延长哀伤障碍，是指当事人在亲近的人去世后，产生的持续而广泛的哀伤反应，当事人渴望再见到逝者或持续关注逝者，同时伴有强烈的痛苦情绪，且哀伤反应异常持久，对社会功能造成影响。

本研究首先对哀伤的概念、过程、反应、影响因素，延长哀伤障碍的概念与诊断及其症状的评估与干预，和箱庭疗法等相关文献进行了综述，并通过箱庭疗法对一名出现延长哀伤症状的成年人进行心理咨询。箱庭疗法是指来访者在治疗者的陪伴下，从玩具架上自由挑选玩具，在盛有细沙的特制箱子里进行自我表现的一种心理疗法。本研究共进行了24次个体咨询，其中，来访者完成了15次箱庭制作，箱庭作品经历了三个阶段——哀伤表达阶段、徘徊犹豫阶段和积极适应阶段。咨询结束时，来访者的延长哀伤症状消失，与哀伤有关的消极认知得到改善，咨询效果良好。

研究者认为，箱庭疗法从以下六个方面帮助来访者改善了哀伤引发的情绪困扰：

（1）箱庭为来访者提供了深入表达哀伤的安全空间；

（2）箱庭疗法中“母子一体性”的咨访关系与沙的母性象征意义帮助来访者修复了与母亲原型之间的联结；

（3）亲人的意外离世引发了来访者内心强烈的失控感，而箱庭制作的过程让重新获得控制感；

（4）箱庭具有客观可见的外在形式和抽象的象征意义，为来访者与逝者之间建立持续性的内在联结提供了过渡；

（5）在制作箱庭的过程中，来访者与具有象征意义的沙和玩具建立联结，打破了来访者内心的封闭性，帮助来访者走出哀伤，适应新的生活；

（6）箱庭能够促进精神浮现，有助于来访者探索生命意义，理解亲人的离世，抚平内心的创伤，改善其关于哀伤的消极认知。

本研究得出的结论是，箱庭疗法在哀伤咨询中具有其独特的优势，能有效改善成年来访者的延长哀伤症状。

Prolonged grief disorder refers to the sustained and extensive grief response after the death of a close person. The patient is eager to see the deceased again or keeps paying attention to the deceased, accompanied by strong painful emotions and unusually long-lasting grief response, which has an impact on social functions.

In this paper, we firstly reviewed the literature related to the concept, process, response and influencing factors of grief, the concept and diagnosis of prolonged grief disorder and the assessment and intervention of its symptoms, as well as sandplay therapy. And then, an adult with prolonged grief symptoms was given psychological counseling through sandplay therapy. Sandplay therapy is a kind of psychological therapy in which the client, accompanied by the therapist, selects toys from the toy rack and performs self-expression in a special box containing fine sand. In this study, a total of 24 counseling sessions were conducted, among which, the visitor completed 15 sandplay productions. The sandplay productions went through three stages -- sadness expression, hesitation and positive adaptation. At the end of counseling, the patient's prolonged grief symptoms disappeared, the negative cognition related to grief was improved, and the counseling effect was good.

In this study, sandplay therapy helped the visitors to improve their emotional distress in six ways:

(1) Sandplay provides the client with a safe space to deeply express her grief;

(2) The "mother-child unity" relationship and the maternal symbolic meaning of sand in sandplay therapy helped the client to repair the connection with the mother archetype;

(3) The unexpected death of a loved one triggered a strong sense of loss of control in the client's heart, and the process of sandplay allowed the visitor to regain a sense of control;

(4) Sandplay has an objective and visible external form and abstract symbolic meaning, which provides a transition for visitors to establish a continuous internal continuing bonds with the deceased;

(5) In the process of sandplay, the client established a connection with the sand and toys, which breaked the inner closure of the client, helped the client to get out of grief and adapt to the new life;

(6) Sandplay can promote spiritual emergence, help visitors to explore the meaning of life, understand the death of loved ones, heal the inner trauma, and improve their negative cognition of grief.

The conclusion of this study is that sandplay therapy has its unique advantages in grief counseling and can effectively improve the symptoms of prolonged grief in adult clients.