Marius-Alin Andrei

"Often, the hands know how to solve a riddle with which the intellect fought in vain." - Carl G. Jung.

In 2002 I graduated from the psychology faculty, and I considered the profession of psychologist as one of the most beautiful professions you could have in a lifetime. I was enthusiastic and still preparing to become what I am: a professional in the knowledge and orientation of the human soul. 15 years of questions and answers, ups and downs followed. 15 years of searching, with losses and finding meaning, years of wandering through humanity, in search of the vocation and the defining elements for well-being. I learned during this time that well-being is not always a choice. Another 10 years followed, which I allocated to the improvement of specialized instruments, if we can say so, to explore the soul and for the intervention to optimize, repair, recover what was lost at a given time in everyone's life, at a time lived with overwhelming intensity and which now has a direct, defining and decisive impact on our lives.

I am Alin Andrei, and I am one of the “miners” who descend daily several times into the depths of the human soul to discover or release the precious stones that each of us has hidden, deep in the soul, in places he has forgotten or he just doesn't want to know. Analytical psychology has given me the tools to access the psyche's deepest, known, or still unknown spaces. Sandplay Therapy is one of the successful techniques for both evaluation and intervention. It is a technique in which I have trained intensely in the last 5 years and which allows me to approach from a cultural point of view various categories of clients: children, adolescents, adults, Romanian speakers or not, refugees and fugitives, people in a full episode of post-traumatic stress disorder of various origins, adolescents and young adults in various stages of development and who expressed doubts about their sexual identity - the cause of very strong panic attacks or violent outbursts, "unjustified," within the family. I tried to capture just a few of the challenges of a day at the office.

Sandplay Therapy - a beautiful story.

A box filled with sand and a wide variety of figurines (over 1000 figurines in my collection) is offered to the participant to allow him to create the story of his inner world. Sandplay, like other creative therapy methods, is supposed to help participants express their current psychological problems, unconscious themes, and conflicts present or absent in the conscious act and express themselves in symptoms: sadness, panic attack, unbearable anxiety, fears that appear in relation to various objects, confusion of gender identity, etc. Also essential and not always highlighted and consciously taken into account by the participant is the fact that the image in the sandbox makes the unconscious material accessible, and the act of expressing the conscious and unconscious material and creating a coherent form for what experiences, lives, the participant is considered to be therapeutic by himself. Even while working in the coffin, the participating psyche releases blocked resources in managing intense feelings of fear, sadness, confusion, and unallocated daily tasks.

The unconscious, in this process, produces symbols and presents them to the ego-consciousness through dreams, fantasies, and spontaneous creative acts. Therefore, different types of innovative methods are used to allow the unconscious to express itself. The use of sandplay is a method that will enable the client to define the unconscious material, the untold story of his feelings, and his daily life. Dora Kalff's originality, which approached Sandplay through techniques specific to analytical psychology, was that the interpretation of what the participant put in the box was not considered important. There is often no interpretation of the game process or its symbols. Sandplay Therapy emphasizes the spontaneous and dynamic qualities of the creative experience itself. The sandbox offers a container for the non-verbal and symbolic expression of the inner world of the participant in the creative/expressive process, in what Kalff called "free and protected space," which also includes the therapeutic relationship. The therapist has a very open and non-directive attitude, being present without judgment or interpretation, while the participant is free to create anything. 

Analytical guidance psychotherapy - Carl Gustav Jung

The ability to adapt to a fulfilled life and a state of well-being lived today and now is most often given by the ego's ability to authentically process the information it receives from the environment or from its own psychic system. The ego, as the primary observer, evaluator, and administrator of the contents, is the one that comes to and enters the consciousness: images, thoughts, words, emotions need to strengthen its position and capacity for intervention. Thus, the intention is to identify "what causes living?" and to establish together the strategy and actions of endowing the Ego with the necessary mechanisms, tools, and energy to impose itself in front of the emotional tones that weaken its control and make it unfold asynchronously and in total disagreement with the demands of the environment.

The emotional tone of the images is defining in such cases; the images produced by the inner world of each are first observed and then led gently and gratefully to consciousness and thus processed and expressed adaptively with results in increasing self-acceptance and social harmony.

The means of intervention used are personal productions: dreams, fantasies, active imagination, and expressive means: drawing, creative writing that produce symbols with a healing role.

Analytical Psychology and Sandplay Therapy

Anxiety, sadness, gender confusion, addictions, poor general condition, lack of purpose and the thought that we live a meaningless life, suicidal thoughts, social inadequacy, difficulty expressing emotions and constant misunderstandings with parents or siblings, envy and hatred, I say too often yes, etc.

Sandplay Therapy is commonly applied to treat the health problems of children and adolescents, as I try to present below:

Sandplay Therapy has been successfully applied to treat problems in the clinical spectrum:

- in delinquency, hyperactivity, and aggressive behavior;

- in trauma and potentially traumatic events and include: abandonment, abuse (emotional, physical, sexual) death of a parent, divorce of parents, or prolonged absence of parents - such as children with parents working abroad

- emotional and attachment problems that may occur in the relationship with the family caused by alcoholism - alcoholic parents, separation from parents, or divorce of parents;

- in Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome;

- addictive behaviors, exam and/or testing anxiety, problematic social behavior (aggressive or lonely)

- low self-esteem and juvenile delinquency in adolescence

Often Sandplay Therapy, according to the techniques of Jungian analysis, is applied in school contexts, in some cases through visits from therapists to elementary or high schools and I mention here one of the Sandwork projects - the group version of Sandplay Therapy, in which I participated together with Cristi Constantinescu - Sandplay psychotherapist, in collaboration with School number 85 and Macrina day center. The project was a real success.

