Multimodal Model of Fairy-Tale Therapy: From Narrative to Visualisation and Performance

Abstract

The article presents a multimodal model of fairy-tale therapy based on the sequential transformation of a fairy-tale narrative across different semiotic systems – verbal, visual, and performative. The study aims to provide a theoretical rationale for, and test, a model in which a story created by a child does not remain a completed verbal text but becomes the starting material for further elaboration through illustration, discussion, dramatisation, and reflection. The research methodology includes observation, analysis of creative products, qualitative content analysis of children's fairy tales and illustrations, analysis of dramatisation and staging processes, and comparison of how the same content is represented across different modalities.

Multimodal fairy-tale therapy is conceptualised as an integrated process in which meaning is progressively reconstructed as it moves from word to image and from image to action. The verbal component involves creating a fairy tale narrative in which, through the figure of the protagonist, a problematic situation, a goal, obstacles, resources, and ways of overcoming difficulties, the child can indirectly represent experiences, emotions, wishes, and ideas. The visual modality expands the fairy tale's semantic space through colour, composition, symbols, spatial arrangement of characters, and details not always explicitly represented in the verbal text. The performative component translates fairy tale content into action through role enactment, voice, movement, interaction, and improvisation.

The model's practical testing indicates that, during transitions between modalities, the core semantic structure of a fairy tale may remain stable. At the same time, individual images, character traits, emotional emphases, and ways of resolving a problem may be specified, supplemented, or transformed. The study's scientific novelty lies in conceptualising fairy-tale therapeutic work as a process of multimodal meaning-making in which text, image, and performative action form an interconnected system. The practical significance of the proposed model lies in its potential application in pedagogical, psychological, and art-therapeutic work with children and adolescents.