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The author reflects on the usefulness of a therapeutic group structured around fairy tales, among child victims of abuse taken from their family, most often following a judicial decision and placed in a MECS (a social children’s home). In this environment–a context far from the analyst’s couch–the failure of protective shields may well be the rule, and reality is constantly present, threatening to invade. The author explores the clinical experience of a therapeutic group centered on fairy tales and makes reference to three clinical sequences of the group, to examine the relations of the play-acting with restoration of protective shields. When the shelter offered by protective shields remains inaccessible, terrifying maternal imaginings occupy the psyche of the child abuse victim, barring access to third parties, and incidentally to psychic elaboration. These figures are also those abundantly proposed in myths. The Medusa and the Gorgon serve as paradigms. Thanks to the therapy group, the analysis makes it possible to restore the function of the protective shield. Thus, it is the act of re-launching the play process which represents psychic healing.