Foreword by Alida Gersie. Introduction: The Healing Power of Words and Stories. 1. Therapeutic Stories: Process and Experience 2. Loss of a loved one. 3. Loss of place. 4. Loss of family connection. 5. Loss of a pet. 6. Loss of health and well-being. 7. Loss of trust, co-operation, control, balance and respect. 8. Environmental grief and loss. 9. Cycles of life and change. 10. References and Resources, Patterns and Templates
This book offers story medicine for children, families and communities at times of grieving, loss and separation. Stories and words have healing potential. They can strengthen us, help to reframe things, and help make meaning. Included are stories for: the loss of a loved one such as a death in the family of a baby, child, sibling, parent, grandparent, an extended family member; the loss of family connection e.g. separation, divorce, adoption, foster children; the loss of a pet; separation from home, country or place; and the loss of health and well-being. The last section includes tales for the loss of nature and ecocide: eco-grief/eco-anxiety; and stories on cycles of life and change. As well as many original stories from Susan Perrow, there are stories from different countries and cultures worldwide by writers from a diversity of professions and backgrounds. Each story includes a description of who the story was written for, the age group and the situation. Using the power of metaphor and imaginative story journeys, combined with the sensitive art of ‘listening’, the stories in the collection offer a light in the night.
Susan Perrow M.Ed is an Australian author and storyteller who works with story medicine. She passionately believes that ‘stories know the way’. She writes, collects and documents stories that offer a therapeutic, healing journey. This is a sensitive and creative way of addressing grief and loss. Susan has a lifetime experience of teaching, writing and therapeutic storytelling. She travels internationally giving talks and running story writing seminars for teachers, parents and therapists. She is a pioneer of healing storytelling. Her therapeutic story work has led to the publication of three resource books : Healing Stories for Challenging Behaviour, Therapeutic Storytelling: 101 Healing Stories for Children and An A-Z Collection of Behaviour Tales, all published by Hawthorn Press. Translated into Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, Slovenian, Serbian and Croatian. The Little Gnome Who Had To Stay Home, a story written by Susan to help children struggling with Covid-19 ‘stay at home’ lockdowns, has been translated into 25 languages so far and was recently featured in The Sydney Morning Herald - https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.smh.com.au/culture/books/how-a-few-gnome-truths-are-helping-kids-to-understand-social-distancing-20200806-p55j85.html