THE CHILD AND DEATH

GRIEF AND FAIRY TALES IN GROUP PSYCHOTHERAPY

Abstract

In the face of losses, grief and the delicate approach to the theme of death, especially when it occurs with children, the use of playfulness such as children's narratives usually facilitates communication, expression and the elaboration of grief. Fairy tales are narratives whose characters face conflicts, deaths, inequality and violence. This research aims to address the use of tales as a therapeutic resource in the group psychotherapeutic process with bereaved children, analyzing the expression of losses, conflicts and identifications with the stories. Eight children mourning the death of close people, aged between seven and nine years, participated. For the construction of the information, the Baptist Depression Scale - Infant-Juvenile version (BDS-IJ), the House, Tree, Person (HTP) test were applied and ten group sessions were carried out using fairy tales as a therapeutic resource. It was possible to ascertain: conflicts related to loss and the approach to death; the need to speak or to find other ways to express death on the part of children; and the identifications, fantasies and acceptance of death as part of life. Even with the limited number of sessions, the use of stories has shown that content involving death, the conflicts generated by the loss and being assisted in the elaboration of griefing can be accessed in the group with children.