can cope with. When they are ready they will inevitably continue
exactly where they left off before. Acquired abilities are never lost.
Integration
This phase deals with the acceptance of change, with grief, loss and
reorientation. Trauma is sometimes the trigger for major changes in
life. The parents will divorce, families will move to new towns or even
different countries, children will go to new schools, accidents demand
hospitalization or a changed daily routine, death may take a loved one
away; life circumstances move continuously. Children have to negotiate
their own autonomous impulses and retrieve their I-ness from the chaos
and destruction of their previous world. This may quite literally be a
theme in the field, such as a house or landscape that will be demolished
in order to retrieve something that is independent of the changes
surrounding the child—something that has permanence and is deeply
connected to the child’s sense of self.
Solutions in the Clay Field tend to emerge as simple, centered and
central designs. They are symmetrical and often involve the squaring of
the field—an action to find and mark the center.
During the last phase, after Büsra has dealt with her grief about
her little brother, she is focused increasingly—after nine months of
therapy—on gaining autonomy and a space of her own. Her mother
has unconsciously made her her ally. Büsra needs some distance
from the symbiotic relationship. In the Clay Field she now uses tools
to cut large square chunks and separates them. In one session she
creates a slide for mothers and children on the table. The mothers
slide down to one side, the children to the other. While previously
the theme was the separation of mother and daughter from the
father, she now claims a space of her own away from the mother. In
the last session she cuts a large piece of clay out of the center of the field
and holds it up. She appears relaxed and confident. (Kirschmann 2009)
Max’s story
Max is seven years old. He is an out-patient in a children’s psychiatric
hospital. His social contact with other children is difficult, he can’t tie
his shoe laces, button a shirt, nor ride a bike. His self-esteem is very
low. He gives up instantly if something does not work out. For the first
five sessions a teacher attends with him in order to bridge the contact.
The therapy will last for one year.
The Clay Field is filled up to 1cm below the rim to allow for water
in it. Max sits down with his back to the field. The therapist talks
slowly about what he knows—clay—and what he does not know—
the box, the setting. Gradually the therapist begins to dig a hole into
the center of the field, talking, commenting on every move. Her hands
make noises; eventually Max turns around. One hand remains under the
table, the other enlarges the hole slightly. He names it as “swimming
pool.” He begins to fill the pool with water, using a sponge, and then
plays with the water. When his hand makes a noise he makes eye-
contact for the first time and smiles.
For the following five sessions the therapist begins in the same
manner. The phase that lasts until Max can engage gets shorter. Once
the teacher no longer accompanies him, he begins his sessions with
a game at the door. He opens and closes it, makes himself “here” and
“gone.” Later he adds knocking noises. Contact needs to be built anew
at every session.
In the Clay Field the therapist forms a ball and rolls it towards
him in the field. He rolls it back. He finds a real ball in the room; he
holds both balls and bangs a rhythm with them on the table. He finds
movement, he finds balance. He uses both hands for the first time.
In the tenth session he fills the field with water. He does not
touch the clay except with his fingertips; they are occasional brief taps
without intention. Whenever he pokes holes he withdraws physically.
With his finger he draws trails, lines, paths, ditches, and fills these with
water. As he gains trust in his actions the therapist supports and praises
him. He needs the validation of the therapist.

Several weeks later he begins to re-enact events he has played out
in the field. He hides a piece of clay underneath a clay cover in the
field; he then hides himself in a cardboard house in the therapist’s
room. Both times he calls out: “Help, I want to get out!” The clay-piece
talks; he talks. He begins to tell his story: his mother has beaten him
often and locked him up. Up to now, Max has not been able act and
express himself, due to the traumatic events that have happened to him.
Here he finds his voice and ways to act and react.
Again, weeks later, he bakes cakes from clay, decorates them, and
he and the therapist “eat” them. He plans to open a shop, but then
quickly disengages, as he is not confident that he has something to sell,
to give.
A new, significant phase begins when he makes a paper boat and

places it in the sink. When he turns on the water, he speculates about
“whether the boat will drown.” He gains power by experiencing that
he can destroy something or save it. The natural ambivalence between
destruction and creation, between transformation and new creation
that is the foundation of all action, was traumatized in him. Many
traumatized children do not dare to act, because they do not trust
their actions. They have been overwhelmed by the destructive power
of a situation and have lost trust in their creative potential. They do
not dare to touch the clay, certainly not with tonus and confidence,
as this implies a destructive impulse, which is associated with being
dangerously overwhelming. In order to create, the smooth surface of
the clay has to be destroyed; in order to create, an existing order or
form has to be disturbed.
In the following sessions Max shapes a paper boat, a person and a
mouse. All are “drowned” in the sink in high-pressured and very hot
water. “They have to die!” When he drowns the person, he asks the
therapist: “How is this for you (!) in the hot water?” He is concerned
about his actions. The therapist confirms his concerns. For the first time
actions and emotions are linked.
From now on he spends many sessions with the mouse. He forms
a mouse, turns the tap on to full pressure, uses soap and hot water, and
waits until the mouse is “really dead.” If not fully dissolved, he squashes
the last bits through the grill. He is both: powerfully active and the
helpless mouse.
While waiting for the “death” of the mouse in the sink, he begins
to play with water. With increasing confidence and pleasure he fills jars
with water, cooks “cocoa,” opens a “restaurant,” colors the “drinks” with
paints and sells them. He learns to give and take. He has gained trust
in his actions.
He has several simultaneous action cycles going: waiting for the
mouse to die in the sink, having something hidden in a cave in the
Clay Field, running the restaurant. Six sessions are dedicated to the
dying mouse.
Then, as he lets the water out of the sink, the mouse has survived!
He had painted it with golden paint before drowning it. With reverence
he takes it out and puts it to bed to dry.
He needs three more sessions to enact the death and survival of
the mouse. In the following session he picks the mouse out of the sink
without waiting for its death and lays it in a bowl and dabs it dry. With a
big sigh he announces: “Now it can breathe again.” The sink games stop.
He creates a second mouse. The mouse needs a relationship. The
mouse is now concerned about life, not survival.
In the Clay Field he creates a house for each mouse, with furniture,
a TV, a remote control; a car is parked next to the field. He gives
instructions to the therapist as to what he wants her to build: “I can’t
do it all on my own, you have to believe this, honestly.”
Max experiences that he can take charge of his life and create it
according to his needs.
Both mice get a life. They go shopping with a shopping list, they
watch TV together, have swims in a lake. Max begins to create landscapes
in the field. He experiences that he can do something and succeed.
Parallel to this last development he learns to tie his shoe laces, to
ride a bike, play with other children, have fights with them and defend
himself. He finds a friend and learns to read and to write.
This case history has been freely retold from Veronika Deuser’s
study (2004): “Endlich atmet sie wieder!” oder: Wie das Schöpferische zum
Leben kommt.
Tom’s story
Tom is nine years old. His mother has struggled with substance abuse
over the years and has recently been diagnosed with throat cancer, for
which the prognosis is grim. Tom, his twin sister and older sister often
have to monitor their mother’s medication usage and have been known
to manage her “states” on occasions. The parents are separated and
the children see their father every second weekend and on holidays.
The maternal grandmother is the one who brings Tom into therapy.
Over the intervention family members have had thoughts that Tom
might have ADD (attention deficit disorder), be dyslexic, or possibly
bi-polar, like his mother. He shows learning and behavioral difficulties,
particularly at school.
In the first session (9.1) he initially paints a “death field.” He then
creates a war zone in the sand tray. When the war invasion is complete
there is total destruction and almost everything is killed in the tray:
“They’re all dead.” Only a male and

a female figure at the side, next to
a helicopter, remain alive. One may
assume they represent him and his
twin sister. The elder sister could
possibly be the helicopter; she is
the one who often “surveys” the
situation with their mother.
9.1a
Tom has witnessed a great deal
during his young life as the sand
tray suggests.
9.1b 9.1c
Clay Field session 1

