Storymaking in Bereavement de Alida Gersie

Storymaking in Bereavement: Dragons Fight in the Meadow

Alida Gersie

en Limba Engleză Paperback – 31 dec 1991

Myths and related stories describe essential human experience which, requiring the use of the imagination, reconcile and give voice to fantasy and reality. In this book the author reflects on the processes of grief and more than 50 folk tales are included. The ancient stories vividly convey mankind's struggle with death and loss, the despair and hope, with bitterness and love. The use of stories in therapy is explained, specifically bereavement counselling through storymaking.

Citește tot Restrânge

Cuprins

Introduction. PART I: Themes of love and death. 1. `And all my sour-sweet days, I will lament and love.' Acknowledging the work of separation and mourning. 2. `But seldom I do think indeed that I must die.' Coming to grips with mortality. 3. `A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief.' Some characteristics of the days between the actual death and the burial or cremation. PART II: A tracery of connections through mourning and myth. 4. `Lord, have mercy on us.' How come that we all must die? 5. `The day of death they do not reveal.' Why did it have to happen now? 6. `Wail, for the world's wrong.' What did I do that it happened to me? 7. `Ah God, that it were possible...' In search of reparation. 8. `And New Year blowing and roaring.' How lazily time creeps about to one that mourns. 9. `Tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures new.' Acceptance, more often than not. PART III: Focussed attention on intimate loss. 10. `This silence frightens me.' The death of our parent. 11. `O little did my mother ken.' The death of our child. 12. `And all that Hope adored and lost.' The death of our life-partner. PART IV: When a tyrant spell has bound us. 13. `We shall have a deadly storm.' The descent into darkness. 14. `Oh my God, hear my cry.' The dangerous pull towards ending our own life. PART V: On stories and storymaking. 15. `If there were dreams to sell.' On ancient stories and storytelling. 16. `They are not long the days of wine and roses.' Bereavement counselling through storymaking. PART VI: The stories and storymaking structures. Notes and elaborations. Bibliography.