Clay Field Therapy

The 'Clay Field' is a large shallow box filled with smooth clay, where children can experience the clay by touching, patting, beating, scratching, digging and moulding all sorts of shapes and scenes - creating, destroying and recreating as they need.  

By using clay, this therapy utilises the most fundamental of all human experiences - touch.  The focus is on haptic perception, which describes how we sense and perceive with our hands. The material will reciprocate every communication impulse. Every time children reach out with a motor impulse, they will receive sensory feedback from their own action pattern. Through the haptic connection with the clay they can find fulfillment and therapeutic healing through this sensorimotor feedback loop. They can destroy and create and in the process build their world.

For the most part Clay Field Therapy is an entirely non-verbal or bottom-up approach to self-discovery and change.  The hands do the work necessary in the clay, revisiting sensorimotor experiences, including those in our earliest, preverbal memory. The role of the therapist is to facilitate and contain the process in a way that provides safety, and any discussion afterwards offers the opportunity to reflect upon and integrate the sensory experience.

Clay Field Therapy is particularly beneficial for children with trauma backgrounds, as the sense of touch is often intwined in traumatic memories.  It is also beneficial for children with learning and behavioural difficulties, as it can assist them to develop structure in the Clay Field, increase focus and ultimately increase structure and focus within their daily lives.

Clay field therapy is a form of therapy that children, adolescents and adults alike can benefit from. This is ground-breaking modality, which was developed by Prof Heinz Deuser in Germany and Cornelia Elbrecht in Australia.

Explore more about Clay Field Therapy® at
https://www.sensorimotorarttherapy.com/clay-field-therapy