Meet Eric Green

My uncle is a Jungian-oriented Catholic monsignor and introduced me to Jung’s writings, along with Joseph Campbell, Jean Houston, James Hillman, and Thomas Moore at a very young age. The spirituality and symbolism inherent within Jung’s archetypal psychology provided a new way to view for me to perceive the world around me make sense of suffering as well as meaning in my tumultuous adolescent developmental epoch. From a young age, I remember looking up to my uncle and wanting to like the same things he enjoyed. Later on, he would take me on many trips, infusing his Judeo-Christian, progressive beliefs with Jung’s psychology as part of our cultural experiences. I remember having a lengthy discussion with him, at about 13-years old, while playing Scrabble, about Jungian archetypes and the collective unconscious, alongside Buddhism. I was not quite sure at that time how to make sense of it all, but with consistent study and curiosity, I began to internalize parts of the psycho-spiritual aspects of Jung’s teachings. I took up interest in the enneagram and the Myers-Briggs and studies them extensively. And I attribute this early interest in Jung and his teachings solely to the influence of my uncle. This parlayed itself into my now life-long journey of studying, teaching, writing and incorporating Jung’s archetypal psychology into clinical practice with children. It was in my very early youth that my love affair with analytical psychology took shape and form. I am still attracted to Jung’s writings and the modern revisions from the post-Jungians due to the emphasis on the soul and the “soul making” that occurs through personality transformation described within Jungian psychoanalysis and the transference.

While I was completing my doctoral work in the mid 2000’s at the University of New Orleans, I was employed as an elementary school counselor. Having studied Jung in my graduate school curriculum, and attending educational workshops in archetypal psychology from various U.S. Jungian Institutes (they are typically found in many major cities), I created a “Color Your Mandala” self-awareness curriculum at the elementary school where I was employed. We conducted classroom guidance lessons and from within that developmentally-sensitive paradigm, asked children to create their mandalas (or “magic circles”). The following is a response from a 5 year-old female, “Doing the mandalas helped me understand my mother better, and now I don’t want to fight with her as much.” I also used sandplay when working with children in individual sessions at my elementary school, and they found it fun, relaxing, and helpful to clear their minds and work out different scenarios to difficult problems within their sand pictures.

Children’s psyches have access to art, play, and expressive media made available to facilitate an inter-subjective process for symbol depiction within the transference (i.e., coloring mandalas, sandplay, dreamwork, creating fairy tales). Dreams are honored and children are encouraged by the analyst to bring their dreams to the consulting room where they may be depicted in a dream journal or through sand pictures. No resolutions are sought nor does the analyst attempt to change a child’s bad dream or nightmare. The symbols are produced and the analyst trusts the psyche will facilitate the curative path toward personality transformation by going inward. Children’s psyches will take them where they need to go for healing, even if it’s in the most remote and darkest of places in the recesses of their tormented or traumatized souls. We stand with children as temporary guides (or mythical fairies) on their soul work of ‘becoming,’ then ultimately “being.” We support children as they catalyze on the power of psychic healing from connecting the archetypal and transcultural to the profanely personal. Mythopoetic language and fairy tales may provide a psychological landscape for the self-healing archetype to emerge as we actively yet symbolically communicate to children through the myths of bliss out of which they are living. From the analytical psychology perspective, psychic healing following trauma derives primarily from the numinous, inter-subjective therapeutic alliance where the child internalizes resiliency and externalizes shadowy, disaffected parts of the Self. We, as wounded healers, don’t heal children. We merely provide the temenos (or free and sheltered space) for self-healing to activate.

