Children and adolescents’ experiences of group therapy for grief

Abstract

This study explores the experiences of group therapy for grief in children and adolescents, who showed negative treatment effect on the symptom scale Inventory of Prolonged Grief. Only few studies have investigated children and adolescents’ own experiences of grief group intervention, and this study is to our knowledge the first to investigate the treatment experiences of children and adolescents with a negative development of scores on a measure of grief. Four semi structured interviews were conducted with children and adolescents aged 11 to 15 years. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and analyzed according to Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The results identify four themes: Attempts to keep the loss at a distance led to accumulated grief, To preserve the parent, Secondary consequences and In contact with the grief in a different way. The results are discussed in the light of grief theory and empirical findings.