Among witches and wolves: The use of fairy tales in group psychotherapy with children

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the use of Fairy Tales as intervention in a group of children, patients from a mental health clinic, who were referred because of learning or social relationship difficulties. We started from the idea that Fairy Tales have symbolic material to help children elaborate their conflicts, help their capability to fantasize and, therefore, contribute to the symbolization and creativity processes. This study aimed to answer if the use of Fairy Tales could be a tool to help the symbolization and creativity processes, through evaluations before and after the group activity happened. Four children from age six to nine and their parents took part in this study. The data was composed of psychological charts, an initial interview with the parents, an interview with the child, the Fairy Tales test, the HTP (House, Tree and Person) test and 10 therapeutic group meetings. We observed that the fairy tales were important in the group to access each participant’s issues, making the interventions possible and allowing them to name their affections. We observed through the tests that at the end of the group meetings the children achieved gains in the symbolization processes, besides improvements in their first complaints.

Keywords: fairy tales, group psychotherapy, children.