Abstract
This article reports on research into using the Tree of Life metaphor as creative expressive arts in therapy to convey the grief stories of adolescent AIDS orphans. The study applied a qualitative arts-based research method for data collection. Employing a critical ethnographic design afforded attention to the study’s 16 adolescent participants’ cultural context and how this context influenced participants’ sharing of their grief experiences. Discourse analysis was used as a data analysis method. Sharing images from the process along with research findings, the authors discuss how the group of adolescents utilized the Tree of Life metaphor through creative expressive arts to embody and express their experiences of grief. The authors further describe what they learned about the embodiment and expression of grief in light of adolescents’ neurobiological functioning and psychological well-being.
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Acknowledgements
To the Marian Chace Foundation, thank you for the financial contribution (grant) made to the research study. Thank you for creating this opportunity and for your unwavering support of the study. Deepest gratitude is extended to Sharon Chaiklin, Ann Lohn, Jane Wilson Cathcart, and Susan Kleinman. Your keen interest in the study has remained a source of inspiration and encouragement throughout the completion of this project. Gratitude is extended to the University of Johannesburg for the financial contribution made towards the research study. Thank you to the South African/Nederland’s Program for Alternative Development (SANPAD), in collaboration with the University of Johannesburg, for their financial support of the research project and of valuable research in South Africa.
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Statement of Human Rights
The authors state that the study was approved by the appropriate institutional ethics committee (The University of Johannesburg) and has been performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Research Involving Human Participants and/or Animals and Informed Consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. Additional informed consent was obtained for use of images depicting artefacts created by the adolescents and images depicting the process of research and psychotherapy.
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Hirschson, S., Fritz, E. & Kilian, D. The Tree of Life as a Metaphor for Grief in AIDS-Orphaned Adolescents. Am J Dance Ther 40, 87–109 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10465-017-9243-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10465-017-9243-7