Fairy tale therapy for children of war

Abstract

The article highlights the possibilities of using fairy-tale therapy by parents, legal guardians, socionomic sphere specialists in the process of providing support and assistance to children during the war. The purpose of the article is to define the content of fairy-tale therapy and create an author’s fairy tale, which is focused on pedagogical and psychological assistance to children affected by military operations. To achieve the goal, mainly theoretical research methods were applied: study, analysis and generalization of special psychological and pedagogical literature in order to identify the investigated problem. It is emphasized that a therapeutic fairy tale heals a person’s soul, as it carries out powerful psychological work at the subconscious level. In order for the fairy-tale narrative to acquire a therapeutic character, it must reflect the child’s problem. The process of creating an author’s therapeutic fairy tale helps relieve tension in stressful situations, contributes to the constructive experience of emotions, develops communication skills, imagination, and distracts from difficult feelings. It was concluded that fairy-tale therapy is a unique method of treatment of mental health disorders caused by military actions, as children find echoes of inner experiences from their own lives in fairy tales.