The art therapist decides to offer

Tom the Clay Field in the following
session.
He digs a hole in the center
with an ice cream scoop, pours
water into it, and pushes hard to
enlarge the “lake.” (9.2a–c)
Next his right hand slips into
the clay and explores a cavity
9.2a underneath the surface.
9.2b 9.2c
With these first actions he gains some certainty, the unspoken assurance
that the clay will hold him, that it can contain him.
He uses a spatula and cuts out shapes; he then attacks the field with
a stick, stabbing the material repeatedly and with force (9.2).
9.3a 9.3b
It is important that the Clay Field can survive his anger, that he is not
judged for being destructive.
He is familiar with being judged for “bad” behavior. He also
experiences destruction on a daily basis in his life. He is powerless
there, whereas here he can be powerful.
Winnicott (1964, 1971, 1986) observed with acuracy and sensitivity
the relationship between young children and their mothers. He helped
us to understand the impulse of creative destruction as a process of
integration, similar to chewing food; this process of integration relates
in equal measure to the impulse to attack and destroy and impulses to
give, nurture and share (Winnicott 1971 p. 96).
Tom now engages fully; the material has survived his first attack.
He moves all the clay, clears it off the ground and builds it up to a high
tower, which he then detroys instantaneously (9.4e–f ).
9.4a 9.4b
9.4c 9.4d
9.4e 9.4f
The principle of first play applies here, of young children piling
building blocks on top of each other, only to then knock them down
and build them up again.
Winnicott links this destructive–creative impulse in particular to
the primary relationship with the mother. This is how the very young
child comes to terms with the fact that the mother can disappear and
return. How reliable is she, and the environment provided by her love?
And how much in question is her love—especially when she is very ill
or even threatening to die?
The archetypal mother is defined by her survival value. For the
infant her disappearance is life-threatening and her return life-giving.
Loss and retrieval become the core pattern in the way we learn to relate
to our environment, how we acquire Object Constancy.
Winnicott calls this “environment mother” the object of excited
loving. One of the core features of object relationships is the “satisfactory
fusion of the idea of destroying an object with the fact of loving the
same object” (Winnicott 1964 p. 96).
Instinctual certainty in object relationships can only be gained
through the anxious and guilty impulse of destruction, because only
this will allow for the opportunity to rebuild and repair.
In Tom this aspect gains intense actuality, as the loss of his mother
is a looming reality. He needs to find an inner solution for her loss.
Out of a war zone, in the “death field,” he needs to retrieve something
permanent that can survive it all and so guarantee his survival.
Now that he has tested the clay’s resilience with his stabbing, and
proved his ability to stand up in his world with the tower, he searches
for something that can contain and hold him. (See 9.5.)
9.5a 9.5b
9.5c 9.5d
9.5e 9.5f
9.5g 9.5h
It is moving to see how the object he has created vaguely resembles
a figure, a womblike container; also a breast. He digs right into this
gestalt and tests his containment in various ways. He digs his hands
in, rests his arms in it up to the elbows. His hands and underarms are
covered and creamed in clay.
This is a profoundly nurturing experience. He is being held,
caressed, supported and safe. He has maximum skin contact with the
material. He can rest. The impulse to fight is completely absent now.
He has arrived at an inner certainty that is visibly comforting for him.
9.6a 9.6b
9.6c 9.6d
9.6e 9.6f
It is so important for this boy to
rest, to be held. He can take his
time. This is where he needs to be.
At the end of the session he
seals the container (9.6g) as if to
assure himself that this object is

for him and him only, and that it
will continue to contain and hold
him.
9.6g

Initially Tom sits on a chair and the Clay Field is far too high for him
(9.7a–d). Soon, though, he stands up and it does not take long for
him to reconnect with the theme of the previous session. The maternal
gestalt re-emerges, this time a fusion of the two impulses he explored
before: uprightness and containment (9.7e and f ).
9.7a 9.7b
9.7c 9.7d
9.7e 9.7f
9.8a 9.8b
9.8c 9.8d
9.8e 9.8f
9.8g 9.8h
This time the figure is far more defined, bigger and stronger. He actively
builds it up and hollows it out using tools, his hands, often his fists
(9.8a–e). He then “feeds” this figure with water, enjoying the fact that
the water will run out at the bottom into the field—emulating a full
digestive cycle (9.8f–h).
Now he edges a face with his fingernails into the figure (9.9a).
The opening below the face could be the throat (his mother has throat
cancer from smoking cigarettes) or the heart (9.9b). With grave intensity
he then performs some kind of “surgery” in the interior of this figure
(9.9c and d). He also opens it up from behind, puts his hand inside and
reseals it (9.10).
9.9a 9.9b
9.9c 9.9d
9.10a 9.10b
9.10c 9.10d
9.10e 9.10f
While he performs these healing acts he is totally absorbed. He has
entered an intense, caring and loving relationship with his object. How
different is this attitude to the disengaged observer of the battlefield he
created two sessions prior to this one.
With the magic of creative play he completes a deep urge from
within: to heal and undo his mother’s illness and to restore her to
health and wholeness.
The next step he takes is intriguing. He actually separates the
“head” or top of his figure from the torso and places it outside the
field (9.11a and b). He reshapes it into a new figure (9.11c). Next
Tom takes much time and effort to find crystals in the art therapist’s
room and to press these crystals into his figure. The crystals do not
stick very well. He returns the top with its crystal eyes and ears to
the Clay Field (9.11d) and adds more crystals until the figure is
sufficiently covered.
9.11a 9.11b
9.11c 9.11d
9.11e 9.11f
The gestalt is now complete. He is tremendously satisfied. It is visibly
precious and special, heightened into something whole and eternal.
Just as the crystals have permanence, this object may have too.
His last concern at the end of the

session is about the water in the
field. He uses a sponge and a wide
spatula to capture all the water
behind a dam (9.12).
9.12
He then enjoys the fact that he can open a gate in the dam and flood
the field (9.13). He is in control of his world.
9.13a 9.13b
Tom’s therapy continued to accompany him through difficult times in

his life. However, after these two Clay Field sessions his behavior at
school and home changed. Tom was calmer, less agitated and distinctly
less aggressive. When Tom first came to his session he would repeatedly
call himself: “dumb and stupid.” After those two sessions he began
to talk about how “creative” he was. He stated at one point: “Do you
know, when I come here I can really be myself.”
Mia’s story
Mia is 12 years old. She was placed in foster care eight months ago.
Before that she had lived more or less on the streets for 18 months “in a
gang.” Her schooling has been infrequent throughout. She has experience
of chroming (sniffing glue or petrol), alcohol, marihuana and sex. Her
parents are separated. Her mother is a drug addict, her father absent for
long periods or obsessively controlling in infrequent bursts of interest.
The mother’s boyfriend is violent and in and out of jail. Both Mia’s
father and the mother’s boyfriend have been violent towards Mia and
her mother, which was her reason for running away from home. She has
significant developmental delays, though she is streetwise and intelligent.
She “loves” art. She has been placed in a transitional school for children
with special needs, because she is too far behind for a mainstream school.
I have been seeing her for a number of sessions before this series at
the Clay Field. During these sessions she has created a range of objects
and paintings, to strengthen her, make her feel safe and assist her with
dealing with her aggression.
When her fostermother goes on a two-week holiday without her,

