When looking for understanding about bears used in sand tray scenes, it is helpful to understand a bit of the psychological symbolism of bears.
The “destructive side of the mother archetype (the hand that feed can also withhold)“ can also appears in myth “as the she-bear who drives away her young and leaves them to starve in the wilderness” (Fontana, 1993 p. 16).
“In psychology, for example in dream symbolism, the bear is interpreted as an embodiment of the dangerous aspect of the unconscious; Jung, the bear often represents the negative aspect of the superposed persona” (Biedermann, 1993, p. 33).
In Jungian psychology, the bear may represents danger caused by the uncontrollable contents of the unconscious.