Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Jack and Anger Management - Part 3

Synopsis,
In my posting titled “Anger Management and the Adolescent Child” http://hyp4lifellc.blogspot.com/2008/08/anger-management-article.html
I introduced you to Jack. A fourteen year old adopted young man with many emotional problems, not the least of which, was the inability to management his anger.
In “Jack and Anger Management- Part 2” I described our last two sessions and my concern that I was not finding much success in trying to show Jack a better way to control his anger.
In this, the third posting, I describe how I changed my approach to help Jack in controlling his anger and why I went from directing him to accept his anger to using forgiveness to allow him to control and hopefully eliminate his anger.
I describe how, psychically I gained insight into what to do in Jack’s session.
I also found a new appreciation for the power of forgiveness.

From Part 2;


"… Jack looked up and nodded in agreement, in a way that I knew,
he agreed with my assessment of the situation.
I continued,
“Jack… Do you think that your mother would ever reject you?
Now don’t answer right away…
think about it…”
Without a second’s hesitation, he looked up at me,
then to Diane, shaking his head, saying strongly…
“NO! She wouldn’t”
“Your father?” I asked.
This time he hesitated a second, mulled over the question,
took a deep breath and said truthfully and definitively…
“No, he wouldn’t reject me either.”
“Do you absolutely believe that?” I asked
“You are not just saying that… It is what you truly believe?
Your parents WOULD NOT… EVER REJECT YOU?... Right?”
He quietly nodded “yes”
“If you believe that, then, do you know how much it hurt these two people”
referring to his parents “to hear those words from your mouth?”
As he looked up at them, tears were starting to form in his eyes
(along with his father’s, his mother’s and mine)"


“Jack and Anger Management – Part 3

I decided at that point,
I had to change the direction I was taking with Jack’s therapy.
But, how was I going to be able to get through to this young man?
How was I going to get him to understand and believe
that more than accepting his anger, he needed to get past his anger?
If he allowed his anger to fester like an infection of the soul,
he would never know true happiness.

He now has the opportunity with his adoptive parents, who love him,
accept him unconditionally and will never reject him,
to know what the love of a real family is.
His anger was blocking him from growing.

If he was unable to get past his anger at the world,
I knew he would be stuck in this angry stage for his entire life.
Unfortunately, we all know people like that;
angry at the world for pain suffered in their youth.
These people may never know happiness and
I would hate to see Jack turn into one of those sad and angry men.

As I have told you in many other postings,
being a psychic/medium has a lot of advantages.

When I communicate with spirit,
I don’t ask who is communicating with me;
I just appreciate the connection and listen to it.
It doesn’t matter if the information that is coming to me
is from a father in spirit that wants to help his child
or a spirit guide that needs to redirect their “student” in the physical world
or if it is my “Hypnotherapist Guide”,
who I ask for help from constantly and who has never failed me;
when I get information from that part of my mind I accept it unconditionally.

So when I knew I was in for a complex and complicated hypnotherapy session
with Jack and his family,
I asked my Hypnotherapist “Spirit” Guide,
to give me a little help with this one… and, as usual, he came through.

As Jack and I went into my room where I do the actual hypnotherapy sessions,
I felt Jack’s pain and frustration
caused by his inability to control that irrational angry part of him.
He sat in the recliner as he had so many times before.
He has become one of those perfect hypnotic subjects,
and went quickly, almost instantly, into “Somnambulism”
(the most productive state of hypnosis that you can be in).
As I usually do, I helped Jack go deeper into hypnosis
by putting on some new age-y type music.

I said to myself
“OK, now how are you going to proceed?”

When I felt a chill, up and down my arms;
to me that is the unmistakable feeling of contact with a spirit.

If I were doing a psychic/medium session,
I would have expected this feeling and would ask this spirit to come closer
so I could get validations and messages.
But this connection was unexpected and
Jack was absolutely not interested in any messages from dead people
from his past that he would probably be angry with anyway!

