유방절제술을 경험한 여성의 여성성 회복에 대한 모래놀이치료 단일 사례연구: 근거이론을 중심으로

A Case Study on Sandplay Therapy for the Recovery of Femininity in a Woman Who Underwent Mastectomy: Focusing on Grounded Theory

This single case study tracked the process of recovering femininity of a 50-year-old Korean woman who underwent mastectomy over 20 sandplay sessions conducted twice a week for 10 weeks, with each session lasting 50 minutes. Client description, therapist observation record, and in-depth interviews were collected and analyzed. Open, axial, and selective coding were conducted, and reliability and verification were secured by independent audit and member identification. As a result of the analysis, 85 concepts were integrated into four categories: loss recognition, pain symbolization, internal resource emergence, and femininity reconstruction. There were 18 subcategories and the core category ‘the journey of femininity recovery through symbols’ was found. The results of pre and post tests of MMPI-2 depression and anxiety scale, K-BDI-II and K-BAI, showed a significant reductions in depression and anxiety. This study reveals the process of integrating multi-layered trauma through symbolic transformation within the temenos space of a sandbox, providing a practical basis for designing an identity reconstruction program for breast cancer survivors, and suggests that grounded theory is a valid form of analysis in a single in-depth case.