ABSTRACT
The tasks of healthy mourning can be used as guideposts to assist in determining if children are processing mourning in a healthy manner. Various phrases have been offered to describe processes that suggest unhealthy mourning including complicated mourning, disenfranchised grief, dysfunctional mourning, and more. One example of distorted grief is the child who accepts the magical thought, “Power can only be attained by utilizing anger.” The Model of Magical Thought can also assist in defining the clinical issue which is the destructive magical thought that begins the progression toward the development of defense mechanisms and potential personality disorders. When children experience an unhealthy process of mourning, their clinical issues can be uncovered by identifying their destructive magical thought. Untreated, magical thoughts have the potential to develop lifelong patterns of dysfunction inhibiting the normal development of children’s personality. The Model of Magical Thought has several purposes and advantages to grief therapists, parents, and bereaved children.
