Being well attuned to ourselves and the world, means there is a smooth and fluid interaction between our actions and the sensory feedback that we get back from the world in which we act. For example: I push the clay, I feel a hardness and resistance, the clay doesn’t move as much as I want it, so I adjust my action and push harder, or vice versa, I reduce my force when the clay gives way too much, feels too soft.

This constant dance in finding balance between movement and sensory feedback, between doing and sensing, informs us in how we can be in the world. This all happens at an unconscious level, in the immediacy of the ‘now’, which happens too fast for our thinking to be part of it.

When that balance is disturbed or difficult to find, when the sensory feedback to our actions is too overwhelming or painful, our physical system goes into a state of survival in order to stop the sense of overwhelm. The imbalance that then occurs can go two ways: the child can withdraw and reduce the doing, in order to avoid the overwhelming sensory experience. Here we may see a child that shows a low muscle tone, only touches the clay/world, with the fingertips, delicately without making much impact, is anxious about meeting the world. The other possible reaction is that the sensory experience gets blocked and movement continues without a regulating input from the senses. Here we see the ADHD picture, doing without coming to stillness and allow the senses to inform the doing. The restlessness of the talkative and fidgety child, the frustrated child who wants to do and achieve but keeps bumping up against failure.

The sense of Touch is the primary sense to develop that attunement with the environment. It is the sense that brings us back to the boundary of our body. Our sense of Touch is the basis for our Sense of Self, of trust and knowing where the Self ends and the World, the other, begins.

With the Clay Field the child or adolescent sits in front of a tray which is filled with soft smooth clay, and has a bowl of warm water and a sponge available. This basic set up allows for an immersive experience of that sense of Touch. The warm water can be reassuring, can be calming when the sensory feedback of the clay gets too much. Or the water can be added to the clay to make it soft and creamy.

We may see children in the beginning touching the clay very sensitively, with soft hands, a floppy back, aimlessly touching the clay. Or we may see white knuckled bent fingers, tight shoulders. Both of them might struggle to move the soft clay and instead experience it as hard and heavy. Gradually they will find their strength and will be able to move more and more clay, build stronger structures, and claim all the clay to be available and accessible to them. Their posture becomes upright and their whole free moving arms become engaged in the movement.

We may see children grabbing and building and getting lost in the actions in the clay field, and gradually coming to rest, being able to come to stillness and ‘feel’ the softness, the hardness, the weight, the resistance of the clay, often staying there for minutes at a time. That stillness can go hand in hand with a deep sigh, a deep breath, a physical innate experience of rest, and joy.

To find more information on the Clay Field you can visit the website of the Sensorimotor Institute by Cornelia Elbrecht: www.sensorimotorarttherapy.com/clay-field-therapy