Art therapy sandplay as a technique to address body image and mourning in women with mastectomies.

摘要

The purpose of this research was to explore the possible use art therapy sandplay as a technique to address body image and mourning in women with mastectomies. This literature based study analyzed breast cancer, body image, mourning, art therapy, sandplay, and boxes in art and sand in art literature to identify what aspects of body image and mourning may be addressed by art therapy sandplay.; The major finding of this study was that art therapy sandplay may aid women in organizing body image and loss after mastectomy through (1) integrating body image and mourning losses through unifying paradoxes associated with part and whole relationships and life and death and (2) providing a territorial metaphor for the body as a space that could be marked, owned, and controlled in some way. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)