The Clay Field
The Clay Field
In 2017, I completed a year-long training in a unique and extraordinarily powerful therapeutic approach called the Clay Field. From my own personal encounters in the Field and from my facilitation of dozens of clients in the Field since then, I can honestly say the experience is profound and life-changing. I’m sold on the efficacy of this approach to access and offer resolution to deeply embedded, unconscious material in a safe, contained way.
What Is It?
The Clay Field is simply a flat rectangular wooden box that holds about 15 kg of good quality clay. A bowl of water and a sponge is also supplied and through these humble offerings a whole world opens up for the hands to explore… and negotiate … and problem solve … and play … and express …. and struggle … and ultimately find themselves. In short, this magic box of clay is a facilitator of self-discovery.
Watch This
To get some idea of what The Clay Field is about I recommend watching this little 15 minute YouTube clip.
(Although this footage shows its use with a child, the Clay Field is equally potent when used by adults – all be the approach and the facilitation of such an entirely different process. For starters, adults ideally work with their eyes closed (if that feels emotionally safe for the individual in question). This can take them into a deeply regressive, sensory experience of exploration and emotionally reparative work that bypasses cognitive processes).
Non Cognitive & Non-Verbal
While the theoretical underpinnings of the Clay Field are dense and grounded in decades of research, none of this need be explained to the one entering the experience. For the most part it’s an entirely non-verbal or bottom-up approach to self-discovery and change. In other words, it’s not cognitive and no story need be told. Your hands will do the work necessary in the clay and my job, as your companioning therapist, is to facilitate and contain that in a way that keeps you safe. That said, upon completion, there is usually some discussion around ‘what just happened’ which offers your brain the opportunity to reflect upon and integrate the experience just lived.
Who Can Benefit?
As a therapeutic approach, the Clay Field is particularly suited to those suffering from trauma, abuse related issues, grief and loss issues, insecure early attachment patterns and, more generally, those wanting to recover their True-Self in order to come home to themselves and stand in the fullness of their own power. (Sorry that that last bit sounds a bit naff but I can’t think of a better way to explain it).
How Does it Work?
According to the teaching of Dr Cornelia Elbrecht who brought the training to Australia and who wrote the book entitled, ‘Trauma Healing at the Clay Field: A Sensorimotor Art Therapy Approach’, any ‘work’ at the Clay Field centres on touch which 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. Encounters at the Clay Field involve an intense tactile experience that can link us to a primordial mode of communication, to a preverbal stage in our life. This is the beneficial quality of clay in a therapeutic context.
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 more basic life impulses or libido. The hands in the ‘here and now’ are encouraged to find new ways to deal with any unfinished business from ‘back there and then’ and to complete actions that previously remained incomplete. Essentially, your body gets to rewrite your story from the bottom-up, taking what it needs and doing what is necessary to heal itself from an intuitive reworking.
‘Upon completion, there will be no finished product, no artwork to show to friends or take home and no sculpture to be fired in a kiln. At the end of a Clay Field session, only intense body memories remain. The kinaesthetic motor action combined with sensory perception will have lasting therapeutic benefits, especially in cases of emotional healing.’ (Institute for Sensorimotor Art Therapy & School for Initiatic Art Therapy)
This unique art therapy approach is recognized in Europe as a discipline in its own right and is practiced by over 500 Clay Field Therapists in numerous institutions around the world.
For more information please visit this link.