1st Edition

The Magical Thoughts of Grieving Children Treating Children with Complicated Mourning and Advice for Parents

By James. A. Fogarty Copyright 2000
    184 Pages
    by Routledge

    192 Pages
    by Routledge

    This book is designed for clinicians, educators, clergy, and nurses - anyone who is assisting children who have experienced the death of a loved one. This work offers a unique framework for helping children heal from the wounds created by the life process of death, a framework that has its defining basis in children's magical thought. Magical thought is motivated by the desire of a child with incomplete cognitive equipment to understand his world. Magical thought helps children develop inaccurate conclusions about many aspects of death and their own personal grief, often suggesting that they or someone else is responsible for the loss.

    Introduction

    Chapter 1 — Children's View of Grief
     How to be an Expert in the Eyes of Children
     A New Look at the Normal Grief Emotions of Children
     The Normal Grief Emotions
     The Numb and Stunned Reaction • Commotion • Attempts to Re-create Coupled with Balancing Denial • Anguish • Anger •
    Guilt
     Summary

    Chapter 2 — Cognition: The Most Definitive Feature of Children's Grief
     To Bond or Not to Bond? • Imitation • Concrete Thinking • The Onset of Abstract Reasoning • Adolescence—Abstract
     Thought Unleashed
     Summary

    Chapter 3 — The Model of Magical Thought
     What is Magical Thought? • The Model of Magical Thought: "Seeds for the Destruction of Children's Personality Development"
    • Key Definitions for the Model of Magical Thought
     Summary

    Chapter 4 — The Tasks of Mourning Distorted by Destructive Magical Thought
     The Five Tasks of Healthy Mourning • Complicated Mourning • Therese Rando's Six "R" Response • Disenfranchised Grief •
    Conversions from the Unhealthy Model of Magical Thought to the Tasks of Healthy Mourning
     Summary

    Chapter 5 — Action-Focused Techniques to Eliminate Destructive Magical Thought
     Action-Focused Techniques Defined • Advantages of Action-Focused Techniques with Bereaved Children and Families • Five
     Purposes of Action-Focused Techniques • The Interview Process • Parental Involvement • Examples of Action-Focused
     Techniques Eliminating Magical Thought
     Summary

    Chapter 6 — Anger and Magical Thought
     Prescription for Anger Management • Summary of a Plan of Treatment for Anger Management
     Chapter 7 — A Special Note for Parents
     Chapter 8 — Magical Thought of Adults and Society
     The Functions of Magical Thought of this Society • The Trickle Down Effect

     Chapter 9 — Final Thoughts
     References
     Appendix A — Resources for Action-Focused Techniques
     Index 

    Biography

    James A. Fogarty, Ed .D, Licensed Clinical Psychologist, Certified School Psychologist