Fairy tale group in the children's psycho-neurological sanatorium

The article is devoted to conducting a psychotherapy group performing a combined fairy-tale plot. The participants were primary schoolers with neurotic symptoms and developmental delay, they were patients of a psycho-neurological sanatorium (Moscow). The group was working through rehearsing in a fairy tale puppet theatre. General theoretical and methodical basis of fairy-tale performing as a psychotherapy approach is described. Three levels of the psychotherapeutic work are developed: 1) working with a group as a whole with common problems of participants, 2) working on problems of a child as an individual and 3) working on a fairy tale individually. The assessment of the therapeutic approach effectiveness is discussed in the context of children’s being at the institution. As the result of the psychotherapy the children’s proneness to conflict, anxiety, neuroticism, neurotic symptoms were observed to have decreased and their self-esteem appeared to have become more realistic.