Published in the Dramatherapy Journal (UK) in 2024, this article is open access. You can read the abstract below:
“In this article the author reflects on her experience of facilitating story enactment within an arts therapies group for bereaved siblings at Shooting Star Children’s Hospices, in London. The author is originally trained in the Sesame Approach and has practised as a dramatherapist in the field of bereavement for over ten years. Through a phenomenological approach, the article examines how the enactment of symbolic images from fairy tales supports children processing their grief following the death of a sibling due to a life-limiting condition. The clinical vignette, presented as a constructed case study, provides an illustrative example of using the framework of the hero’s journey to delve into symbolic expression, intersubjectivity and embodiment. In analysing the clinical material, the author combines the Sesame Approach in dramatherapy with the novel Multidimensional Grief Theory, developed by psychologist Christopher Layne. This integration serves to illustrate the fundamental role of story enactment in group therapy for bereaved siblings in paediatric palliative care”.