Mia runs away. While she actually manages to keep herself surprisingly
safe during this six-day interlude, every adult and agent responsible for
her care is understandably hugely concerned. She has been through
a number of meetings with social workers, in which she has found
confirmation that she is “bad,” as usual. She arrives hunched over,
slumped in her chair, her hair covering her face, expecting another
moral chastening from me.
I had contact with her fostermother prior to this session, so I knew
what had happened. I had discussed the possibility with her fostermother
that Mia had not necessarily been “naughty and disobedient,” but that her
running away was a trauma-related response, due to her mother’s neglect
in her earlier upbringing. Mia had only infrequently experienced secure
attachments, and no one in her life had ever been reliable. Running away,
for Mia, was a way of keeping herself safe; she may also have wanted to
take revenge on her fostermother for abandoning her.
So instead of taking the educator’s stance of more punishing
comment, I ask Mia how she felt when her fostermum left without her.
Was it upsetting? She nods, but is not willing to talk at all.
So I decide to introduce her to the Clay Field as an exercise to
explore her early attachment issues.

9.14a 9.14b
Mia finds the clay “very hard” and adds lots and lots of water, which
she works into the clay until it turns into a muddy slosh (9.14b). She
then enjoys hiding her hands deep inside the material (9.14c). She likes
the feeling. She creates a huge mess in my workroom, with clay on the
floor and the walls, but she leaves visibly uplifted and “loved it.”
Her need to be held unconditionally

was so great she did not seem to
tire of the seemingly simple action.
Rather she beamed with joy. Her
otherwise listless composure would
change into that of a lively, playful,
even energetic child. She had no
need to create or do anything, but
rather just wanted to be submerged
9.14c
in the clay, and be held in the
slushy, squishy mass.

A small ritual develops around the large bowl of water, which she claims
is her “bathwater” and it needs to be warm. She enjoys the fact that I
have to go to the clinic kitchen in order to boil “her” water in the kettle.
She craves being cared for. Again she oscillates between taking a bath
and turning the entire clay into a bog. This time she creates an even
bigger mess. My impression this time, though, is that she is behaving
like a lost and abandoned toddler. She has no structure, no boundaries,
no one to relate to and no one to hold her.
The mess Mia creates correlates with her insecure attachment with
her mother throughout her life. While the mud surrounding her hands
is nurturing to a certain extent, she is also lost and unheld in it. She has
no structure and has no idea how to find it.

After she has taken her ritual “bath,” Mia commences again to tunnel
underneath the clay (9.15b). In order to avoid a repetition of the last
session, this time I begin to interact in the field with her. I begin, with
her permission, to pile clay on top of her hands, placing light pressure
on them, to give her a secure feeling of being held.
I have no photographs of my hands holding the clay on the outside,
because I could not handle the camera and the clay simultaneously.
Mia loves it. She calms down significantly and stays in her “house”
for a very long time (9.15c and d); 50 minutes is a long time for a
12-year-old. Through openings at the top I pour some of her bathwater
into her cave. I also introduce two large glass marbles, which she hides
inside her house (9.15e), in order to give her a tactile sense of structure.
She bangs the marbles together and asks me if I can hear the noise they
make.
9.15a 9.15b
9.15c 9.15d
While inside her clay “womb,”

she tunnels with her hands so her
fingers can touch each other. She
tells me they talk and giggle. She
moves them and wants me to feel
on the outside how her fingers
can “kick like a baby in the belly.”
Inside the womb was probably the
9.15e
last time she was unconditionally
safe. Gradually her fingertips take
peeps to look for me. I greet her
fingertips with mine.
Towards the end of the session she takes great care to flatten the entire
field (9.16). She has placed both marbles inside the clay. They are
supposed to hide in it until she comes back next time.
The fact that she places the marbles as transitional objects into the
material is significant. The experience was obviously meaningful to her.
9.16a 9.16b
Just how meaningful it was, I had totally underestimated. I had expected

some benefits from the exercise of holding her. Wrapping the hands in
clay is very nurturing and a physiological reminder of being safe and
supported. It is the Clay Field equivalent of a hug; it is an all-engulfing
experience, not just for the hands, but for the entire being.

I had made sure her marbles were hidden in the right place before Mia
came back for her fourth Clay Field session. Immediately she checks
that they are there. She then takes her bath together with the marbles,
and plays with them in the water.
Significant is that after the bath she shows no inclination to dilute
the clay into a slosh again; rather she begins to rebuild the womb-
house from the last session on her own (9.17a)!
I am totally surprised. She is organized and determined. One
marble lives inside the house. The other is placed on top in a look-out
position (9.17b). Occasionally she will take the top marble into the
house so they can play together. She tells me “they are happy.”
9.17a 9.17b
She spends the entire session, a good 60 minutes, playing inside her
house. She is absorbed and calm and very much like a little girl. At
times she hums; on other occasions she tells me what the marbles are
doing, what they are talking about. The essence throughout is a feeling
of innocence, safety and wellbeing.
She plays with being inside and outside (9.18a and b). The marbles
test it for her. She is aware of the boundary of the box. Towards the end,
however, she creates her own boundary leading towards the entrance
(9.18c). Such landscaping is still age-specific for a younger child, but
she has definitely now reached school age.
9.18a 9.18b
As a final act, before she leaves, she

places the marbles in the bottom
right corner (9.18c). She tells me “I
don’t need them anymore. I can do
it now myself.”
My guess is that she has
just caught up with ten years of
developmental adjustments.
9.18c

At the next session Mia announces
that she has been accepted into a
mainstream school—and much
time over the following weeks
is spent on supporting her in
mastering this, for her, enormously
challenging environment. She lacks
important social skills and she has
significant learning difficulties. She
does manage, though, and despite a
few crises learns to adapt.
In this session she wants to use
paint and I suggest the task of a
self-portrait with the focus on how
she feels on the inside. Isn’t the
similarity between the silhouette
9.19 of the clay house and her portrait
striking? She puts gold color all
around herself, “because I am special!”
When I reflect on Mia’s sessions, a number of questions arise. I
quote from O’Brien’s essay on the “The making of mess in art therapy”
(2004), which she links to insecure early attachment, trauma and the
right brain hemisphere.
The art process is dependent on the right side of the brain but
it is also the part of the brain wherein early experience resides.
The evidence appears to suggest that there might be connections
between early brain damage through neglect and abuse, and the
symptoms of excessive mess made by children who have been
abused. It would seem that the mess itself fulfils an important role
in enabling emotional knowledge to be observed. The very messy
products of abused children might come about because they are
tapping directly into an underdeveloped neurological structure
where connections were not made. That emotion has not been
regulated by the face-to-face interaction so essential in the earliest
years of life would seem to have serious consequences. (O’Brien
2004 p. 11)
I have no scientific proof, but only empirical knowledge to discuss the