Also I was getting a different “vibe” from this spirit,
it was not connecting with Jack,
it was connecting with me, giving me messages;
messages of how to get through to Jack.
I had been questioning to myself,
as to how I was going to facilitate this change in his perception
from being the perpetual victim;
always the one being abandoned;
always feeling rejection, even when there was no rejection,
to a person who could forgive, and get on with his life.

“Change his perceptions and you change his view of his life”,
I wasn’t sure where that came from.
A cynic would say it came simply from
my experience as a hypnotherapist and from working with Jack,
but I felt differently.
Perhaps a spirit from his family did give me insight;
perhaps my Hypnotherapist Guide…
But who gave me that insight was totally unimportant,
the message and insight they gave me was!

“Change his perceptions and you change his view of his life!”

OK I got it… thanks, whoever you are.

At the same instant, a thought came to me that if his mother had kept him,
he would have never known this loving couple who truly are “his parents”.
I realized (or was shown) that if his birth mother had kept him,
with what little we know about her,
his life could have been considerably worse;
possibly eating out of trash containers,
living on the street,
being subjected to drug users or worse.

My feelings towards this young mother instantly changed.
Instead of anger towards her for abandoning her son,
I felt an overwhelming feeling of sympathy and sadness for her.

Instead of the cold hearted, drug addicted tramp, who abandoned her child,
coldly walking away from him,

I saw her as a young girl,
in over her head, in a life that she could not deal with herself,
not to mention trying to raise a child.
Her decision to give Jack up for adoption was not a selfish decision;
it was a heart-wrenchingly difficult decision that took three years to make.

Once she realized that for Jack’s own good,
for his health,
for his future, which she could not provide for him,
the decision to give him up was the only one she had.

And it was harder for her than Jack could have ever imagined.

She did not abandon him; she gave her precious son away for his own good although she cries herself to sleep even now!

If in my eyes, I could make a shift like that, what would happen to Jack’s attitude,
if he no longer looked at himself as a victim, abandoned by everyone who was supposed to be there for him?

If I could help Jack fundamentally change his self image and his view of the people in his life, there wouldn’t be a need to control his anger, there would not be this overwhelming irrational anger there to control!

The anger may just be gone with this change of perception.

If he could only accept that he was loved and cherished and given away because his mother was convinced that it was the only choice she had and she had agonized over the decision for three years, he might just forgive her.

And if he could forgive his birth mother, would he be able to forgive the rest?

If the first family that adopted Jack, only to send him back to foster care, had kept him, he would have grown up in a family that could or would not have shown him the attention, love and caring he needed.
If that first adoptive couple had “kept” him, he never would have met and been adopted by this loving and supportive couple who became his REAL parents.

That first adoptive family, in fact, like his mother knew he would be better without them.
If he could see that first couple for the realists that they were instead of the selfish self-centered people he had viewed them as, forgiveness would be possible there too.

The plan came to me in a second;
I knew exactly how to proceed.
I thanked my hypnosis guide and continued.

Jack was already in a very deep state of hypnosis.
At this point, he is so good at going into the “altered state”, as we call it,
I simply say, “Ready?”
he nods,
I say “SLEEP!”
and he is there, in deep hypnosis.
I take no credit for it, I don’t think of what a great hypnotist I am, I simply acknowledge that the more often you hypnotize someone, the easier it is to hypnotize them again.

The session worked great.
I asked his angry part to come out and speak with me, which it did often and easily.

His Angry part stated that although he knew he was wrong in saying those hurtful things to his father and it was sorry for saying them, it cannot apologize and can’t forgive.

I asked his Angry part why he can’t forgive and it said
“No one loves Jack, they all reject him, if he forgives, he’ll only be hurt again, they don’t care about anyone except themselves…”

I asked him to go back to the time he was three, his mother had him by the hand and walked him to the door of the foster care facility.
He agreed and as he sat visualizing the scene, I saw he was getting angrier.

