Date of Award
Spring 5-16-2020
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
MA - Master of Arts
Department
Expressive Therapies
Advisor
Elizabeth Kellogg
Abstract
Death is a natural and inevitable part of life. The grief response to death is also natural, yet children’s grief is often overlooked. Many believe that children are not capable of grief because their brains are still developing or that they do not understand what death is and therefore cannot grieve. It is true that a child will grieve differently than an adult, but they still experience grief. This paper focused on children and adolescents who have experienced the death of a parent and how they use art to grieve in a healthy way. Existing research supports the benefits of using art therapy with children who are grieving, and a literature review was done documenting and reviewing the research. The method that was used in this paper was the making of altered books in an open art studio grief group of 6 adolescents. The results of the method were that the altered books served as a way for the participants to tell their story with the use of expressive arts.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Adams, Samantha, "How Art Can Be Used to Grieve and Heal: Making Altered Books with Parentally Bereaved Adolescents" (2020). Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses. 265.
https://digitalcommons.lesley.edu/expressive_theses/265
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The author owns the copyright to this work.