point I would like to make. Because different to O’Brien’s approach, I
did intervene after two sessions of mess. In the second session of mess-
making in the Clay Field Mia appeared to me like a lost toddler who
did not know how to play, because no one had ever played with her.
She did not know how to structure a relationship with “the other” on
this primary level of early attachment, because of the inadequate care
she had received as an infant.
I have on several occasions in the past wrapped the hands in clay
in this way, with similar success—not only with children, but also with
adults, even with a number of adult men. In all cases these individuals
had suffered severe abuse from an early age onwards. A number of
art therapy colleagues who work with Clay Field therapy in women’s
shelters in Europe use this exercise on a regular basis with beneficial
results.
The clay cavity the therapist shapes for the client’s hands quite
literally resembles the womb—often the last place such clients felt safe
and held in that crucial close contact with their mother. The womb-
quality is enhanced by the warm water poured into the cavity. In this
primary container the hands find a firm hold, which can be emphasized
if the therapist uses her hands to add slight pressure on the clay pile
from the outside. Mia associated her hands with babies in the womb,
without my prompting. She experimented with “kicking” against
my hands from the inside, through the layer of clay. It literally felt
to me like a baby’s movements inside a pregnant belly. Several times
she asked me if I could feel her kicking! She needed assurance of the
relationship with me. This is re-establishing the mirror neurons. Most
significant, though, is the fact that after she had experienced contact
with me, she could internalize this relationship, and her hands began to
communicate with each other, first through the marbles, later directly.
Her hands talked; she hummed and rocked, clearly regressed to the age
of a much younger, preschool child. This, too, is re-establishing the
mirror neurons.
Cooperation of the hands in this manner stimulates the neural
connections between the brain hemispheres (Wilson 1998). These
connections were certainly damaged in Mia’s case through trauma
and neglect. She could easily display teenage behavior with a range
of aggressive, antisocial tendencies and outbursts; and when her

fostermother went on holiday, she panicked and acted blindly from a
purely emotional perspective, unable to reflect—whereas after the safe
womb-house sessions she would engage in a number of conversations
with me about her need—and increasingly successful ability—to
modulate her social behavior, and especially manage her aggression,
in order to integrate at the new school. Progressively from then on she
could make connections between emotion and thinking, between her
brain hemispheres.
I am in no position to propose that such a simple exercise can undo
the critical damage that has been caused by years of abuse, insecure
attachment and trauma, yet something of just such a nature seems to
happen when the hands are held in this manner. Mia, like other clients
I have taken through this exercise, had no problem at all in staying in
her “house” for over 50 minutes in both sessions. That is a long time!
Yet she was fully engrossed for the entire time—engrossed in her play.
I can only assume that the deep, physiological body memories of the
prenatal state, where the infant floats in mystic union with the mother,
have profound healing potential. Her house in the following session
provided a safe space in which she could live as a happy child, absorbed
in playing. In Mia’s case the effect of these sessions was lasting and
enabled her, step by step, to steer her life into a more constructive
direction.
Alicia’s story
Alicia is eight years old. Her first Clay Field session illustrates several
simple key developmental steps (9.20).
• She explores and investigates the ground by running her fingers
over the surface, creating a pattern on the surface (9.20a).
• She investigates the boundary of the box (9.20b).
• She can open up the surface and look into it (9.20c). Her hands
find out they can have a relationship with the material.
• She can even remove something from it! She used a tool—an
ice cream scoop—to excavate a lump of clay from the bottom.
She holds it. She shapes a ball (9.20d). She can do things! She
finds certainty in the organization of her sense of touch. She
gains competence. But is this for real?
• So she destroys the ball. She squashes it (9.20e).

• And shapes another ball, which she places in a puddle of water
in the center (9.20f ).
• She repeats the process and places the second ball on top of the
first one. She squashes and shapes two more balls. In the end
four balls are piled on top of each other in the center (9.20g).
• She pokes two toothpicks into the second ball (9.20h). A figure
is standing there. ME!
She beams with pride!
9.20a 9.20b
9.20c 9.20d
9.20e 9.20f
9.20g 9.20h
In simple steps Alicia moves from skin sense (1) to balance (2) to depth
sensibility (3). Her afferent motor impulse to make an indentation in
the field in (3) finds its corresponding sensory echo in the reafferent
balls at the end.
Finding hold, finding reliability in what is present—Winnicott
(1971) describes this process with great precision. The toddler destroys
and retrieves; is “gone” and “there.” Alicia can take something; she can
trust her vital impulse to desire, she can squash it to “death,” and it
survives. These simple steps are the core experience at the Clay Field. I
can destroy and it survives. I can be destroyed, overwhelmed, lost and
gone; and I can come back, intact. I may disappear, but I can re-emerge
from the dark and confusion. Identity can get lost, but it can be found
again! This is how we acquire trust!
Alicia is obviously still shy and hesitant. She does not dare to
take on the depth and the mass of the clay; but she has in these first
explorations made a profound and lasting discovery. Her ego can dare
and be crushed; however, she has had a tiny taste of the eternal Self.
Contrary to popular belief, trauma can be healed. Not only can it be
healed, but in many cases it can be healed without long hours of
therapy, without the painful reliving of memories and without
continuing reliance on medication. We must realize that it is neither
necessary nor possible to change past events. Old trauma symptoms
are examples of bound-up energy and lost lessons. The past doesn’t
matter when we learn how to be present; every moment becomes new
and creative. (Levine 1997 p. 39)
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the Developing Brain and Psychotherapy: Minds in the Making.” University College
London.
Schore, A. (2003a) Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self. New York, NY, and London:
W.W. Norton & Co.
Schore, A. (2003b) Affect Regulation and Repair of the Self. New York, NY, and London: W.W.
Norton & Co.
Silva, K. da (2000) Gesundheit in unseren Händen: Mudras – die Kommunikation mit unserer
Lebenskraft durch Anregung der Fingerreflexzonen. Munich: Droemersche Verlagsanstalt.
Spielrein, S. (1986) Die Destruktion als Ursache des Werdens. Tübingen: Edition Discord. [English
edition (1994) Destruction as the Cause of Coming into Being.]
Steele, W. (2003) “Using Drawing in Short-Term Trauma Resolution.” In C.A. Malchiodi (ed.)
Handbook of Art Therapy. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Suzuki, S. (2006) Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice.
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Teicher, M. (2000) “Wounds that time won’t heal: The neurobiology of child abuse.” The
Dana Foundation. Available at www.dana.org/news/cerebrum.detail.aspx?id=3378,
accessed on July 2, 2012.
Trevarthen, C. (1995) “Mother and Baby – Seeing Artfully Eye to Eye.” In R. Gregory, J.
Harris, P. Heard and D. Rose (eds) The Artful Eye. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tschachler-Nagy, G. and Fleck, A. (2006) Die Arbeit am Tonfeld nach Heinz Deuser, Eine
entwicklungsfördernde Methode für Kinder, Jugendliche und Erwachsene. Keutschach:
Tschachler-Nagy.
Tschachler-Nagy, G. and Fleck, A. (2007) Im Greifen sich Begreifen. Die Arbeit am Tonfeld nach
Heinz Deuser. Keutschach: Verlag Tonfeld-Anna Sutter.
Van der Kolk, B.A. (1996) “The Complexity of Adaptation to Trauma: Self-Regulation,
Stimulus Discrimination, and Characterological Development.” In B.A. van der Kolk, A.
McFarlane and L. Weisaeth (eds) Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience of
Mind, Body and Society. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Van der Kolk, B.A. (2006) “Foreword.” In P. Ogden Trauma and the Body. New York, NY: W.W.
Norton & Co.

