Dramatherapy and the Bereaved Child: Telling the Truth to Children During Difficult Times

This book addresses the needs of children experiencing the hospitalization or death of a caregiver or loved one to comprehend and cope with tragedy with the assistance creative non-fictions and dramatic play. Based on the author’s two-decade-long clinical practice and an extensive career working with bereaved children and their families as a dramatherapist and child life practitioner, this book demonstrates how storytelling and dramatherapy can be used to tell the truth to children in these difficult circumstances. Through vivid and candid case examples, the author demonstrates the developmentally normative, dramatic, and psychotherapeutic principles that inform her work. She shares stories for children that are carefully constructed to help children understand the truth of what they are facing rather than shielding them from reality. Attuned to the children’s direct experience, these stories take care to respect the culture and context of the death, and the histories of the people involved. The book, accessibly written, will provide guidance, insight, and comfort for professionals, clinicians, and grieving children and their families. Additional reader resources can be found at https://nowhitelies.com/store and www.routledge.com/9780367461041 under "Support Material".