I asked him to look at his birth mother and describe her.
“She’s angry,
she’s ugly,
she has hard eyes,
she is pulling me by my arm,
she shakes me and says to stay,
she rings the bell,
the door opens,
she turns away,
she doesn’t say goodbye,
she doesn’t kiss me,
she turns,
she walks away…
I never see her again”
All this said with an undertone of anger, teeth clenched his brow deeply furrowed.

After some relaxation techniques, I asked him to picture what happened from a different angle… From his mother’s angle…
he was initially resistant.
I explained that there are two sides to every story and this may be his mother’s version…

“She is crying,
she has tried for three years to provide for her son,
she lost her job,
she is going to lose her apartment,
she has no husband to help her,
decisions she made in her life were very wrong
but she knows that is not Jack’s fault, she realizes he didn’t ask to be born,
she takes responsibility,
she finally realizes that she cannot keep Jack and she goes to the foster care agency.

She walks to the house and can’t look at Jack,
her heart is breaking,
she doesn’t want Jack to see her cry so she turns her head away from him,
Jack is three…
a baby…
he doesn’t know what is going on…
She rings the bell,
her hands are shaking,
she considers picking up her baby and running, but to where?
The door opens,
she turns and takes a step away,
her heart feels so heavy she thinks she is going to die and she walks away,
she turns the corner,
her legs give way,
she falls to the ground,

she cries until there are no more tears left to shed…

This process is called “Reframing” where you actually change the perception of the memory.
It doesn’t change history, he was put up for adoption and he was adopted and then returned, he was rejected, but now his view of the villains in these memories changed.

No longer villains, they were victims also.
I found a new appreciation for reframing a person’s perceptions.
I also found a new appreciation for the power of forgiveness.

After the session was over, he seemed like a different boy.
He was smiling and happy.
His parents, who had just seen their son angry and hostile, were surprised to see him in such a happy mood so quickly.

I don't know what will happen with Jack.
I hope that between his loving family, his intelligence, his emotional growth, and continued counseling, he will learn how to forgive and to trust people again.
I do know that it has been a learning and growing experience not just for Jack and his family, but for me also.
It has also been an experience that I will remember and cherish;
being part of the evolution of this young man’s life.
After all, that is why we are all here on this planet...
to learn and grow.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Jack and Anger Management - Part 2

Synopsis,
This posting is a follow-up to a previous article titled “Anger Management and the Adolescent Child”.
http://hyp4lifellc.blogspot.com/2008/08/anger-management-article.html
In this, Part 2, I review what has happened since Jack’s initial sessions and the two most recent sessions. I describe why I realized I had to change my approach to help Jack with his anger management issues. In Part 3, I describe how I went from directing him to accept his anger to using forgiveness to allow him to control and hopefully eliminate his anger.

In my posting titled “Anger Management and the Adolescent Child”
http://hyp4lifellc.blogspot.com/2008/08/anger-management-article.html
I introduced you to Jack. A fourteen and a half year old, adopted young man with many emotional problems, not the least was the inability to manage his anger.
I have seen Jack ten times since then and he is now almost 16 (“15 and ¾” according to Jack).

His anger has continued to cause major complications and problems in his life, his parent’s lives and the lives of those around him.

Our last session was in late October 2009, when we had what I feel was a major breakthrough.
I made a decision to change the direction I was taking with Jack in his attempt to understand, accept and control his anger. This decision to change my approach with Jack actually started in late August, when I received an email from his mother and I knew without speaking on the phone, that Jack and his parents were having a very bad time.

I scheduled our session for mid September 2009, right after the start of the 2009/10 school year. At that session, I found out the Jack had been having many uncontrollable fits of rage.

His mother, Diane told me on the phone, that while on vacation in August to the Grand Canyon, with the family, he had a meltdown; cursing, screaming and was totally out of control.
Jack’s parents did not know what triggered the explosion.
“One minute he was fine, not talking a lot, but fine. When Peter (Jack’s father) said that he couldn’t buy a trinket, he blew up! We had no clue it was going to happen. One minute everything was fine and the next there was complete bedlam.” After calming down, Jack realized that he was wrong, but realized that he was totally unable to control his anger and he asked Diane to set up an appointment with me.

