ABSTRACT
Cultures "braved-up" their children with stories— magnificent epic heroic narratives— intended to transmit values and to transform fear into courage and survival. Compassionate care for grieving children has relied on theoretical constructs that offer rationale and structure for clinical intervention and care. Many children experience an overloaded palette of grief: trauma, death by suicide or murder; death as a consequence of poverty; death as a consequence of parental substance abuse; death due to an accident, illness, or natural disaster. This chapter examines the methods to find grief slices in biographical/historical narratives. Theories of grief are valuable in caring for a grieving child. Through a clinician's skilled use of borrowed narratives, theory comes to life. Sharing borrowed narratives may lead the griever to explore more on that particular individual. Borrowing narratives can increase your potential to impact a griever's life.