Jungian play’s micro-counseling skill sets are derived from the tenets of child-centered play therapy (CCPT) as espoused by Dr. Gary Landreth. We use variations of CCPT’s micro skills, such as facilitating self-esteem/setting limits/decision making/empathic responses. Where Jungian play and CCPT differ is the analytical attitude held by the therapist, which honors the symbolic and internal processes activated within the transference. The analytic attitude is the capacity of the analyst, and ultimately internalized by the child patient, to make sense of symbols through personal associations and development by working in the transference. This is what ultimately leads to the aim of Jungian play therapy- transformation by engagement with the symbols in the warm and non-judgmental therapeutic alliance. Also, we utilize interpretation, an advanced reflection of feeling with meaning, essentially. This initially appears jarring to some non-directive purists, but the interpretations are never provided to the child directly regarding their art or symbols productions. Rather, interpretations comprise the therapist giving a voice to the child’s connection between the external and internal within the transference that may not be available directly to the child’s conscious state. Interpretation, therefore, if done sparingly and only after trust and security are in place within the therapeutic dyad, serves as a catalytic tool to advance the child through their process of wounding or alchemical “nigredo” (soul blackening) before coming out on the other side, the numinosity afforded by self-healing.

Another distinctive element of Jungian play is Dora Kalff’s concept of the free and sheltered space: it’s absolutely seminal to understand the quiet and sacred holding environment that the therapist gently creates so that the child feels safe and steady in his or her journey into the dissent and eventual assent. Sandplay therapy is distinctive to the Jungian perspective. Sandplay therapy, in slight contrast to sand tray therapy used perhaps commonly by play therapists, is a qualitatively different process. Sandplay requires a lengthy period of personal analysis ascribed by Dora Kalff, and specific certification through the Sandplay Therapists of America to demonstrate proper training and experience through case studies and symbol education. Sandplay is not used to resolve problems or create new solutions, but is a purely non-directive intervention that involves little to no verbal processing at all between therapist and child. A final minor difference would be that Jungians view children’s play, and the metaphors and themes of their play, within archetypal and trans-cultural lens, not simply reductionistic or thematic. So play, per session and overtime, is viewed for themes akin to fairy tales, archetypes, and examples in literature of commonly occurring human experiences that can help make sense of where the child is in their own personal cosmology. From this standpoint, with an awareness, however unconscious, of the myth out of which they are living, children are then afforded opportunities to engage with the psychodrama, the underworld, and eventually ascend to transformation (alchemical or psychological gold).

I found myself repeating the same messages, quickly learning that people needed to hear things over and over and it took time to integrate new ideas about how their coping strategies had been designed to keep them safe when there was danger, and were not needed any more. I wanted to offer the group members something more concrete, a way they could remind themselves about the ideas they were learning, and I wrote Outgrowing the Pain.

For many reasons, putting that first little book together was something I could not have imagined. Decades later, I still get letters from survivors of childhood abuse, who find its message relevant and more importantly, causes them to reflect and gain insights that help move them forward. I don’t think any other book has been so rewarding as this one, written in the context of trying to be of service to women who had suffered deep injuries, in order to validate their experiences and help them take small steps forward.

There’s a lot of common-sense, practical implications from the depth psychology approach that can be applied to children, especially focusing on building the therapeutic relationship and the transference. This model provides clinicians with insights into engagement with children with the symbols of self-healing, including activities that are multi-cultural in nature due to the transpersonal process of symbol work, including coloring mandalas, facilitating fairy tales, creating sandplay pictures, drawing dreams, etc. I encourage Self Esteem Shop patrons who are interested in this approach to consider to make learning about depth psychology part of your life-long educational journey. You may want to (a) seek out professional conferences and workshops that focus on analytical designs and/or play therapy/sandplay with children, (b) locate the latest books and journal articles written on psychodynamic approaches and play therapy with children,(c) engage in personal counseling to work on awareness/integration of your shadow(s) and projections, (d) participate in a regular supervision group with other clinicians using play therapy and/or analytical approaches when working with children, and (e) eventually participate in more formalized, in-depth training from a Jungian framework, including becoming a credentialed sandplay therapist by the Sandplay Therapists of America (STA).

In going through my own psychotherapy, I had the privilege of spending time with Alexander Lowen, the founder of Bioenergetics. This was in the beginning days of all the focus we now have on using the body as a resource. He spent the day with our group and did an evaluation (a body scan) of each one of us. He indicated what he felt was the source of our issues and then prescribed specific body activities for our treatment. At that point in time I was pretty much talked out and was not making a great deal of progress. With the help of my therapist we started those body activities. It was amazing as I was able to release so much that I could not put in words. From that point on I felt that involving the body in some kind of healing process was critical to recovery and growth. Today regulation (resourcing the body) is viewed to be essential to trauma recovery.