Van der Kolk, B.A. (2011) Trauma und Gehirn: Der Beitrag der Neurowissenschaft zur Traumatherapie
(DVD 1 and 2, English/German). Weggis, Schweiz: 5. Schweizer Bildungsfestival,
August 23, 2011. Mühlheim: Auditorium Netzwerk.
Weinrich, A. (2006) “Am Anfang war die Hand.” In G. Tschachler-Nagy and A. Fleck (eds)
Die Arbeit am Tonfeld nach Heinz Deuser, Eine entwicklungsfördernde Methode für Kinder,
Jugendliche und Erwachsene. Keutschach: Tschachler-Nagy.
Weizäcker, V. von (1986) Der Gestaltkreis. Stuttgart: Thieme Verlag.
Wilson, F.R. (1998) The Hand. New York, NY: Vintage Books.
Winnicott, D.W. (1964) The Child, the Family, and the Outside World. [Reprinted (1987)
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Winnicott, D.W. (1971) Playing and Reality. [Reprinted (2009) Oxford: Routledge.]
Winnicott, D.W. (1986) Home is Where We Start From. [Reprinted (1990) London: Penguin.]
Further Reading
Briere, J. (1992) Child Abuse Trauma, Theory and Treatment of the Lasting Effects. Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage Publications.
Deuser, H. Arbeit am Tonfeld. Lehr DVD 1–8. Available from tonfeldverein@web.de.
Deuser, H. and Elbrecht, C. (2009) Work at the Clay Field. Grasping what Moves Us: Possibilities of
Haptic Evolvement (Set of 7 DVDs). Claerwen Retreat, Australia, October 2009.
Deuser, H. and Levine, P. (2005) Arbeit am Tonfeld, Kinder und Trauma (DVD), June 5–8,
Weggis. Hinterzarten: Institut für Gestaltbildung.
Dürckheim, K. von (1971) The Way of Transformation. London: Allen and Unwin.
Elbrecht, C. (1990) “Das Geführte Zeichnen auf dem Hintergrund der Initiatischen Therapie.”
In H. Petzold and I. Orth (eds) Die neuen Kreativitätstherapien. Handbuch der Kunsttherapie I
und II. Paderborn: Junfermann-Verlag.
Feldenkrais, M. (1977) Awareness Through Movement. New York, NY: Harper & Row.
Gehlen, A. (1964) Urmensch und Spätkultur. Frankfurt: Athenaeum Verlag.
Heidegger, M. (1996) Being and Time. New York, NY: State University of New York Press.
Jung, C.G. (ed.) (1990) Man and his Symbols. London: Arcana.
Krystal, P. (1986) Cutting the Ties that Bind. Shaftesbury: Element Books.
Lev-Wiesel, R. and Slater, N. (2007) “Art Making as a Response to Terrorism.” In F. Kaplan
(ed.) Art Therapy and Social Action. London and Philadelphia, PA: Jessica Kingsley
Publishers.
Levine, P.A. (2001) It Won’t Hurt Forever. Boulder, CO: Sounds True.
Levine, P.A. (2003) Sexual Healing. Boulder, CO: Sounds True.
Levine, P.A. (2005) Healing Trauma. Boulder, CO: Sounds True.

Levine, P.A. (2010) Resolving Trauma in Psychotherapy (DVD). Mill Valley, CA: psychotherapy.
net.
Miller, A. (1983) For Your Own Good: The Roots of Violence in Child Rearing. London: Virago
Press.
Myss, C. (1997) Anatomy of the Spirit. New York, NY: Bantam Books.
Neumann, E. (1959) Art and the Creative Unconcious. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Neumann, E. (1973) The Origins and History of Consciousness. Princeton, NJ: Bollingen.
Piaget, J. (1955) The Child’s Construction of Reality. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Scholt, M. and Gavron, T. (2006) “Therapeutic qualities of clay-work in art therapy and
psychotherapy: A review.” Art Therapy Journal of the American Art Therapy Association 23,
2, 66–72.
Selver, C. and Brooks, C. (2007) Reclaiming Vitality and Presence: Sensory Awareness as a Practice
for Life. Edited by R. Lowe and S. Laeng-Gilliatt. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.
Siegel, D.J. (2010) Mindsight: Change Your Brain and Your Life. Melbourne: Scribe Publications.
Slater, N. (2003) “Re-visions on Group Art Therapy with Women who have Experienced
Domestic and Sexual Violence.” In S. Hogan (ed.) Gender Issues in Art Therapy. London
and Philadelphia, PA: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Van der Kolk, B.A. (2002) The Secret Life of the Brain. PBS Video series. Available to view at
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-secret-life-of-the-brain.
328
Subject Index
Note: Page numbers in italics as “education of the and trauma 38

refer to figures or tables. senses” 100 see also brain; hands
personal experience of body memories 21, 38, 41
Aborigines 17, 29 author 20–1, 22, 39 body sensations 124–5, 126,
abuse 102, 108, 156, 255, phenomenological 164
284 approach 21 body-awareness 39, 41, 123
achievements, and self-esteem resources 180–4, 288 dual awareness 169–70
180, 289 attachment 285, 287 bottom-up approach, trauma
acquired movements 96 attention deficit disorder 134, 154, 175, 177–9
actional space 73, 74 (ADD) 87, 277, 300 box of Clay Field, symbolic
Adam and Eve 17 autonomic nervous system significance 15, 17,
adama (earth) 17 134, 166 104–11
adolescents, perception of autonomy 272–3 bottom 107–9, 227, 264
Clay Field 282–3 avoidance 163 boundaries 104, 105,
adrenalin 157, 158 Ayurvedic medicine 77 106, 236, 252
adventurer’s mind 119 corners 104, 106, 107,
affect 124, 165 “baby talk” 33 136, 138, 174, 184,
affirmations 153 balance, sense of 42, 47–51, 226, 236, 256
Alexander the Great 77 56 sentries/“watchtowers”
alignment/misalignment 48, acquiring 47 106, 107
54, 83–4 case histories/examples sides 93, 107, 136, 140,
alphabet 18, 34 49–51 187, 200, 227, 246,
ambidexterity 24 duality in balance 65 254
ambivalence, emotional 208 haptic balance, acquiring box–clay relationship 139
amygdala 166, 286 at Clay Field 66–7 Braille, Louis 18

analytical psychology 113 haptic object relations brain
ancestors 25, 27–8 through 64–8 amygdala 166, 286
anchors 181–3, 289 imbalance 48 and childhood
animal studies 21–2, 156–7 interoceptors 41 movements 32–3
animus 113 space and balance 66 evolution 16
anxiety 41 as vestibular sense 41, 47 functions 100
apes 25–6, 27, 29–30 ball, rolling 80 and hands 24–36
archetypes 17 beginner’s mind 118 interdependent
child 47, 86 behavior 165 relationship 28
father 47, 51, 101, 112 binocular vision 25 language learning 34
mother 43, 114, 115, bioenergetics 41, 123 representation of hands
304 blind people 18, 81 and face in brain
Aristotle 18, 77 body 26, 27
arousal cycle 160 dissociation from 21, 48, hands–brain–body
art therapy 121 81, 113, 162–5, 187 connection 39
clay objects created in jellyfish analogy 171 hands–brain–language
17–18 posture see posture connection 31–6
developmental milestones as a resource 166–72 hippocampus 166, 167,
35 self-perception through 286
199 limbic system 286
329
brain cont. cave walls, drawing on 34 working with compared

