As all the new ‘romantic things’ the teenager has to do become more automatic, the teenager is then afforded the ‘psychological space’ in their head to begin to experience the other in this new way. They can begin to experience the personality of the romantic other.
Suicide – homicide
People can use a car to act out their suicidal urges and drive at high speed into a solid object. This is then an expression of suicidal urges. However there are others who will drive such that their own and others lives are put at risk and some times people are killed. This is different as it is an expression of homicidal – suicidal urges.
Teenagers, parents and alcohol.
Forget the whole testing thing and start the slow process of rebuilding the lines of communication. Hopefully it wont be too late and there are not too many deep scars left on both parent and teenager, such that a reconciliation is impossible.
Further aspects of drug use ambivalence
However there is quite a sizeable group (most people) who use drugs and alcohol in a non problematic way. They use drugs and alcohol such that their life script is not advanced and their relationships are not damaged in any significant way.
The two sides of goodbye work
Full contact in relationships is something that many humans seek but at the same time can be frightening. It seems safe to say that the natural human condition is to have quite a strong ambivalence about emotional intimacy in relationship.
Authority problem and the good child in the family
If one has the opportunity it is pertinent to ask the parents about the good child in the family. The one who is not making any noise can be the one in most pain.
Men, women and attraction
A man will usually use a woman as a trophy because of his own insecurities and magical thinking as this diagram shows. He has doubts about his own worth and OKness.
Christmas leisure time
The teenager is meant to learn how to make wise use of his leisure time. This is psychologically important because it reflects the development of the Free Child ego state in the personality.
Smacking children and the power differential
I am not arguing for or against laws about smacking of children. What I am saying is that at some point it has to stop. Using the law to take away more power from the parents simply leaves a child feeling more insecure.
Reverse psychology as a therapeutic approach
I had refused to engage her RC therapy and instead suggested some Free Child activity we could do. Maybe that had allowed her to at last discover that her Free Child didn’t want to smoke anymore.
Working with the Conforming Child, Rebellious Child and Free Child ego states
In essence you begin to gain a bit of respect. If the Rebellious Child starts to
respect the counsellor as a person, then the individual becomes more receptive to
the therapeutic benefits of the counselling.
Working with the Conforming Child, Rebellious Child and Free Child ego statesRead More
Adolescence, collectivism and individualism
Of course this has significant implications for therapists in countries like Australia. We have long been indoctrinated by the theories of Margaret Mahler and John Bowlby who both adopt a very individualistic approach in their theories. It would seem wise to be much more understanding of the communal family structures.
Two models of adolescent development
First, this is better for the parents (which in turn is better for the children) because there is usually more support readily available. Second, from an attachment theory point of view it is better if children are raised in a polymatric family rather than a monomatric family.
To go, where no man has gone before
It seems people like the whale sitter are the sign of a healthy society. A sign there are people in our society who will – Go where no man has gone before!
Teenagers, death and dying
Even in death, suicide and murder there is still a childlike innocence, because they are still childlike thinkers to some degree.
Understanding the opposite sex.
Carl Jung was big on this idea. He said that a husband learns to see the women’s perspective because over time he introjects the wife’s personality into his own.
The family secret
The therapeutic response is clear. Get the family secret exposed and this can change family dynamics, quite profoundly at times.
Psychological strokes
Transactional analysis theory of strokes is central to the basics of the theory
Please me driver
Please me driver and personality
Drivers & life script
Characteristics of drivers in the life script
Child psychotherapy – competition
This is one of those articles where you begin writing something and end up writing about something completely different. I was going to write about children and black and white thinking but ended up writing about a recent sessions I did with two children and their mother.
Black and white thinking – Normal and abnormal.
The literature on black and white thinking often carries some confusion about the explanation of what it is. Or more correctly what are the underlying psychological causes that result in a person displaying this childlike type of thinking.
The four Cs model of relationships
If two people can at times be caring and considerate of the other party that is a very good thing in a long term friendship (marriage). Random acts of kindness, unsolicited, can generate so much good will.
Adolescence – the leaving home stage of development
When marriage occurs one marries the individual person and also marries their family structure all their attachments and relationships as well.
Adolescence – the leaving home stage of developmentRead More
The Demon sub personality (Aka Lillith)
The therapist needs to build a special kind of relational contract with it over a period of time, and regularly maintain that contact in the therapeutic process. One has to go along with its destructiveness at times which can require some very wily and shrewd therapeutic interventions.
The psychological need for violent images – Part 2
This blog post follows on from the previous one titled, “The psychological need for violent images.” In that it was proposed that humans have a natural inbuilt psychological mechanism that allows them to desensitise to offensive and distressing images. Humans will desensitise quite quickly to violent images. If one sees violence a few times then …
The psychological need for violent images
The human psyche is no different. When we see violent images we naturally desensitise and after recuperation we come back mentally stronger. It all a matter of degree.
Suicide and the average man
The Don’t exist injunction is different in that it is a belief a child takes on in childhood. The child basically comes to the conclusion that its own death is a viable solution to a problem.
Suicide and self destructiveness
Is there any difference in the self destructive motivations of these two men?
Suicide and depression
This is what we need to be screening for and indeed this is what I did when I worked in prison identifying suicidal and self harming inmates. If one identifies people with this injunction, as I did with many in the prison system, one knows this person is quite capable of suicide at a later time.