Expressing Grief Through Storytelling

HILDA R GLAZER D O N N A MARCUM

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The authors describe the use of sto ytelling to assist children who have experienced the death of a family member or friend. The results support the theoy that children are able to use narrative to express grief and loss and that artwork can aid in the expression of both experiences.

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Facilitating the expression of children's grief is an important goal of thera- pists who work with grieving children. Creative expression as part of the therapeutic process can help the child express emotion and process grief (Glazer, 1998). The purpose of our study was to document the efficacy of storytelling as an intervention technique with children who have lost a loved one through death. The story used in this study was based on our experi- ences while working with the families of grieving children at the Mount Carmel Hospice Evergreen Center of Columbus, Ohio. The Evergreen Center offers programs for children and families that are designed to promote movement through the grief process. The evening support group program is designed for school-age children and their families. Storytelling has become an essen- tial component of the program as one of the expressive art techniques that form the core of many of the activities.

School-age children who have experienced the death of a loved one ex- press grief in a variety of developmentally appropriate ways. The grieving of the school-age child is complicated by his or her level of cognitive ability. Worden (1991) noted that concepts such as finality, causality, and irrevers- ibility are abstractions, and understanding them is related to the individual's level of cognitive development. It is important to develop opportunities for children to process grief in developmentally appropriate ways. Storytelling

Hilda R. Glazer, Department of Psychology, Walden University; Donna Marcum, Evergreen Center, Mount Carmel Hospice and Palliative Care Services, Columbus, Ohio. Hilda R. Glazer is now at the Evergreen Center, Mount Carmel Hospice and Palliative Care Services, Columbus, Ohio. The research for this article was supported by a 1998 grantffom the National Storytelling Association. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Hilda R. Glazer, Ev- ergreen Center, Mount Carmel Hospice and Palliative Care Services, PO Box 91012, Columbus, OH 43209 (e-mail: hglazer@ix.netcom.com).

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encourages reaction and processing; thus, the child and adult work with the story in ways that are meaningful to the individual.

Telling one’s story is a part of mourning. In support groups, the sharing of stories is a critical element of the process (Harvey, 1996). It is therapeutic to tell one’s story; the individual is able to verbalize the events and feelings. At the same time, when a person hears the stories of other people and hears their responses to his or her story, that individual realizes that others have had the same feelings about and experience with grief and mourning.

The therapeutic value of the narrative may lie in the metaphor in that the individual finds his or her own solutions by contemplating what the story seems to imply at a specific time (Pearce, 1996). Bettelheim (see Pearce, 1966) suggested that stories can provide growth opportunities for workmg through concerns that preoccupy the individual. One of the ways in which this oc- curs is through reframing, that is, the shifting of experience from one con- tent to another (Pearce, 1996). The goal is the emotional development of the child, clarification of anxieties, and the development of problem-solving skills.

Stories have been used to heal and cure (Pearce, 1996). All people have listened to the stories of other people and have stories of their own (Pearce, 1996). As people share their stories with others, they name and shape the meanings of their unique life experiences (Harvey, 1996). Narratives have been seen to be important in the lives of children as well as in the lives of adults. Hearing stories told and read by family members and friends and, later on, reading stories are major ways in which children learn about the world and the people in it (Hedberg & Westby, 1993). Children learn to share their experiences, both real and imagined, in the stories that they tell (Hedberg & Westby, 1993). Narratives can stimulate thought and understanding (Pearce, 1996). Hedberg and Westby also noted that children are likely to produce the most complex stories when the thematic content of the stimuli matches their previous experiences and interests.

In addition, other creative experiences can help children heal. For example, an alternative to the telling of one’s own story is the use of metaphor. Meta- phor is a literary technique in which one idea is expressed in terms of an- other (Pearce, 1996). The listener draws unique and unpredictable meaning from metaphor (Pearce, 1996), and metaphor can encourage the individual to consider the meanings for him- or herself.

Art is another way of facilitating emotional expression. Art projects are a method through which the child translates the images and feelings into shapes and colors (Mills & Crowley, 1986). Art has the potential to make concrete what cannot be expressed verbally.

