Description
Book SynopsisMyths 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.
Trade ReviewGersie is intuitive, sensitive and wise as she guides her readers into the territory of bereavement, love and loss... Each storymaking structure is exciting and brimming with potential... Alida Gersie has succeeded in brilliantly finding ways to empower individuals coming to grips with mortality... her work Storymaking in Bereavement: Dragons in the Meadow empowers us as helping professionals. Now we have a tool that gives us a little more courage compassion and insight so that we too are better armed to fight dragons in the meadow. -- The Arts in Psychotherapy
This is a fascinating book which may reunite readers with stories of their childhood and provide new insights into their meaning. It presents an innovative approach to bereavement counselling which reflects the wise counsel of some of the original story tellers and the oral tradition which we have lost. There are poignant stories and no avoidance of "difficult" feelings encountered during the grief process. This book is a delight to read on account of its descriptive qualities. It is also a source, in an accessible form, of a wealth of information. It addresses an area which is of concern to all occupational therapists. -- British Journal of Occupational Therapy
This is an erudite, imaginative book by an author who is deeply involved in her topic and is an enjoyable and absorbing read. The book would be of value to course leaders and students on courses covering loss, separation and divorce, abortion, terminal illness and death and to anyone who gives support to the dying and bereaved. -- Nursing Times
This book is beautifully written. It is immensely rich in its use of story, metaphor and literary allusion to illustrate the process of grief and healing... moving and deeply compassionate. In addition to its overt theme, a book which touches its reader so deeply provides a subtle lesson in how a counsellor may allow herself to be deeply touched by her client. -- Counselling
Anyone interested in story as a form of therapy or in bereavement or the existential adaption to the idea of death will find this book overflowing with exciting concepts and powerful healing images... There is a well constructed balance between psychological conception and folk story in this book. This material is a rich collection of ideas which can be used in both the classroom and the counselor's office. -- Religious Studies Review
... enchanting account of the use of creative-expressive therapies in helping us accept the finality of death and the toll it takes on those who are left to mourn... For those who work in creative and expressive therapies, this book is an important addition to the literature. The heart of the presentation - the stories we can tell, and have told for hundreds of centuries, about grief over death - lies at the core of human experience. -- Medical Humanities Review
The author's wide knowledge and understanding of myths and folklore is cleverly woven within each "Part" of the book... It links the past with the present, acts as a bridge between cultures, and helps us focus on profound issues... Storymaking in Bereavement is a book to be read and re-read and to be dipped into, as each chapter contains much wisdom. -- Lifeline (Magazine of the National Association of Bereavement Services)
Professional bereavement counsellors and group facilitators will find the book stimulating and resourceful, while teachers in palliative care will certainly find some valuable educational material in it. -- Palliative Medicine
... extremely readable, and easy to follow, and would be a delight for anyone to dip into. -- Behavioural Social Work Review
Table of ContentsIntroduction. 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.
