Experts in this issue
I heard about it, the chief counselor of the psychological counseling center
Zheng Qijuan
(PS: In this case, the written authorization and consent of the parties have been obtained, and their personal information has been technically processed)
01
The first time I met Lin Lin was a year ago, when she was 14 years old and had just entered the third year of junior high school, and she was brought in by her mother for counseling because she was tired of school.
During the eleventh holiday after the start of the new semester, I saw Lin Lin, her face full of sadness, next to her mother, she seemed very silent.
As soon as my mother saw me, she said anxiously that the child had just entered the third year of junior high school, and it was supposed to be a year of sprinting, but the teacher reported that the child's state was not right, and found that the child had become unhappy to study, often sat for several hours without finishing his homework, forgot everything the teacher said, and was unwilling to communicate with his parents.
In the past week, he said that he was very unwell, headache, dizziness, stomach discomfort and chest tightness, refused to go to school, but could be taken to the hospital for examination and had no symptoms, and the doctor recommended to deal with it through psychological counseling.
When my mother communicated with me, Lin Lin took out her mobile phone and swiped it down, and her mother immediately stopped her softly, as if she hadn't heard. My mother complained to me, "This child is really rude, and she won't listen."
I observed the interaction between the mother and daughter and continued to inform them about the professional setting of psychological counseling.
After the introduction, I asked them for their opinion which one to start talking first, and the mother couldn't wait to say, and the daughter put the phone away and looked at me. I emphasized the secrecy setting to Linlin again, and told her that if she wanted to communicate with me first, it was okay, and that her mother could go outside and rest first.
She nodded, and I respected her wishes, so I invited my mother out of the consultation room first.
02
After her mother went out, Linlin began to tell her story sadly: she is the only daughter in the family, her parents are more demanding, and they hope to be admitted to a key university.
Mom is a person who is prone to anxiety, often nagging and urging herself to study hard, and she is the same with her husband, and Dad often hides outside to avoid her mother's chatter and goes home. Even if he took the first place in the class, his parents never affirmed or encouraged him, his father never studied and his mother always emphasized the "sense of crisis" - not to be proud, not to advance or retreat, to always work harder than others to maintain excellence.
I feel like Sisyphus (a character in ancient Greek mythology), every day I have to push the big rock of learning to the top of the mountain, and if there is a slack, the stone will slide to the bottom of the mountain, and I have to start all over again.
I did well in elementary school, but I gradually felt that I couldn't keep up, especially in junior high school. The more I can't catch up, the more I am nagged, criticized, and urged by my mother, and now my father has also joined my mother's camp.
Mom is very dissatisfied with Lin Lin's results, in order to be greatly improved in the year of junior high school preparation, in the summer vacation, Mom helped Lin Lin sign up for an elite intensive tutoring class, every day from morning to night high-intensity study, preview, review, the whole day the head is dizzy, stressful, not sleeping well at night, no energy during the day, the body has insomnia, headache, weight loss phenomenon.
After the summer vacation class, the new semester began, Lin Lin found that she could not study normally, wanted to read books, wanted to listen to classes, but could not read, could not listen, felt that the brain like paste could not turn, often hid in the quilt alone at night and cried, unwilling to talk to classmates, no friends who could tell the truth.
She herself didn't know how to become like this, she was originally a girl who loved to learn, and now, in the face of her mother's request, Linlin felt very depressed and powerless, her heart was very broken, and her body became weak.
03
Linlin's upbringing and her parents' parenting style put her under great pressure academically, and the elite class during the holidays led to the complete collapse of her last psychological defense.
In the depths of Linlin's subconscious, learning is equated with feelings of pain, depression, helplessness, frustration, etc., but whenever it touches things and situations related to learning, such as reading, attending classes, and doing homework, she instinctively falls into the encirclement of these negative emotions.
She was so wrapped up in these emotions that she struggled to find an outlet and developed early symptoms of depression.
Therefore, according to Linlin's current situation, the consultation should be divided into three steps and gradually solved:
(1): Process and transform Linlin's repressed emotions and improve her depressive state.
(2): Carry out parent-child relationship counseling, improve the family atmosphere, and become a nourishing energy to help her get out of depression.
(3): Help Lin Lin reshape the value of learning and turn passive learning into active learning.
After talk therapy, Lin Lin and I initially established a trusting relationship. Later, by creating a "free and protected" space in the consultation room.
I encouraged her to express her inner thoughts - her repression came more from the anger of her parents, which she could not express with her parents in reality, and had been forced into her heart, but anger did not disappear due to suppression, it was like a flame, accumulating more and more, holding her to collapse, and at the same time of suppression, she would also blame herself for not being good enough, incompetent, and difficult to meet her mother's expectations.
I used the empty chair technique of gestalt therapy to help her talk to her "parents" through imagery dialogue, shouting out her inner feelings.
At first, she didn't dare to say it out loud, but just whispered "I'm very uncomfortable." I encouraged her to continue and speak louder, and she slowly let go of herself, "I have been forced by you to have nowhere to go, I am about to collapse", "You know to study and study, you don't care about me at all", "I am sick, you never ask me how I feel, you know to urge learning to learn"...
After the release, I guided her to say how she wanted her parents to treat her, "I hope my mother can say less, I have grown up and know what to do", "I hope my father can talk to my mother more so that my mother does not have to stare at me all the time"... I asked her to imagine how her parents would respond when they heard her words.