The grief and mourning of a child are expressed and experienced in differ- ent ways at different developmental levels (Worden, 1991). Children between the ages of 5 and 7 years have a more highly developed cognitive concept of death than younger children have; however, children at this age may be unable to deal with the intensity of the feelings associated with the loss (Worden, 1991). By the age of 7 years, most children understand that death

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is universal, irreversible, and has a specific causality (Speece & Brent, 1996). Smith (1991) suggested that at least three tasks must be accomplished to process grief and integrate losses: understanding that the person is no longer there, allowing the feelings, and reinvesting in life.

The objective of this study was to validate the contribution of the story to the grief journey. We have found that the value of the experience of storytelling is its interactive nature: Children appear to become involved in the story and to put themselves into the story. The study was built on our intuitive reactions.

METHOD Procedure

Modifying the mutual storytelling techniques of Gardner and Kottman (see Muro & Kottman, 1995), the storyteller began the story by setting the stage, that is, providing the beginning and the middle of the story; then, the story- teller invited the child to complete the story by telling the dream. Children were then asked to draw a picture of the story. Children were seen individu- ally, and the same story was told to each child. The story written by the second author incorporated the elements of change, loss, and sadness in relation to the loss of a loved one and provided the child with examples of problem solving or coping strategies to build on if the child chose to do so. (Note: A copy of the story may be obtained by writing to Donna Marcum, 6881 Bartlett Rd., Reynoldsburg, OH 43068.) The story recounts the expe- riences of a young man (Joey) who, after the death of his father, is now faced with moving from Ohio to Georgia, leaving his best friend (Ben) and the only home he has known. When he arrives at his new home, he finds a wonderful old oak tree in the yard that seems to be made just for climbing and sitting in. The tree becomes his ”dreaming tree.”

Participants

Muro and Kottman (1995) suggested that storytelling works best with chil- dren who are at least in the second grade. Muro and Kottman’s technique, which requires that the child’s story have a narrative flow, has been most successful with children in the second and third grade and above (Muro & Kottman, 1995). Children selected for the study were no younger than 8 years old. Volunteers were solicited from the Evergreen Center families with school- age children and were invited to participate in a special storytelling time. Participants’ parents signed a consent form that had been approved by the Hospice and Aftercare director. Parents remained in a separate room, and the child went into a group room with the storyteller.

Description of Participants

With one exception, all participants were able to finish the story. One girl was able to draw the tree but was unable to finish the story, so her drawing

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was included in the analysis of the drawings. Seven girls and 3 boys partici- pated in the study. Seven children had lost a parent, 2 had lost a grandparent, and 1 had lost a teacher; at the time of the study, the average time since the loss was 14.1 months (SD = 8.33, range = 5-27). Eight children were Caucasian, 1 was Latino, and 1 was African American. The average age of the children was 9.8 years (SD = 1.51, range 7.5-12 years old).

Data Analysis

A qualitative paradigm was used to analyze the data. Miles and Huberman (1994) noted the power of qualitative data because a qualitative paradigm em- phasizes lived experience and is a means of determining the meaning of the experience to the individual. In the present study, we used content analysis, a method of analyzing communications. It is a technique for making inferences by objectively and systematically identifying specified characteristics of a com- munication, whether it is verbal or pictorial. The method can be used for both the content of the child’s story and the artwork he or she produces. Before the storytelling sessions began, we developed a codebook, using information ob- tained from a review of the literature. Similar categories were developed for both the story and the artwork. In addition, the artwork was reviewed using the categories developed by the first author (Glazer, 1998) for another research project. QSR NUD*IST (Qualitative Solutions and Research Pty Ltd., 1997), qualitative analysis software, was used for the content analysis. Subsequent to the identification of themes, the findings were reviewed for properties or subcategories to “dimensionalize,” that is, to show the possibilities of the cat- egories (Creswell, 1998). In order to verify the categories that were identified, the coding results were compared with existing literature.

