Healing Stories: Bibliotherapy and Art Therapy as Tools to Support Bereaved Children, A Literature Review

When I was interning at a bereavement center for children as a second-year graduate student, I witnessed the use of children’s books by an art therapist. This made me curious as to whether the joint use of art therapy and bibliotherapy is an effective support for this population. This critical review of the literature explored this idea by first defining art therapy and bibliotherapy, placing them within a historical context, and noting similarities between the two modalities. Recent sources regarding theories and therapeutic approaches for grief and bereavement were gathered and explored to deepen the understanding of how art therapy and bibliotherapy can be applied to bereaved children. Though there was a lack of literature on how art therapy and bibliotherapy can be used jointly, this literature review contends that this topic merits further research and would be beneficial to therapeutically supporting bereaved children