When she responds from the perspective of her parents, she can slowly understand her parents, and she can also feel her parents' difficulty and love for her.
Once, when she expressed her hope for her mother, "Mom" said, "I wish I said less and worried less, but I couldn't control it, I couldn't help it." I'm so lonely, your dad doesn't want to talk to me, I don't have friends, you're my daughter, I don't tell you, who do I tell ah", she said as she wept.
I guided her to sublimate this understanding into inner strength, and finally, she said to "Mom":
"Mom, I can understand your loneliness and loneliness, but your emotions make me breathless. You are an independent individual, you have your life, you are responsible for your life, you can talk well with your father and get along well, you can also go to find friends, if you have no friends, then start dating from now on. This way I can relax, I can be myself, and I hope that my mother can trust me and respect me. ”
After each consultation, she felt much more relaxed, Sisyphus' stone became lighter and lighter, and she understood herself, her parents, and the relationship between her parents.
After being dealt with again and again, Linlin's physical discomfort has gradually disappeared, and she can go back to school.
04
As a counselor, I will see the problems in the client's family system in the counseling room, and suggest parents to participate in the counseling to form a healing alliance, so that the child can not only feel the "safe island" in the counseling room, gain the growth of inner strength, but also get the "free and protected" space after leaving the counseling room and returning to the family, and get nourishing power from it.
After consultation and guidance, many parents are able to adjust their education methods for their children, and appropriately improve their own problems, improve the parent-child relationship and their quality of life.
Linlin's mother originally hoped that the child would love to learn and learn happily, but because of her poor relationship with her husband, the husband and wife lacked emotional communication, so after the birth of the child, she put almost all her energy on the child, staring at the child's growth, forcing the child to be excellent, but making the child feel controlled, forced, depressed, and tired of learning.
After discussion, Linlin's mother realized that her education method not only did not achieve results, but also made the child to the brink of school boredom and depression, she was determined to change herself, so I agreed with her to no longer belittle, criticize, blame the child during the consultation, and when I felt lonely and anxious, I would turn my attention to work and housework in time and strive to do my job well.
After the mood is calm, communicate with your husband and daughter, learn to understand and encourage, talk less and listen more, and reverse the previous communication pattern. After several consultations, the mother has changed a lot, from the beginning of the child saying one sentence she said ten words, to the child saying five sentences she said five sentences, and finally being able to listen to the child quietly, which made Linlin very happy, the relationship between mother and daughter became much warmer, and she also began to dare to express it to her mother.
Lin Lin gave me feedback that once she saw that her mother wanted to nag again, but remembered the teacher's explanation and had to hold back, her mother's appearance was very cute at that time.
05
When Linlin's depression eased, we had a positive discussion about her learning problems.
Influenced by the "uselessness of learning", she also feels that learning is not of much use, and learning is more like a routine. We discussed her hobbies, future dreams and who she wanted to be.
She said that she does not have much hope for the future, because her parents have already helped her plan - study hard, go to college, find a job, work well; I can't find my hobbies and interests, I'm not interested in anything; I don't know who I am now, let alone what kind of person I will be in the future.
I believe this is what she really feels inside, but also know that there is a more motivated hope and strength hidden within her.
In the detailed discussion "Who am I?" After that, she has a clearer understanding of herself, and has a better understanding of her current self, past self, and future self (this link is not achieved overnight, it needs to be carried out several times, and it is constantly deepened and consolidated).
Finally, he revealed that he actually admired a writer like Haruki Murakami, and he dreamed of becoming a writer, but he felt that it was unrealistic, and his writing level was not good enough.
We explore her strengths and specialties together, explore how to get close to idols, achieve such writing skills, literary foundations, and emotional experiences, and refine the goals to what they can do at each stage.
After discussion, she began to give new meaning to learning—to lay the foundation for becoming a good writer, hone her talents, and increase her experience and experience.
06
On the question of whether to still attend the tutoring class, Lin Lin expressed her reluctance. From the bottom of her heart, the mother hopes that the child can continue to attend the holidays, so there is a conflict.
I summarized the child's situation with my mother, and my mother also saw that respect and trust in the child can make the child gradually regain learning motivation.
So, under guidance, the mother and the child agreed that the child's recovery to learn the knowledge in the classroom is the first priority, in this case, the child will decide whether to participate in the tutoring class according to the progress of learning.
Over the years, from various adolescent psychological counseling cases, it can be found that in fact, many times, children's hearts are very simple, if not influenced and distorted by the outside world, their ability to learn and interest in exploration are intact.
And adolescent children experience the transition stage of "becoming adults", and what they want more is the respect and trust of their parents, and the right to free choice from their parents. Otherwise, the interest in learning is distorted.
When the learning interest is intact, the child will think, overcome and solve on his own when encountering challenges and difficulties; If the child is tired of learning and unwilling to go to school, no matter how much the parents reproach or bitterly persuade, the child is also "in Cao Ying, and his heart is in Han", and it is difficult to calm down and study seriously. Instead of this, parents should give their child the right to make decisions moderately, let her think and choose for herself, and learn to be responsible for her own decisions.
The mother later reported that her change had an unexpected gain - the child's father came home more and was willing to give the family more companionship. The child's learning attitude is also becoming more and more positive, although she did not participate in the tutoring class, but she took the initiative to buy some tutoring books to study, and her grades are steadily rising.
Now that Lin Lin is a sophomore at a key high school, she got her wish and was assigned to a liberal arts class, one step closer to her dream.