Themes in the stories. Six themes were identified before the storytelling:

1. Visiting: the concept of having Ben come for a visit or visiting Ben 2. Tree house: adding to the tree to make it more his own 3. Dreams or dreaming: the presence of a dream in the story 4. Loss or sadness: references to the loss of a person or object 5. Staying connected: references to actions taken to stay in touch with his

friend or someone else 6. Memory: evidence of a memory of the loved one who has died or some-

one unique to the story

Visiting was the theme that appeared most frequently in the stories; it was used in eight of the nine stories; in one story, Joey went to see Ben, and in the remaining stories, Ben visited Joey. Following is a 12-year-old’s narrative, which illustrates the visiting theme:

So the next day he goes up into the tree, and he is reading a book and his mom calls him down and says that Ben is coming for a visit and he gets really excited because he can show Ben his new house and his tree. And so, when Ben gets here, he shows him around the house and then he tells him he has a surprise for him, and he takes him out to the tree and they climb up in the tree and they play up in the tree.

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A tree house was added in two stories. Staying in touch with Ben was noted in two stories. Sadness or loss were themes in three stories. There were spe- cific references in two stories to missing the loved one who had died, and two stories mentioned taking things away: ”[Dlon’t take my best friend away”; “Why do people have to take away things I like all the time?” The second statement was the one of two references to the loss of the tree.

Analysis of the content of the stories revealed three themes: continuing to play or be in the tree, making new friends, and dreams or fantasies re- lated to the loss. The first theme related to continuing to play or be in the tree either with Ben or with others; eight of the nine stories included this theme. This theme can be seen in the following story excerpt from a story by a 10-year-old boy:

Hey, Mom, can we stay here for the rest of our lives? Well, maybe when you grow up, you might move, but we might stay here for a little, maybe for a lot longer. The next day, when Joey came home from his new school, he went up in his oak tree and did all the usual things.

The second theme that appeared in two stories was making new friends, as seen in the following narrative from a girl who was 9 years, 6 months old:

He decided to go visit when he went to school; he decided to try to make friends at recess and [to] try to make new friends at school and he decided to invite them over for, like, a sleep over, and he decided to share the dreaming tree with them.

Dreams or fantasies were part of three children’s stories. One story included two dreams: The first was a dream about loss, and the other was a happy dream in which the child was reunited with the loved ones who had died and “lived happily ever after.” In one story, the dream was of a boat; in an- other story by a 9%-year-old girl, the tree came alive:

Joey’s friend came, and they both played in the oak tree and they spent the sum- mer there and they had fun. Joey wanted his friend to live there, but he couldn‘t. And Joey almost forgot about his friend because he loved the tree so much. The oak tree comes alive and instead of being the oak tree, it‘s Joey’s friend. And he lived there forever being the oak tree and Joey’s friend.

Thus, the two major themes, as defined as those appearing in the majority of stories, were Joey and Ben visiting and Joey playing in or being in the tree with Ben or with others. Both of the major themes can be interpreted as being related to resolving the loss, which may be seen as a problem-solving strat- egy. The problem-solving theme was triangulated with the current literature as a validity measure. In discussing the work of Bettelheim, Pearce (1996) noted that stories can convey problem-solving messages; through the story, the child can develop problem-solving techniques. When viewed as an il- lustration of the problem-solving theme, the appearance of the detailed dream in one story might be seen as the child’s attempt to deal with the loss and to fantasize about how life might be different.

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The following is an excerpt from the dream sequence:

And then that night Joey went upstairs to go to bed and when, that night he was turned over and facing the window and he seen just a beautiful, beautiful string of white hair. Ben’s mother had white hair, and it was beautiful so he thought, “that is Ben’s mother’s hair ‘cause her hair was really long, and it was almost to her feet.” So he thought, “maybe, well maybe, her hair’s got caught on there when he was trying to climb it” so that night that dream kept on going through his mind. Then finally, he thought of this big, big giant coming and tried to knock down the tree. He ran outside and he said, “No, don’t take my tree away-that’s my Ben, Ben’s up there, don’t take my best friend away.”

The storyteller and the play therapist independently rated each of the tapes and each piece of artwork using the six previously mentioned categories for the stories and six others that were specific to the artwork. One picture was not of the tree but of the dream that the child had told in her story. Because permission was not granted for publication of the artwork, copies of the pic- tures are not included in this article.

