How play therapy helped 10-year-old Amelia overcome grief

Enthusiastic, eloquent, and with eyes radiating curiosity and interest, Amelia makes for an engaging interviewee. She's being interviewed by ellenor, along with her mum, Sam.

But behind Amelia's positive demeanour is a girl whose history is characterised by deep grief and bereavement.

Amelia’s dad and grandad, the two most significant male figures in her life, passed away within just 14 months of each other. The former following a bout of COVID-19 in January 2021; the latter in March 2022, after a 20-month battle with oesophageal cancer.

“When my dad [Amelia’s grandad] was diagnosed in August 2020, Amelia was only eight,” Sam explains. “She didn’t understand the concept of it. Earlier in life, she’d already suffered the losses of two important people – her great-grandma and great-aunt – which had a massive impact on her. So when we told her about grandad, she didn’t absorb it very well. She was upset all the time, and getting cross with herself.”

Soon, Amelia’s grandad was under ellenor’s care. They helped manage his condition, providing palliative and end-of-life care.

But a key part of their service and ethos isn’t merely to serve the needs of the patient. It's to support their families, too.

Play therapy is an innovative therapeutic intervention designed to help children express their feelings, particularly relating to grief and bereavement, through a non-verbal medium. It offers a safe, supportive environment where the child doesn’t have to worry about saying something that might upset or trigger other family members, who may also be grieving. 

“Play therapy was an opportunity for Amelia to explore her emotions,” Sam reflects. “To talk about them without being pushed into talking about them. For any child, it’s that opportunity to have a secure bond and a strong relationship with an adult who’s outside the situation. To be able to talk to them, and feel safe and supported.”

In play therapy, ellenor's Play Therapist Jola Martis uses a range of tools and techniques to stimulate the senses and engage the child’s imaginative instincts. They can express those instincts through colour, shapes, and puppets, or by drawing, building, acting, or storytelling. The sky’s the limit!

“The play therapy was fantastic,” says Sam. “There was a long time between Amelia’s grandad’s diagnosis, and his death. Jola was able to break down that length in time in a way Amelia could understand. It helped check Amelia’s grasp of what was happening; of what the expectations were, and where [the illness] would lead, so she didn’t get any false hope. It allowed Amelia to process her grandad’s illness at a speed that worked for her.”

“Play therapy is awesome!” Amelia grins. “It’s lots of fun. In play therapy, you can say how your day has been without actually saying it, while you play, draw, or build, and through the colours and shapes you use.”

Sam agrees: “Amelia’s always loved imaginative play. So for her, it was the ideal medium for exploring complex illnesses, and how they progress. How they make us feel, too; and how we deal with them to build resilience."

One of the activities involved grinding salt and coloured chalk together. Sam explains that for Amelia this signified “letting the emotion out.” Jola then worked with Amelia to pour the freshly-coloured salt into a love heart-shaped bottle to represent Amelia’s grandad.

“I chose the colours,” remembers Amelia. “Red was for anger, at grandad being taken away.

“Purple is my favourite colour...it always means something good. So purple is happiness, and was there to remind me of all the happy times I had with my grandad.”

Following her grandad’s death, play therapy enabled Amelia to come to terms with the grief in a way that she understood and felt comfortable with. Yet play therapy also helped Amelia before her grandad’s death. 

Playing with Jola empowered Amelia come to terms with her grandad’s condition and prognosis many months before he passed away. But rather than this understanding causing stress or anxiety, or preventing Amelia enjoying her last few months with her grandad, it did the opposite. It gave her a renewed appreciation of how precious his remaining time was and encouraged her to make the most of it.

“Dad stayed with us for the last six weeks of his life, and received care from my home," Sam explains. "Amelia cherished that time. She knew he was poorly, but it meant she could have that time for those extra cuddles. Those little five-minute chats; taking him a cold drink, or cutting his cake. Watching rubbish TV together, just for the sake of watching it.

“Those intimate moments are ones not everyone gets, because they don’t have the time to process the enormity of things." 

Jola’s play therapy helped Amelia through all stages of grief; through each step of one of the most challenging periods of her life. But as her mum explains, play therapy has benefits for everyone.

“For every family, it’s crucial that a child has that impartial person to express their feelings to, whether it’s through play, reading a story, or simply being there at the other end of the phone. Because even a child without comprehension, or who might say nothing, is still gaining so much from that bond.

“They can say what they need to say. And that’s important.”

Thank you to Amelia, Sam and ellenor for sharing their story.