The final experience was as a young teen when I was given a camera. I took hundreds of pictures. When I would sit down to look at these, I was amazed by the elements in those pictures that I didn’t actually see when I was looking through the camera lens. Fixed in time, they gave me time to really explore all the elements of those pictures, to discover details of that moment I was not aware I had captured, to look at that moment differently than when I first experienced it. I think that really drew me into developing my evidence-based drawing process. If people are interested in learning more about it they can read the chapter that that I was privileged to be able to write in the new publication by David Crenshaw and Anne Stewart, “Play Therapy: A Comprehensive Guide to Theory and Practice”. Its an excellent resource for all levels of practitioners.

The book is focused on humanistic approaches to counseling families with very young children using either updated or brand new interventions that have an evidence-base. The book also includes, in many cases for the first time, the originators of some of the essential play therapy theories who’ve applied their work specifically with children in written form for this project- so we were absolutely thrilled and honored by this generous gesture. For example, Mary Anne Pare, the partner of Jungian analyst Dr. John Allan, contributed a chapter on integrating family systems work with Jungian play therapy. This is, to our knowledge, perhaps the first time this subject matter has been published in the 20+ years since she designed it. Finally, the book owes its soul to Eliana Gil, who created family play therapy and wrote about it in her seminal book many years back, as well as Charles Schaefer and Lois Carey. So while I’m not comparing our volume to these brilliant editions that paved the way for us all many years back, I would say that it’s been an honor to contribute this volume, however small or insignificant it’s ultimate impact may or may not be, as a research-informed guide, yet written clearly and practically for clinicians to incorporate interventions into their family treatment. Finally, our book is slightly tweaked to focus on family counseling and the role of counselors using play AND expressive art interventions ethically and competently as set forth by the American Counseling Association.

My Jungian psychoanalytic work with children, as well as research and scholarly contributions in play therapy, are significantly influenced by Anna Freud, Melanie Kline, Carl Jung, Michael Fordham, Thomas Moore, Joseph Campbell, James Hillman, Jean Houston, Donald Kalsched, Margaret Lowenfeld, Jean Houston, Dora Kalff, Edward Edinger, Louise Guerney, Charles Schaefer, Maria-Louise von Franz, Heinz Kohut, D. W. Winnicott, Gary Landreth, Eliana Gil, and especially, John Allan. They’ve impacted my writing by inspiring and guiding me, however indirectly and tacitly, to combine two of my favorites to help children and families in need: a Jungian approach with play. The original Jungian play therapy clinical model that I created, which was heavily inspired by John Allan’s seminal work in the 80’s with children in schools, reflects some of the classic-Jungian school of thought, as well as integrating post-Jungian thinking, such as archetypal psychology, as espoused through Michael Fordham and Maria Soldi and modernized by John Allan.

However, although history does repeat itself, we tend to ignore many of the lessons learned from the past. For example, Anthony Salvatori, then Assistant Principal of Sandy Hook Middle School was also the Coordinator of the district’s Safe School Climate program. He was responsible for preparing staff for tragedies including the violent loss of life. Again unfortunately, all too often he heard “Why are you telling us this? This is not going to happen here.” This was just prior to that tragic loss of lives. We tend to ignore the past by refusing to accept our vulnerability. By the way, the first intentional mass killing of young children took place in 1927 at Michigan Bath Consolidated School. The planted bomb killed 38 elementary schools students, six adults and seriously injured another 58 children and staff. Hopefully the stories of survivors in this work will help to discourage the “It won’t happen here” response to those attempting to provide the best preparation possible.

I also wrote this for the courageous professionals who agree to serve on their crisis teams, trauma response or critical response teams. They are all eager to be as prepared as possible, to engage in best practices to help minimize the many challenges of the recovery process. In many ways the book helps responders and teams evaluate just how prepared they are to respond to the many different experiences and reactions of survivors and their communities. The bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma produce one set of lessons, Columbine another, 9/11 still another and years later Sandy Hook Elementary still yet another set of lessons. There really is no reason not to be prepared. The lessons are there for us. No one text can answer every question or concern. However, I’ve been privileged to train and learn from hundreds of teams across the country, which allows me to bring best practices to today’s teams. For this reason I continue to provide training and can be contacted at 810-241-0391 or drbillsteele12@gmail.com.

