ONCE UPON A TIME, LONG AGO...THE ROLE OF FAIRY TALES IN CHILD PSYCHOANALYTIC CLINICAL PRACTICE

Abstract

Fairy tales occupy a significant place in culture and childhood because they present, through symbolic language, conflicts related to fear, loss, abandonment, rivalry, and emotional maturation. From a psychoanalytic perspective, these narratives foster processes of symbolization that are fundamental to subjective development and to the elaboration of children's psychological suffering. In this context, the present study aimed to understand the contributions of fairy tales to the processes of symbolization and the elaboration of psychological suffering in child psychoanalytic clinical practice. Specifically, it sought to analyze the importance of fantasy in the child's subjective constitution, investigate the symbolic elements present in fairy tales, discuss the use of these narratives in child psychoanalytic practice, and examine their contributions to the elaboration of unconscious conflicts. The research was guided by the following question: how do fairy tales contribute to the processes of symbolization and the elaboration of psychological suffering in child psychoanalytic clinical practice? This is a qualitative, exploratory, and bibliographic study grounded in authors from the psychoanalytic tradition, such as Freud, Klein, Winnicott, Bettelheim, Von Franz, and Safra. The relevance of the topic lies in the need to understand clinical resources that promote children's emotional expression and elaboration while respecting the specificities of their language and psychological development. As a critical reflection, it is observed that, in a society marked by the search for immediate solutions to suffering, fairy tales remain important symbolic mediators, enabling the construction of meaning and the strengthening of subjective resources necessary for coping with human emotional experiences.