- Sandplay Therapy for clients with disabilities, for example, autism spectrum disorder in children or traumatic brain injury and dementia in adults.

- In adults, Sandplay Therapy has been applied to clients diagnosed with depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and other forms of anxiety such as fear of exams and testing in college students. 

Due to the nonverbal approach in Sandplay Therapy, this technique is increasingly applied to groups of immigrants and refugees to support these people in overcoming the problems caused by migration and, ultimately, trauma. Sandplay Therapy is especially useful in these contexts, as it allows non-linguistic communication and expression of the client's inner world with images and symbols in medium sand. 

Sandplay Therapy is widely used in several countries to treat trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder, namely in the case of natural disaster survivors. As in the cases, there are often a large number of victims with Post-Traumatic Syndrome. Sandplay Therapy has remarkable results when applied in groups, for example, for earthquake survivors in Nepal or the case of tsunami victims. 

The researchers point out that if victims are not treated, or other therapeutic techniques are used to treat traumatic symptoms, they do not lead to significant relief of symptoms; the trauma may become sedimented in subcortical structures and therefore remain unconscious and non-verbalized. Nonverbal techniques can thus be the most effective and non-invasive treatment strategy without the risk of re-trauma. 

Psychotherapy and Experience in organizations 

Over 15 years, I had a job in a stable organizational framework. So I am able to work with organizations to achieve common goals. I believe that within the organization, there is a permanent dynamic in terms of employment relationships that directly influences the organization's efficiency in achieving the objectives. Monitoring, evaluating, and maintaining staff attention and concentration should be an essential goal of any human resources department. So, a benefit to both the organization and the employee is the hours of counseling or psychotherapy that can restore the emotional balance of employees with a direct impact on productivity. 

The revolutionary technological achievements of the last 100 years have brought us mobile phones, supermarket scanners, ATMs, and personal computers, which is a good thing, isn't it? They are all the basis of the manufacture of weapons that can wipe out whole faces from the face of the Earth or even destroy the planet that is our home. Email, the internet, and other information technologies, designed to make our lives easier, often overwhelm us with too much information and too many things we can do at the same time, all of them seem urgent, all of which require our attention and leading in time to its attrition.

Traffic jams, busy streets, deadlines from work, payment of bills and long queues at banks, from the post office. Airports or Mega Image or Kaufland, reading a credit agreement, or buying a home are some of the common factors that cause irritation, anxiety, and anger.

Relationship problems at home or work are among the factors that frequently cause emotional disorders. The boss, the colleague, the supplier, the building enter into a direct relationship with the staff and require their attention and concentration. I found that many lives are so full of all kinds of activities that, at the end of a long day of work, all they could want was for the world and everyone around them to disappear and leave them alone for a while. And if people managed to get through a good day's work and lay down, stand with their feet up and relax a little, it was enough for the phone to ring or the neighbor's dog to bark, and any contentment dissipated instantly.

To the above, I add that most young people may have had a childhood without parents and the only dream they have is to leave Romania.

Whenever necessary or periodically, with some constancy, it is recommended that harassment assess the level of attention and concentration and intervene in stopping the deterioration by providing hours of counseling and emotional balance to employees.

Clinical Psychology

Assessment and psychodiagnostic according to the professional standards in force through the use of licensed techniques in Romania.

Commitments:

Coordinator of the support center for teenagers and young adults YOU, since 1999 - I am still working.

Individual psychology office Alin Andrei, from 1996 - I am still working

Specializations and achievements

- Specialization as a psychotherapist in working with adolescents and adults in issues of anxiety, depression, abuse and divorce, neurosis, learning disorders, personality disorders; addictions, behavioral disorders;

- Specialization in intervention in situations with traumatic potential:

Potential Traumatic Environmental Impact: work in the COVID-19 pandemic, job loss, significant changes in daily life, detention, car accident, etc.;

Severe Impact Traumatic Potential - the death of a family member, parents' death, one of the children's death, abortion, divorce, abuse, abandonment, probation.

- Counseling and support during the probationary period;

- Coaching and optimization of daily life

 - 10 years of experience in clinical psychology and psychotherapy

- 20 years of entrepreneurship

Qualifications:

- Sandplay Therapy Psychotherapist - I successfully use the Sandplay Psychotherapy Technique with adolescents and adults, Romanian speakers or non-speakers

- Clinical psychologist specializing in the evaluation and psychological intervention in case of abuse and divorce or other traumatic issues;

- Clinical psychologist specialized in neuropsychological evaluation;

- Analytical training psychotherapist within the Romanian Association of Analytical Psychology;

- Accredited trainer;

- Train in nonviolent communication.

Non-intrusive working techniques:

I specialize in the following evaluation and intervention techniques:

- Sandplay therapy

- Symbol analysis

- Dream analysis

- Nonviolent communication

- Expressive techniques: drawing/picture,music,dance