mother-child relationship centering 213–14 to adults 266–83
285 central nervous system (CNS) see also infants; toddlers
motor cortex 32 25, 26, 135 civilian trauma 162
neo-cortex 27, 78 chakras (energy centers) 112 clay
neuro-transmitters 131 chi (life energy) 77, 78, 132 “chewing” 52, 54, 61
prefrontal cortex 27, 166 child archetype 47, 86 core qualities 44, 89, 99
representation of hands children hold, finding 99, 205–7,
and face in 26, 27 and Clay Field 272–3
size 26 as container (pre- as mass 67
brain hemispheres kindergarten age) pliability of 28, 99, 128
hands and brain 24, 276–8 sacred powers 17
29–31, 32 as creation of own wet 57, 101
left brain 31, 233, 268 world and realities work set-up 99–100
right brain 31, 233, 241, (adolescents) Clay Field
285 282–3 description 15
work set-up, at Clay Field as functional field haptic balance, acquisition
112, 113 (preschool age) at 66–7
breathing 111, 124 278–9 as mirror 288
as organized space topography 112–16
caregivers, contact of infants (school age) 279 work process see work
with 47, 105, 113, as personal space process, at Clay Field
209, 269, 282, 285, (secondary school work set-up see work set-
287 age) 281–2 up, at Clay Field
haptic object relations as space for own see also Work at the
56, 59 creations (primary Clay Field
case histories/examples school age) 280–1 Clay Field–client relationship
balance, sense of 49–51 developmental phases 138–9
depth sensibility 53–66, see developmental clay products 17
75–6 phases client–clay relationship 139
gestalt formation, motor milestones 32–3 client–therapist relationship
sensorimotor stages movements and brain 138
148–9, 151–2 function 32–3 cognitive experience–somatic
hand movements 79 needs of 48 experience relationship
hands–brain–body object constancy 228–9, 139

connection 39–40 273–5 cognitive integration 52, 88,
sensorimotor process traumatized see 153–4
192–3 traumatized children, constancy
skin sense 44–7, 62–3 working with emotional 207–10, 263
specific examples work sessions stages object see object constancy
Alicia 320–3 268–75 subject 210–13, 263,
Jen 153, 255–64 entering the room and 264
Jennifer 64, 194 making contact contact, skin sense 59–60
Jody 222–33 270–1 containers
Lisa 245–55 sitting down and Clay Field as 276–8
Max 297–300 finding orientation pouring water into 102
Mia 312–20 270, 271–2 skin as 56–7
Rose 153, 233–45, making contact with counter-transference 121
238 Clay Field/finding crawling 32, 111
Tom 300–12 a hold 270, creation myths 17
traumatized children 272–3 creative destruction 16, 273
294–323 object constancy, acquiring emotional
work set-up at Clay Field finding 270, constancy through
100–7, 109, 110, 273–5 207–10
111, 115, 117 case histories 302, 303
Subject Index 331
dancing 287 equalization of differences, gestalt formation,

deafness 34 haptic object relations sensorimotor stages
depth sensibility 42, 51–6 67–8 122, 140–52
case histories 53–6, 75–6 erect posture 26 case histories/examples
haptic object relations evolution of human hand 148–9, 151–2
through 69–76 24–9 intention 142
desire, skin sense 61, 62 expansion, skin sense 58–9 optimal gestalt 144–52,
Dessoir, Max 18 exploration, traumatized 153, 206, 283
destruction children 295–7 primary gestalt 140, 141,
creative 16, 207–10, 273 exteroceptors 41, 42, 56, 143, 149–50, 151,
as self-realization 218–19 124, 135, 153, 169 152, 188, 244, 254,
developmental delays 15 eyes, closure during Clay 274
developmental phases 100, Field work 100, 118, gestures 16, 24, 27, 77, 172
101, 275–83 135, 245 gone-and-there relationship
pre-kindergarten 276–8 66, 68, 73
preschool 16, 278–9 family breakdown 112 grabbing 55, 61
school age 279 father archetype 47, 51, 101, grasping 33, 60–1, 100
primary school 280–1 112 grip 26, 30
secondary school 281–2 fear 16, 125, 134, 207 guided imagery 181, 223–4
adolescence 282–3 Feldenkrais, Moshe 32
developmental trauma felt sense 120, 122–7, 133, Hand, The (Wilson) 26
disorder (DTD) 162 190 hand movements 32, 35
diabetes, case study 65 fertility goddesses 17 examples 79, 80
dialog 130 fight–flight response 21, handling 16, 39, 75–6
pressure effecting 70–1 156, 157, 166, 173, handprints 29
sensory 57 176, 178, 285 hands
therapeutic, with hands fingerprints 77 base of hand 78–9
see therapeutic dialog fingers 30, 58–9, 81–2 and brain 24–36
with hands fingertips 42, 59, 77, 81 interdependent
digging 54, 61–2 index finger 58, 74 relationship 28
dissociation 21, 48, 81, 113, middle finger 59 language learning 34
187 ring finger 77 representation of hands
SIBAM model 162–5 flashbacks 163, 170 and face in brain
distance 73 flow 89–90 26, 27
distancing 184 footprints 28 center of hand 80

drilling 60, 74–5 forearms 85–6 dominant and non-
dual awareness 169–70 forelimbs 29, 30 dominant 30–1
duality 64, 65, 73 fortrollendes Werden (ongoing embryo 102
becoming) 128 evolution of human hand
earth 17 freezing/frozen movements 24–9
Eastern medicine 77 16, 21, 64, 96, 203, examples of movements
echo 28, 133, 137, 149, 254 251 78, 79, 80
ego 51, 100, 101, 131, 142 healing of trauma 156, fingers see fingers
ego-shadow 216 161, 168, 177, 178, form and structure 24
elbows 85–6 186 hands–brain–body
emotions 16, 20, 21, 134, see also immobility connection 39
207 hands–brain–language
emotional constancy Galvani, Luigi 78 connection 31–6
207–10, 263 Genesis, Book of 17, 99 kinesthetic messages 96
felt sense 120, 122–7, gestalt 91, 141 language of 37–96
125 gestalt circle 122, 127–32, primitive characteristics
empathy 120 138 25
encasements, hands and see also reafference in relationship 39, 134,
forearms 86–8 principle 142
“seeing” with 39, 43
hands cont. initiation rites 266, 267 learning difficulties 35