Themes in fhe artwork. We agreed on most of the coding of the artwork. One of our initial tasks was to reach consensus on the definition of the grief- related concepts. Nine of the 10 drawings showed a high degree of inte- gration of the primary object and made good use of space. Eight of the 10 drawings showed a connection to someone or some place in the drawing; that is, another person or house was present. The major elements in 5 of the drawings appeared to be isolated. Four of the drawings contained elements that appeared to be related to the loss. Only 1 drawing used words, and these were the names of two states in the United States.

It is interesting that although visiting was a theme in most of the stories, this was not true for the drawings. Perhaps this finding reflected the fact that the directions did not tell the child to focus on any part of the story as such but rather to do a picture of the story. The tree was the central figure in 8 of 10 drawings as, indeed, it is the central part of the story told by the storyteller. In 1 drawing, the tree appeared to have arms and a face. The arms seemed to reach out to the child in the drawing. Two of the trees had a tree house or plat- form. Symbols of loss were portrayed in 4 of the pictures through the empty trunk, empty branches, a hole in the tree, falling leaves, and brown leaves. There are parallels to this in the literature. Furth (1988) stated that notable markings on drawings of trees, such as wounds, holes, and knots, were re- lated to significant life events. Oster and Montgomery (1996) also noted that scars, knotholes, and broken branches were associated with trauma; the time of the trauma could be determined in relation to the length of the tree. This was also supported by Burns (1987). Regarding the emphasis on roots in some of the drawings, Bums suggested that emphasis on roots was associated with individuals who are probing their past (roots) to help define who they are in the present. Downward movement in the branches was seen in a few of the drawings; Bums noted that this downward movement of the branches was associated with energy moving into the past. One dream told in the story was

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illustrated using a picture, and, in 1 drawing, the fantasy of the story was drawn. The theme of isolation was consistent with findings reported by Glazer (1998), who used Allan’s (1988) rosebush technique.

DISCUSSION

Grieving children often find themselves in a situation that is new to them. The Evergreen Center offers support for the grieving family. When children enter the support group, they are tentative, fearful, sad, and hopeful. Shar- ing is often difficult for these children. Storytelling has been found to ease the process of entering a group because attention is focused on the story- teller rather than on the child. The children can lose themselves in the story, feel comforted, and, thus, begin to recognize the common thread of their losses. Through stories, children can express themselves and can begin to express their grief. For example, one first-grade girl had not been able to talk about her loss for the 3 weeks that she had been in the group. In her drawing after the storytelling session, she drew a “secret garden’, with an angel hovering over the garden who, she told the teller, was her “Daddy and he’s buried in our churchyard.” In this project, the storyteller began the story, and the chil- dren finished it. The story contains elements that are associated with loss for many children. Many times, the children’s true feelings about the death of a loved one surface in the safety of a make-believe story. A drawing of the story or an element of the story can further reveal expressions of the heart. The processing of grief can be aided by the use of narrative and art.

In this study, children were able to use narrative to express their grief and loss. The children were able to project elements of the experience into the story. Additionally, artwork aided in the expression of grief and loss. The findings of the study support the work of Pearce (1996), who noted that the therapeutic value of the narrative may lie in the metaphor in that the individual finds his or her own solutions by contemplating what the story seems to imply at a particular moment. The variability of the stories and the presence of one significant theme in eight of the nine stories support this uniqueness and the ability of the children to reframe their experience through the story (Pearce, 1996). The themes in the story were seen as metaphors for elements of their loss. The children appeared to use the story as a means to express elements of the loss, and the expression of grief in the artwork supports the earlier work by Glazer (1998), who found that children project elements of the grief experience in art. The present study was conducted one-on-one. Further research should be conducted to document the viability of storytelling with groups and with grieving adults. In addition, research that uses the mutual storytelling technique could help to iden- tdy ways in which stories can be used therapeutically to aid in the grief process.

In conclusion, this study supports the use of the narrative, art, and other creative therapies in grief work with children. The power of the story is not only in the telling of the story but also in the sharing of the experience be- tween the child and the storyteller.

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There is no medicine like hope, no incentives sogreat, and no tonics so powerful as the expectations of something better tomorrow.

-Orison Swett Marden (1848-1924), Editor, Success magazine * * *

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