ABSTRACT
The exercise supports the need both to grieve the bad times and to celebrate the good times they have had with a parent. Doing both helps the child or teenager to process their past properly. For many children and teenagers, the rock bottom moments will have been traumatic and, as we know, trauma does not just go away. As Van der Kolk (1989) says ‘The past will not go into the past until it is remembered in the present.’ So this exercise is about doing just that.
