An investigation of the lives of children experiencing grief based on the method of storytelling involving systemic intervention: A case study

This study aims to examine the lives and mourning process experienced by children between the ages of 7-12 whose parents have died by applying a systemic intervention based on storytelling. The "multiple case study" design, one of the qualitative research methods, was used for this study. The sample of the study consisted of six parents who shared their ideas about the children and six children between the ages of 7-12 who were studying in primary schools in Van Province (six different schools) and whose one parent -mother or father- had died at least six months prior to the onset of the study and whose school counselor had been asked to provide psychological support for them. The data of the study were collected through interviews and observation. Interviews were conducted in the fall and spring semesters of the 2018-2019 academic year and in the fall semesters of the 2019-2020 academic year; eleven interview sessions were regularly held every week with each child. Interviews were also made with the surviving parent of the children or their primary caretaker in each of these sessions, and the "parental mourning observation form" developed by the researcher was completed with the parent/caretaker during these sessions. The data were analyzed using "deductive content analysis" and "comparative qualitative analysis". The findings from the study showed that the children had experiences related to the stages of grief presented in the Kübler-Ross grief model before and after the intervention. During the intervention, the children's experiences were analyzed based on the therapeutic experiences cited by White and Epston, namely, narrative therapy and social configurations (configurations related to unique experiences in the past, configurations related to current unique experiences, and hypothetical configurations for the future). In examining the emotional configurations associated with the unique results of the past, the subcategories of "emotional oscillations between death and life" and "experiencing many emotions together during the grief process" emerged. Under the general category of "relational configurations that emerged in the process associated with current unique results", the sub-categories of "family source" and "she/ he is not the only one that experiences the mourning" were at the forefront of the children's experiences. Considering that the children adopted new perspectives and restructured their lives throughout the course of the intervention process, it is believed that it would be beneficial for school psychological counselors and professionals working in other institutions to apply "systemic intervention based on storytelling" when dealing with grief/mourning. Keywords: parental loss, grief, therapeutic storytelling, systemic intervention