She also relayed a recent incident that happened at school, which ended with EMS being called to transport Jack to the hospital for observation. At the school and in the hospital, he was totally non-communicative. He would later tell us at that session that it was his attempt to control himself so he wouldn’t explode again. His method to control the anger from erupting was to totally shut off, saying that if he had said anything, he knew he would again lose control and once again explode. He was showing control in the attempt, but I needed to show him another way of controlling his anger, but I was running out of ideas.

Our appointment was on a Monday and when Jack, Diane and Peter came into my office, Jack seemed very upset, biting his lip, very sullen, referring to his parents as “he” and “she”. His parents described what had happened the day before. The argument had gotten so loud and out of control, that Jack said it got physical, describing how his mother grabbed him around his throat.

After a discussion involving how there are two sides to every story or argument, I got most of the facts needed and unfortunately, I saw a side of Jack that I had never seen before and it really concerned me.

This was another fight over Jack hearing the word “NO”, but it went entirely out of control. His father who told him that he couldn’t do something (what the something was, in fact, was unimportant) and Jack again exploded. Throwing things yelling at his father and culminating with Jack screaming at both parents…

“You are not my parents and never will be!” as he stormed away from them.

Diane explained that, that is when she physically restrained him, in order to calm the situation down.

In our past sessions, I felt that if he was conflicted by his anger, he needed to accept his anger in order to control it. Now he was accepting his anger so well, he was using it as a weapon to hurt the two people in the world who had proven to him that they would never reject him.

And now he was rejecting them!

I realized that the direction I was taking with Jack; specifically the acceptance of his anger did him a disservice.
I knew that if we could help him eliminate the anger, there would be no need to control it.

Eliminating anger is always preferable to simply controlling it, but again… how?

I knew that he had to accept the pain of growing up and that what was done, was done.
There was no changing history and the only way he would be able to get on with his life was to forgive everyone who hurt him.

I knew that without finding that forgiveness for all the people in his life who had betrayed him, any time he felt the least bit of understandable or justified anger, he would explode, automatically releasing all the pent up pain, rejection, anger and fury inappropriately at everyone near him.

The two people who warranted that release of anger the least and who unfortunately received it the most were his parents.

“Did that happen?” I asked Jack, “Did you really say that your parents?”
He simply said, “Yes…” with no eye contact.

I knew he was apologetic and wondered if his parents heard a real apology;
not just a gratuitous, “sorry…”

I continued, “Do you really feel that way? That they aren’t your parents and never will be?”
He again simply shook his head, no and again with no eye contact.
His sadness was palpable.

“Jack” I said, “Sometimes when you explode, you don’t think clearly and you can say things, really hurtful things, like what you said to your Mom and Dad, but you don’t mean them.
When these things are said, you want to take them back, but feel that it’s too late. So you want to apologize but you feel you can’t. Do you know what I’m saying?”

He looked up and nodded in agreement, in a way that I knew, he agreed with my assessment of the situation.

I continued, “Jack… Do you think that your mother would ever reject you? Now don’t answer right away… think about it…”

Without a second’s hesitation, he looked up at me, then to Diane, shaking his head, saying strongly… “NO!, she wouldn’t”

“Your father?” I asked. This time he hesitated a second, mulled over the question, took a deep breath and said truthfully and definitively… “No, he wouldn’t reject me either.”

“Do you absolutely believe that?” I asked
“You are not just saying that… It is what you truly believe?
Your parents WOULD NOT… EVER REJECT YOU?... Right?” He quietly nodded “yes”

“If you believe that, then, do you know how much it hurt these two people” referring to his parents" to hear those words from your mouth?”

As he looked up at them, tears were starting to form in his eyes (along with his father’s, his mother’s and mine).

The next posting will be next week and will conclude this 3 part Posting, reviewing the change in the way I used hypnotic intervention in Jack’s situation.