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Author
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Comment
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healingbeing
Unregistered User
(8/5/05 7:45 am)
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Therapy and Fairytales
Hello everyone! I am wondering if anyboby would like to discuss the use of Fairytales in Therapy, and if they are/have been a useful way of exploring personal issues? Thank you.
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healingbeing
Unregistered User
(8/5/05 8:13 am)
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therapy and fairytales
Sorry forgot to add to my initial question "Is using fairy
tales as a vehicle to explore members issues in a group therapy
situation valuable?" Reference to Real or Imaginary Client
material would be useful examples. Any references quoted may be
used to assist in my University Assignment and i would be grateful
for any HELP with this research project: :D
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katrina53
Registered User
(8/5/05 4:57 pm)
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Therapy and Fairy Tales
Good Evening HealingBeing:
I would love to have a discussion with you but I am knee deep in end of semester work. I could pick-up the conversation in about two weeks.
I am glad you asked if anyone was interested in discussing this topic. I am very interested because this is a major part of my thesis. I also have used fairytales in my women's poetry therapy group. Each woman wrote their own fairy tale.
I look forward to talking more but in the meantime I am reading a fabulous book on this very theme. Check out: Symbols of the Soul: Therapy and GUidance through Fairy Tales by Birgitte Brun, Ernst W. Pedersen, and Marianne Runberg. Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. 1993.
Take care and I will be in touch,
Katrina :D
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Angie
Registered User
(8/6/05 5:21 pm)
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Re: Therapy and Fairy Tales
Good morning Healing Being,
I stand at the firm belief that fairy tales and folk tales have the power to be the catalyst for soul work and change within ourselves. The tales themselves can tap into our sub-conscious, evoking our collective memories, our individual life path, can help sooth and assist us heal and serve as a catalyst for necessary change/metamorphisis so that we can have a successful journey in life.
We can relate age old fairy tales to our contemporary lives, they can help us tap into the dark recesses of our psyche and empower us with courage and strength to persevere when we need it most as we confont illness, abuse, mortality and other evils that stumble across on our individual life paths .
I can recommend a beautiful book for you to read I discovered at 22 and it has served as my bible. You may know of it already as you are researching the area of therapy and fairy tales. (Please note I am not an academic, just a humble language teacher and school librarian by day).
The book is called "Women Who Run with the Wolves" by Clarisa Pinkola Estes published by Rider in London in 1993.
If you have not read this book, I recommend, no I insist that you read this incredible work of wisdom. It will assist you in this area of research.
Hope this helps,
Angie
Edited by: Angie at: 8/6/05 5:23 pm
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redtriskell
Registered User
(8/9/05 10:23 am)
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Re: Therapy and Fairy Tales
I, too, am but a humble regular person- no degrees, no academic credentials; but a reader and lover of fairy tales and their chameleon qualities. I volunteer and tutor at a battered women's shelter. I am currently trying to convince the clinical therapist to introduce fairy tales to these women as a tool for their real lives. I think fairy tales have an incredible (and largely untapped) power to give voice to horrific real-life experiences. The metaphors and oblique settings allow a great leeway for using common stories to tell other kinds of common stories. ie- a woman who was raped by her father for years can use the story of Donkeyskin to help articulate her own story. So many of these women are poorly educated... not only are a lot of them poorly schooled, the vast majority are also extremely isolated from the world most folks inhabit. You know, the world where parents do not try to consume their kids, where men are not really vile beasts, where witches & ogres & evil kings are pretend. But for abused women (or men) the themes and ideas of fairy tales are, IMHO, a perfect avenue of exploration of things/experiences that they FEEL but cannot EXPRESS. I have high hopes for the therapist- she seems willing to try a different approach. If it works, I'll let you know.
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