This study has started from the interest on ‘life experiences of a child
who has experienced the loss of a mother. The research object was a twelve
year old girl, in her six grade, who had experienced mother-loss and
showing symptoms of depression. From September 15, 2008 to July, 2009, she
went through 29 times of art therapy program, once a week, sixty minutes
each session. Especially bringing in analytic phenomenology by Van
Manen(1994), this study focuses on more of the meaning of experience
through art therapy. The study results are summarized asfollows: (1) Based
on trust and the sense of closeness which a child had developed with the art
therapist, she could jump over to a relationship with others as she pursues
‘the process of finding oneself.’ (2) As a child sees and appreciates her own
art pieces, she understands her experiences in the past and become
experiences of the present ‘I’. In so doing she gets to self examination and
discernment through experiencing a \"rebirth of ‘I’\" as she finds the hopeful ‘I’
as distinct from the ‘I’ in the past. (3) Through the relationship between the
child and the art therapist, she gets to have different perception about ‘I’.
Through this study, it was confirmed that receptive, supportive, and sensitive
care from the art therapist, positive therapeutic factors of art media, and the
relationship between a child and the art therapist are important therapeutic
variables for a child’s life and development who had lost her mother.