Case Study: Family Break Up
Simon (9 years) and Jason (6 Years) came to family counselling with their mum and dad, who had split up almost a year ago. They came for counselling due to Simon's anger at school and with other children (but he did not get angry with Jason).
Dad sees the children every other weekend and often phones in the week. Mum and Dad have an amicable relationship over the children, but Simon has started to become reluctant to visit Dad and sometimes refuses to talk to him on the phone.
We looked at the angry feelings. What was it like when it happened, was he aware when it visited? If it was a colour what colour would it be and how big was it?
Simon said he was aware when it started to visit in his head and it was big and red. We talked about how he could tell Mum, Dad, teacher or playground assistant, he was feeling angry. He said he could just say that he was the colour red. Mum offered to help him talk to everyone involved so that they understood.
Through the sessions we used colouring and modelling to help Simon express and talk about his anger to Dad, how he wanted Dad back and did not like Dad's new partner. He slowly began to see that when they visited Dad, they had some good times even when Dad's new partner was there. He said he felt sad Mum was not there having a good time. Mum assured him it was OK to have a good time.
I observed he felt torn between Mum & Dad. He also thought that if the other person was not there, Mum & Dad would get back together. When we looked at the break-up, it showed that Dad's new partner wasn't around at that time, so Simon could see that she was not totally the enemy.
We asked Dad to come for a few sessions. Simon brought some of his own toys to the sessions with Dad. He used them in the third person to express himself. Dad engaged with this, and an understanding on Dad's part developed.
Simon started to visit Dad again and the angry feelings stopped. Simon said he could always just use the word "red" and people would understand how he was feeling.