as sense organs 42 inner ear, balance located in 47 left brain 31, 233, 268
therapeutic dialog with inner ground, finding left-handedness 24, 31
89–96 213–15 libido 15, 17, 36, 89, 99,
topography 77–88 insectivores 25 112
traumatized 83, 88 integration and gestalt circle 129,
haptic object relations 56–76 cognitive 52, 88, 153–4 130, 132, 133
equalization of differences with one’s own other resources 198–9
67–8 220–1 life movement 140
through depth sensibility sensory 52 limbic system, brain 286
69–76 shadow 216–18 liquid clay 57, 101
through sense of balance social engagement system literacy 34
64–8 179 love, communication through
through skin sense 56–64 therapeutic dialog with touch 15
haptic perception 18, 19, 39, hands 92 “Lucy” (early southern ape)
42–3, 100, 120, 123 traumatized children 297, 25–6, 27, 28
versus visual perception 302
37, 38–9 intelligence 27 meaning 165
see also touch intention 218 meridians 77, 78, 132
head 15 internal sense 41 metabolic shutdown 177
heart rate 158 interoceptors 41, 42, 56, middle finger 59
hemispheres, brain see brain 124, 135, 153, 164 milestones, motor 32–3
hemispheres interspace 73, 74 mimesis 27, 33
hieroglyphics 34 mirror neurons 32, 120, 285,
hippocampus 166, 167, 286 joint strengthening 42–3, 70 287, 319
hominids 26, 27 Julius Caesar 77 mother archetype 43, 114,
Homo erectus (upright man) Jung, Carl 106, 113, 145, 115, 304
26, 27, 28, 30, 31 211 motor cortex 32
Homo sapiens 27, 31 motor skills 34, 35
how-questions 90–1 Kiese-Himmel, Christiane 35 milestones 32–3
humanity, accepting 220–1 kinesthetic sense 16, 31, 41, mouth 26, 27
hyperarousal 156–7 42, 89, 100, 143, 164, movements
hypoarousal 177 186, 264, 268 and brain function, in
action 79, 111, 125, 136, children 32–3
images 164, 181, 208 172, 185 as cause for concern 95–6
immobility/immobilization claywork 15, 20, 22, 78, in Clay Field 52
21, 39, 139, 156, 157, 125, 126, 136, 184, dominant and non-
160–1, 177, 177–80, 276, 288 dominant hands
235 hand messages 96 30–1
implicit memory 42, 125, knowledge sharing 27 finding reliability through
163 kundalini 132, 194, 199 202–4
impressions 28, 70, 71–2 frozen 16, 21, 96
imprints 28, 29, 70, 72, 73 language hand 32, 35
index finger 58, 74 basis for 34 examples 79, 80
individuation process 142, cognitive basis for 27 skin sense 58
211 development of 32 mudras 77
infants 15, 33, 38, 43 evolution of 27 mythology 205
attachment 285, 287 first words 32
contact with caregivers of hands 37–96 needs 48
47, 105, 113, 120, hands–brain–language neo-cortex 27, 78
209, 249, 269, 282, connection 31–6 nerves 78
285, 287 impairment 35 neurons 78, 120, 285, 287,
crawling 32, 111 innate skills 16 319
see also children; learning through motor neuro-transmitters 131
toddlers skills 34
words 33–4
Subject Index 333
Nine situations 122, pelvis, base of hand raised-dot alphabet (Braille)

198–221 representing 78 18, 81
finding one’s own ground pendulation 66–7, 139, 166, raking, skin sense 61–2
213–15 170–2, 175, 203, 241 rape 149
object constancy, reaching work at Clay Field 173–6 reafference 122, 132
205–10 perception, haptic see haptic reafference principle 132–40,
one’s humanity, accepting perception 254, 264
220–1 phonetic alphabet 34 case history 136–7
orientation, finding place, sense of 58 echo 133, 137
201–4 play 16, 56, 303 opposites 138–9
railway station metaphor post-traumatic stress disorder see also gestalt circle
198 (PTSD) 20, 41, 85, realization, taking on the
reliability see reliability 161, 162 consequences of one’s
shadow integration animal studies 21–2, 156 own 218–19
216–18 case histories 212, 222, reiki 220
subject constancy 210– 232 reliability
13, 263, 264 symptoms 164, 166, 167, finding in what is present
nurturing adult/therapist 168, 222, 232 201
102, 103 posture 111, 124, 148 finding through
see also uprightness movement 202–4
object constancy 192 preciousness 262, 264 finding through
children 228–9, 270, prefrontal cortex 27, 166 orientation 201–2
273–5 prehensile hand, primates 25 opposite, shifting focus
creative destruction 16, pre-kindergarten child, onto 200–1
207–10 perception of Clay Field relying on something else
finding a hold 205–7 276–8 200–1
opposites 138–9 preschool child 16 self-perception through
shifting focus onto an perception of Clay Field body 199
opposite 200–1 278–9 “re-membering” 21
optical illusions 28, 37 pressure 69–70 retraumatization 21, 41, 88,
optimal gestalt 144–52, 153, dialog, effecting 70–1 139, 161, 168, 288,
206, 283 pressure points (tsubos) 77 295
organisms 122–3, 131 primary gestalt 140, 141, Révéz, Geza 18
orientation 142 143, 188, 274 rhythms 62–3, 66
children 271–2 case histories 149–50, right brain 31, 233, 241,
finding 201–4 151, 152, 244, 254 285
and touch 28 primary school child, right-handedness 24, 31
other-than-me relationship perception of Clay Field ring finger 77
51, 52, 64, 66, 68, 280–1 ritual significance 17, 18
200, 208, 222 primates 25–6, 27, 28, role-plays 296
overload 167–8 29–30
primeval hand 25 safe spaces 136, 137, 184,
palmistry 77 problem-solving, 289
panic attacks 163 improvisational 27 safety factors 288
paralysis, emotional projection 17–18 school age child 16
see freezing/ proprioception 28, 41, 100, perception of Clay Field
frozen movements; 136, 137 279
immobility/ props 116–17 scratching, skin sense 61–2
immobilization proximal senses 37, 41 secondary school child,
parasympathetic nervous psyche, rebalancing 17 perception of Clay Field
system 134 psychosomatics 122, 131 281–2
participation mystique 43, psychotherapy 124 self-awareness 29
200 pulling 69, 74 self-identity 51
pectoral fin, hand evolved pulse diagnosis 77 self-movements 96
from 25 pushing 53, 55, 69, 73
self-perception 28, 39, 51, somatic nervous system 134 therapist companion, role
199 sound, rhythmic 62 (accompanying “human
self-realization, destruction as space you”) 118–21
218–19 actional 73, 74 three-point-grip 26
senses and balance 66 thumb 33, 59, 78
balance see balance, depth sensibility 73–4 evolution of 26, 30
sense of foreign, establishing own toddlers 16, 32
core senses 41–2, 56 position in 210–13 togetherness, duality in 65
damaged 41 organized (Clay Field) tonic immobility 21, 39, 139,
felt sense 120, 122–7, 279 177–80
133, 190 for own creations (Clay tool-making 27
proximal 37, 41 Field) 280–1 tooth metaphor, clay 52,
skin see skin sense ownership of (Clay Field) 54, 61
sensorimotor feedback 38 281–2 top-down approach 81
sensorimotor hand safe spaces 136, 137, topography
movements, in Clay 184, 289 Clay Field 112–16
Field 35 skin sense 58 hands 77–88
sensorimotor process 184–95 two-dimensional 66 touch 15, 16, 18, 28, 34,
case histories/examples Sprechende Hände (Brockmann 125, 185
192–3 and Geiss) 56 gestalt circle 131–2
sensory awareness 18, 43, 89, squashing 60–1, 127 and haptic perception
95, 175, 190, 255, 274 squeezing 52 37–8
work process, at Clay stabilization 177, 293–5 inappropriate 38
Field 133, 134, 138, stereoscopic vision 25 skin sense 57, 58
140, 141, 144, 147, Stern, William 32 see also haptic
152 stimulation, skin sense 58 perception
sensory integration 52 strangling 55 transference 121
sensuality 44 stress hormones 286 transitional objects 270,
separation, act of 72–3 subject constancy, reaching 291–3
settling down, skin sense 210–13, 263, 264 transpersonal bodywork 41,
57–8 survival instinct 21, 22, 132, 123
sexual abuse 149, 156 155, 158, 185, 194, trauma
sexuality 15, 38, 44, 94–5, 199, 286 after-effects, research into
233 sympathetic arousal/ 155–6
shadow, the 113 sympathetic nervous art therapy resources

shadow integration 216–18 system 134, 156, 180–4, 288
shaking 55, 157, 176 178–9 and body 38
Shiatsu 39, 123 synesthesia 100 body as a resource
shoulder joint 30 166–72
shoveling, skin sense 61–2 tactile contact see touch bottom-up approach 134,
SIBAM model, dissociation taking away 75 154, 175, 177–9
162–5 terror 20 children see traumatized
skin terror of memory 21, 125 children
as container 56–7 terrorism 158, 169 client groups 161–2
perception of the other theatre groups 287 versus developmental
with 58 therapeutic dialog with hands deficiencies 88
skin sense 42–7 21, 89–96 dissociation 21, 162–5
case histories/examples basic rules 93–5 early childhood 286, 287
44–7 flow 89–90 exploration of 178
haptic object relations how-questions 90–1 healing of 15, 155–95
through 56–64 integration 92 imbalance, causing 48
touch 15, 57, 58 movements as cause for long-term 21
social engagement system concern 95–6 pendulation 170–2
179 what-questions 91–2 personal experience of
Somatic Experiencing 19, 21 therapeutic resonance 120 author 20
Subject Index 335
psychophysiology of 21, vampire bats 27 therapist companion,