In going through my own psychotherapy, I had the privilege of spending time with Alexander Lowen, the founder of Bioenergetics. This was in the beginning days of all the focus we now have on using the body as a resource. He spent the day with our group and did an evaluation (a body scan) of each one of us. He indicated what he felt was the source of our issues and then prescribed specific body activities for our treatment. At that point in time I was pretty much talked out and was not making a great deal of progress. With the help of my therapist we started those body activities. It was amazing as I was able to release so much that I could not put in words. From that point on I felt that involving the body in some kind of healing process was critical to recovery and growth. Today regulation (resourcing the body) is viewed to be essential to trauma recovery.

The final experience was as a young teen when I was given a camera. I took hundreds of pictures. When I would sit down to look at these, I was amazed by the elements in those pictures that I didn’t actually see when I was looking through the camera lens. Fixed in time, they gave me time to really explore all the elements of those pictures, to discover details of that moment I was not aware I had captured, to look at that moment differently than when I first experienced it. I think that really drew me into developing my evidence-based drawing process. If people are interested in learning more about it they can read the chapter that that I was privileged to be able to write in the new publication by David Crenshaw and Anne Stewart, “Play Therapy: A Comprehensive Guide to Theory and Practice”. Its an excellent resource for all levels of practitioners.

Though I spend an inordinate amount of time in my writing as it’s a distinct passion and pleasure, but I often find it painfully difficult to read my published work or see the movies I’ve been a part of. Like many of us who do this kind of work, I invariably find so many different ways I wished I had expressed points or items I could have included to bolster the project. So I typically don’t read my own work after it comes out, and I certainly don’t have a favorite. In fact, at this point I’ve published 100+ professional works. And I’ve only read 3. And I thought they were somewhat OK, so that means I didn’t cringe throughout. One of those is “The Handbook of Jungian Play Therapy.” John Allan’s Forward to that book was so touching and thorough that it brought tears of joy and disbelief upon my initial reading of it. What a generous and kind man he is. I was also honored that Louise Guerney, who is retired, graciously agreed to write the Forward to “Counseling Families,” something that she doesn’t typically do. And she knocked it out of the park. She’s one of the kindest and smartest women I have ever met in this field. But if I had to choose a favorite play therapy book, it would certainly not be one of mine, but either Eliana Gil’s “Helping Abused and Traumatized Children,” David Crenshaw’s “Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy,” or “Sandplay” by Harriet Friedman and Rie Rogers Mitchell. I also LOVE anything by John O’Donohue, the late Irish poet and spiritual author. “Eternal Echoes” is incredibly eloquent.

Children don’t necessarily remember the interventions or elegant interpretations. They often do, however, remember the kindness we show them.

I am working on my next single authored book, “Soulplay,” which comprises a new approach I’ve created and am excited to share. It will be written as a trade book, and not an academic text, for a wider audience and distribution. We’re excited about this project, and it should be out, and in bookstores, sometime in summer or fall 2017. I’ve also begun writing a new book on Jungian sandplay therapy with young children, which will include several chapters of case studies of my clinical work with sand pictures (!) and that should be coming out sometime in 2018. The tentative title is “Jungian Sandplay Therapy with Children: Analytic Perturbations and Alchemical Transformations in Healing.”

I have 2 new DVD’s that were released this month (January 2016) by Alexander Street Press: one is on integrating play therapy in school counseling program plans, and the other is on treating families with young children using play and consultation from a humanistic perspective. For ore information, visit ASP’s Website. I have 4 research manuscripts that are currently finalizing or they are near the end of the editorial process for various academic/peer-reviewed journals. One of these is a study I’m doing on sandplay with children affected by psychosis, and another we are examining play therapist’s attitudes when working with gender-variant and/or gender non-conforming youth. I also have keynote events and trainings booked throughout this year, as well as a couple new and exotic international locations I’ve been recently asked to speak at in 2017 on sandplay. I continue to try to waive the Jungian banner high and wide, while I still have the energy and stamina. And with John Allan’s blessing, it makes it meaningful.