ABSTRACT
This chapter invites the reader to enter the unique and creative model of Therapeutic Assessment of Children through the porthole of a therapeutic fable written by the assessor for a ten-year-old client. The main character in the story is a fantasy animal the child had drawn in the assessment, Coo-Coo Chuck. Through Coo-Coo Chuck, the child revealed how sad and worried she felt and how much she wanted to be cared for. The assessment findings consistently showed a child with deep attachment wounds and developmental trauma, using distancing and dismissing defenses to cope with deep underlying feelings of insecurity and pain. The fable illustrates how to compassionately communicate what is figured out about a child in a way that the caretakers and child can relate to and keep in mind. As the reader will experience reading the Fable for Sarah, this was a story for the whole family that captured what the child had experienced, what they now understood, and how they could move forward with a new family narrative.