155–8 Vedas 18 role (accompanying
recall of traumatic vertical centering 215 “human you”) 98,
experiences, impaired Vietnam War 156 118–21
21 violence 87, 120, 156, 161 water 100–3
relational 286 case histories 137–8, 149 wrist 30, 84–5
sensorimotor process vision/visual perception
184–95 binocular or stereoscopic yin and yang 77
social engagement system vision 25 yoga 41, 123
179 discouraging at Clay Field
sympathetic arousal 100, 118, 135, 245 Zen meditation 41, 123
178–9 versus haptic perception
symptoms 158–61 37, 38–9
tonic immobility 21, 39, “seeing” with hands
139, 177–80 39, 43
traumatized children visual flashbacks 163, 170
achievements, focus on visuomotor behavior 28
289 vocabulary 32
anchors 289 vortex, trauma 170–1, 173,
case histories/examples 268
294, 295, 296
Alicia’s story 320–3 wanting 61
Max’s story 297–300 war trauma 156, 162
Mia’s story 312–20 water 44, 48, 91, 100–3,
Tom’s story 300–12 131, 174
death, preoccupation with case histories 225, 247–
299–300 8, 259, 314–15
distancing 289 water–clay relationship 139
games 290–1 what-questions 91–2
resources 289–91 “wobbly oscillation” 171
safe spaces 289 words 33–4
stages of trauma healing Work at the Clay Field 19,
exploration 295–7 28, 31, 32, 38
integration 297 work process, at Clay Field
stabilizing 293–5 122–54

transitional objects 270, cognitive integration
291–3 153–4
traumatic events 21 felt sense 122–7
working with 284–323 gestalt circle 127–32,
see also trauma 138
traumatized hands 83, 88 reafference principle
trust issues 16, 20, 22, 25, 132–40
59 sensorimotor stages of
tsubos (pressure points) 77 gestalt formation
140–52
unconscious, the 113, 118, work set-up, at Clay Field
132, 142 98–121
upper arms 30 box 15, 17, 104–11
uprightness 47, 48, 101, 306 case histories/examples
and impressions 72 100, 103, 104, 105,
see also Homo erectus 106, 107, 109, 110,
(upright man) 111, 115, 117
Urschlamm (primal mud) 101 clay 99–100
props 116–17
Author Index
Bernhard-Hegglin, A., 145 Kagin, S., 185, 276 Riedel, I., 112, 114, 115
Bolte-Taylor, J., 31, 113, 185 Keleman, S., 41, 123, 133 Rothschild, B., 38, 41, 113,
Brockmann, A.D., 43, 56, 57, Kinnane, L., 276 124, 125, 126, 135,
59, 61, 66, 69, 71, 72, Kirschmann, K., 275, 294, 139, 161, 162, 164,
74, 275 295, 296, 297 167, 168, 169, 170,
Kline, M., 38, 113, 139, 173, 173, 285, 286, 287,
Damasio, A., 125 190, 285, 286, 291 295
Deuser, H., 19–20, 21, 25, Klorer, G.P., 285, 294 Rowe, M.L., 32
29, 36, 39, 42, 47, 48, Kramer, E., 294
51, 52, 56, 88, 94, 98, Krystal, P., 181 Schmidt, H.-M., 24, 25
100, 118, 119, 120, Schore, A., 113, 285, 286,
122, 129, 130, 131, Lanz, U., 24, 25 287
132, 134, 140–1, 142, Latto, R., 287 Silva, K. da, 77
144, 145, 190, 194, Levine, P.A., 19, 21, 22, 38, Spielrein, S., 207
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336

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CORNELIA ELBRECHT

Copyright © 2012. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. All rights reserved.

“Whenever methods and techniques in psychotherapy are founded in

“This is a guidebook which details the processes of healing trauma

this innovative art therapy approach offers a treatment intervention that

“Work at the Clay Field is an important option for gaining access

“Work at the Clay Field is at the pulse of modern neuroscience. As a

“This is a full-bodied work covering an in-depth description of trauma

“Whenever methods and techniques in psychotherapy are founded in

“This is a guidebook which details the processes of healing trauma

this innovative art therapy approach offers a treatment intervention that

“Work at the Clay Field is an important option for gaining access

“Work at the Clay Field is at the pulse of modern neuroscience. As a

“This is a full-bodied work covering an in-depth description of trauma

Focusing-Oriented Art Therapy

The Insightful Body

Speaking about the Unspeakable

Trauma, Tragedy, Therapy

eISBN 978 0 85700 193 1

Expressive and Creative Arts Methods for Trauma Survivors

Jessica Kingsley Publishers

First published in 2013

Copyright © Cornelia Elbrecht 2013

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

ISBN 978 1 84905 3457

Foreword by Professor Heinz Deuser. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Part I: Understanding the Hands

Part III: Working at the Clay Field with Adults

Part IV: Working at the Clay Field with Children

Work at the Clay Field is a particularly efficient method by which

we are sufficiently certain of and reliable to ourselves, we will go beyond

to create and generate ourselves in our anthropological needs and

My heartfelt gratitude goes to Heinz Deuser, who communicated the

for your contributions. I wish to express my gratitude to the German

Cornelia Elbrecht B.A., M.A., AThR, was born in Germany. She

The Clay Field is a rectangular box measuring about 36cm by 42cm

children alike weave these developmental layers into a complex web

transpersonal body memories into a lump of clay until they believe it

the blind (Grunwald 2008 p. 57). Geza Révéz (1878–1955), who is

Martin Grunwald, professor at the University of Leipzig, is the

work has led me to an increasing understanding of trauma; innumerable

my hands, painting and sculpting, gave me some sense of self. I was

underpin my phenomenological approach. The recent advances in

often incapable of remembering and verbalizing the trauma and that

Field, in particular in the context of trauma healing.

The Hands and

(Schmidt and Lanz 2004 p. 1–2)

The evolution of the human hand

A distinctive feature of primate evolution has been the development of

un-ape-like hand and a chimpanzee-sized brain (Wilson 1998). Lucy’s

Improvisational problem-solving and tool-making is the beginning

social skills about child-rearing, tool-making, cooperative gathering

reflect on one’s actions, to be conscious; how action becomes thought

my outstretched arms into it

The hands and the two brain hemispheres

improvisational and externally driven by factors in the environment.

hand, that writing, drawing and throwing by right-handers are almost

The hands–brain–language connection

did language develop? I find this exciting in so far as my observation

time for the activation of these functions. It is hard to go back in the

This is the child’s first discovery of objects and its hand is