Martha A Griever Chapter Summary

That same day there were people going in and out of Jamie’s house, Martha and her baby brother are over at the narrator’s house. Martha is a disenfranchised griever. She is about four years old and understands that Jamie is “dead” and will not return home but instead is on his way to heaven to play with the angels. Martha considering her age does not weep for her older brother though she understands the literal context of an end to a life. What makes Martha a disenfranchised griever is that she is not included in the commencement and funeral process, therefore. She is excluded and does not have a great sense on what is happening and there is no one to explain it to her. In addition, Martha and her baby brother will not attend the funeral further excluding them. Martha makes a …show more content…
This book could be used in a Bibliotherapy intervention with survivors who had experience a loss of a friend or sibling (Neimeyer, 2012). Bibliotherapy uses both cognitive behavioral and narrative therapeutic approaches to help clients normalize their experience by determining similarities and differences between the client and the character in the story and their situation (as cited in Neimeyer, 2012). Once, the child can engage and relate to a character it opens a door for the child to discuss grief and loss with the counselor and facilitate their thoughts. This book can be a story a counselor can recommend a parent to read to their child. The book looks into the process of mourning, disenfranchised grief, different emotions like anxiety, guilt, stress, yearning, anger and sadness. Some of the different cognitive patterns described in this story are disbelief, confusion, and preoccupation. Behavior is what stands out in this story, there is a disturbance in the narrator’s appetite, he is socially withdrawn, crying, and treasuring objects like a flashlight, he used to signal Morse