The purpose of this research is to understand the process of individuation of a middle-aged woman
through sand play therapy based on analytical psychology and to see how mandala appears and how it
changes. The client of this research is a woman who was forty-three years old at the first half of this
research. During the experiment, her backache got worse because of disappointment and anger at the lack
of responsibility of her husband. In the second half of the research, at the age of forty-nine, she appealed
the problem that she had difficulty in expressing negative emotions towards her husband appropriately,
kept quiet or blurted out negative feelings in her anger, so that she had trouble in maintaining intimate
relationship with her husband. She did sixteen sessions of sand play therapy during the first half and did
sixteen more sessions during the latter half, thirty-two sessions of sand play therapy in total. Her case was
throughly supervised by three supervisors, and the shape of mandala and the content of counseling were
analyzed. The early stage of her sessions was defensive and contained anxiousness. Also, during this
stage, she consciously expressed her will that she wanted to live a new life after establishing an order and
keeping her balance. During her second half of the sessions, through the mandala she expressed that she
embraced both good and bad sides of herself more naturally. Thus, it shows that individuation is living a
life with one’s true ego, and it is a long-term process to achieve. The result of this research is, first of all,
sand play therapy promotes the individuation of middle-aged women. Also, it is helpful to understand the
alteration of mandala which appeared in the process of individuation of a middle aged woman.