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.