Picture 1 I believe I was only able to achieve this as a result of moving
into a less safe location for me but a considerably safer one for him. Potentially, the further eff ect of my giving consideration to where he had his therapy also layered in the experience of relational ‘belonging’ as well. I would like to hope, when the memories return now, he can also add to the story that someone was with him in the telling, that the pain can be managed, and the stories can be tolerated. For Leon, he needed to be in his very safest place possible to
engage in at ending to what most troubled him. T e following week, I wondered if now that he had engaged with me he would be content enough to see me in school at his allot ed time, but he refused and looked straight into my eyes and said in a frustrated tone, “No, I thought we had a deal,” meaning he would see me aſt er school in his room. All his care and school staff found this bewildering, as he usually is so rigid ordinarily about the importance of fi shing straight aſt er school and yet he was prepared, for short periods of time, once a week to forgo this. In those moments of therapy, he felt safe in an environment and temporary relationship where he felt connected through an experience of ‘belonging’. Leon has now returned to live with his birth mother and
brother. It is not just because of these moments of ‘belonging’, as a number of factors contributed to this move. However, emotionally he has positively shiſt ed, and he is signifi cantly calmer in his day- day presentation, meaning his mother is able to manage him. Dean – When this eight-year-old boy’s social worker visited recently, she thought he was describing a very close friend when he explained his time and feelings for me! How was this created?
Simply by remembering directives he gave me from one week to
the next! I did not think about him as a child with issues of control and daily aggressive outbursts, requiring at least two adults to restrain him, as was being experienced by care and school staff . I saw and heard him as a child who had never experienced the safety of an adult holding him well enough in mind. Despite beginning life into the care of a loving mother, he had also lived the nightly experiences of terror and violence from an alcoholic father and witnessed the perpetual physical and psychological abuse and torment experienced by his mother. He was removed from school one day to live with strangers (foster carers) and then subsequently had numerous moves as a result of his behavioural presentations of grief and trauma. He never fully understood why he had been separated from his mother and sisters so he developed a narrative that made sense to his juvenile mind: “T e world is dangerous, my mum doesn’t love me, never trust anyone, you never know when you will next leave, believe nothing”.
28 So, his tasks for me enabled us to develop the beginnings of
trust for him in someone. Some examples of vehicles to enable ‘belonging’ included; a. Bringing tiny circle bat eries for the toy till b. Custard creams c. Ginger biscuits d. Screwdrivers ... e. ... to undo various screws around the room before he arrived for him to fi nd to do up again!
f. Lavender drops for the Green Frog (writ en about in Context 161)
g. To have spoken to his social worker about seeing people from a previous placement
h. A wallet. I think it was aſt er the unscrewing of the door handle and towel
rail that Dean fully smiled and has now set led into not set ing me tasks. He believes he is worthy, and every lit le detail of his needs will be at ended to. During his therapy times, he feels a sense of positive ‘belonging’. As a result, he can relax fully into engaging in the therapy. He has shiſt ed now into being verbally communicative and prepared to take risks of exploring his frightening narratives. He also now has sibling therapy with his sister and has progressed into sharing some previously unshared traumatic experiences that explain so much more about the severity of fears at bedtime. He is able to now take these stories into his relationships with care staff so they can provide an even higher level of care and support which naturally means he is gaining opportunities of learning to move one experience of positive ‘belonging’ into another context. He is also able to show humour and banter, such is his relational
‘belonging’. Knowing me well now and knowing that I seek meaning in what he says and does on multiple levels, he recently asked me if I wanted to know why he was, “feeling really excited about his lunch”. “Go on, guess”, he pushed me and then, with a twinkle in his eye but with a serious tone, he pronounced, “I am excited for my lunch because I am hungry!” Such a simple comment and yet also cleverly playing with the seriousness of therapy; I remain impressed with him! Leah – aſt er developing a positive experience of ‘belonging’ during therapy, an 11-year-old girl moved very quickly into thinking about how she did not feel a positive enough sense of ‘belonging’ with her family. She was in care, as were her siblings, but they all remained together. Above are pictures of play dough that represent her perception of herself with them. T e line of family is how she felt at the time (picture 1), with
her represented as the purple piece, only able really to feel she had any relationship with anyone except the green piece – her mother. Her siblings (pink) felt distant and unknown. As a result of family
Context 169, June 2020
Engaging those with complex trauma through ‘belonging’
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