The Power of Self-Family Therapy: How a Father Can Help His Depressed Child Recover and Return to School

Sunny day psychology He Rihui

2024-05-14 10:12Posted in Guangdong Psychiatrist

Recently, a father left a message on the official account, saying that his son has been sick for almost 2 years, and at the worst time, he stroked his arm and closed himself. Later, he and his wife read a lot of our articles and learned to use accurate psychiatric psychology to change the way they get along with their son. Now, his son is much better, at least he can go to school!

Recently, the father wrote thousands of words of self-written essays, sharing in great detail how his son became ill, how he and his wife changed positively, and how his son came out of it step by step.

The father never brought his son to us for face-to-face consultation, nor did he have an online consultation, let alone receive clinical precision psychological intervention. He and his wife read our articles carefully repeatedly, learned about accurate psychiatric psychology, and had a deep understanding of the real cause of their son's illness, and then changed the way of family education in a targeted and continuous manner, so as to achieve effective "self-family therapy" and find a "road map" for rehabilitation suitable for their children and families.

Now, they finally see the dawn of their son's recovery!

I read the mental journey he wrote, and I was really moved. After he deeply understood why his child was sick, he greatly reduced his stigma, knew a clear direction of action, and was willing to share it, which is really rare. With his consent, I would like to share this article with you today.

In the autobiography essay written by this father, there is one thing that struck me deeply. Since his son was diagnosed, he and his wife have not avoided the problem, but have continued to actively seek medical treatment, taking the child to see a lot of psychiatrists, not rejecting psychiatric medication, and also trying traditional Chinese medicine.

Of course, in fact, many parents of patients will do this, and many methods have to be tried for the sake of their children. This line of thinking is also possible, and if done correctly, psychiatric drugs and Chinese medicine can alleviate symptoms.

However, what is commendable about this father is that because he has studied and has a large amount of efficient knowledge reserves, he knows what conditions he may encounter on the way to seek medical treatment, so when he does encounter it, he can remain rational and make decisions that are more suitable for the child's situation.

For example, he took his child to a mental health center in his province, but found that the specialist's methods were not suitable for the child. At that time, the specialist hospitalized the child, but in order to prevent the child from suffering a second psychological injury, the father decided to take the child home. This experience of seeking medical treatment also strengthened his belief that the child's illness, especially mental and psychological disorders, cannot only listen to the doctor, and the change of family education is very important.

If the patient's parents do not have the reserve of efficient knowledge, it is easy for the doctor to say what he says, and inadvertently take a lot of detours, and in the process, the child is easy to suffer more psychological damage. It is an objective fact that many mainstream psychiatrists and counselors/psychotherapists are not aware of their cognitive boundaries.

Of course, this is not to let all sick children not be hospitalized, but it is still necessary to analyze the specific situation and specific situation. But parents must at least arm their brains with efficient knowledge in order to be aware of the benefits and make decisions that outweigh the disadvantages as rationally as possible.

As we have said repeatedly, we are now very limited in our ability to provide clinically accurate psychological interventions to a small percentage of patients and families. However, through years of multidisciplinary (MDT) clinical practice, we can now understand people's mental activities and behaviors from the level of people's implicit memory, and discover the real root cause behind many mental and psychological disorders, which is a subversive discovery.

We continue to write articles, shoot videos, and popularize these precise psychiatric and psychological knowledge, just to let parents learn deeply, master efficient knowledge, self-reflect, change, and improve in a timely manner, and take further measures on the basis of conventional diagnosis and treatment methods to solve the real root cause of the child's illness, so that the child can speed up recovery.

Here's what we've said over and over again:

If you want your child to speed up recovery, you don't have to accept clinical precision psychological intervention, parents should carry out effective "self-family therapy" and find a "rehabilitation roadmap" suitable for their children and families, in fact, it can also be achieved, but it is slower, but "slow is fast";

Parents master the knowledge of accurate psychiatric psychology, deeply self-reflect, change, and improve, and truly improve the parent-child relationship and family relationship, which is no less than the role of general psychiatric drug treatment and psychological counseling/psychotherapy.

I hope that today's article can inspire more families to realize that the main cause of depression, bipolar disorder, and even schizophrenia is not the so-called "genetic factors" and "changes in brain neurotransmitter concentration", but the pathological memory formed after birth. If parents can recognize this, the stigma will be greatly reduced, free from fear, and the child will be more likely to recover faster.

As for the father, his child still has obvious learning disabilities, sometimes needs to take time off, and is still afraid of exams, how did this problem come about? How can parents effectively alleviate or even solve it? What are the hidden dangers in parents' reflection? We will conduct an in-depth analysis and provide targeted recommendations.

- He Rihui

(The following is a self-report article by the patient's family)

01, the originally good child suddenly got tired of school, closed himself, and suffered from depression!

It is really not an exaggeration to use the words "thunderbolt from the sky" to describe my son's dislike of school.

In 2022, my son is 10 years old and in the fourth grade of primary school. A few days after the National Day holiday, due to the partial lockdown of the epidemic, my children have been taking online classes at home, and my wife and I are still at work.

I am busy at work, I go out early every day and don't come home at noon. The child is mainly taken care of by his mother, and I usually only spend much time with the child in the evenings and weekends.

One day, when I was working at work, I suddenly received a message from my wife, saying that my child had recently had a problem with his learning status, and the teacher reported that he had not taken online classes, handed in his homework, or studied for several days. She said that not only studying, but also the child's whole state is not right, and she locks herself in her room every day, draws the curtains, curls up in a dark corner, and doesn't eat much. Every time she called the door for a long time, the child opened the door, looking tired and listless.

The wife thought that the child was tired and would get better with a rest. Who knew that after a few days, the situation became more and more serious, and the child developed emotional numbness, fear of light, fear of sound, and even visual hallucinations! Seeing this makes me feel like I'm in hell!

We rushed to take the child to the local psychiatric hospital for a check-up. The doctor said that the child was depressed and was prescribed escitalopram oxalate tablets and aripiprazole oral disintegration tablets.

I couldn't accept this result at all, and I was so anxious that I couldn't sleep all night. I know how terrible this disease is because my mother has been suffering from depression since I was in my 10s. For almost 30 years, she has not recovered. I can't believe that this terrible disease will happen to my son again!

Soon, our place was completely locked down, which lasted for about 1 month. It also gives me plenty of time to get to know and observe my children. My wife and I frantically watched Douyin and Kuaishou videos to learn a lot about the child's condition.

I really don't know if I don't learn, and I am even more panicked and desperate when I learn. I think children are very close to the "fast cycling" type in bipolar disorder. Because according to the child's own report, he was still lying on the bed just now, he didn't want to move at all, he didn't have the strength, but after a while, he suddenly wanted to go out to play. This happened many times over the course of a month.

Moreover, children will still lock themselves in the house from time to time. Every few days, we noticed a few new wounds on his arm, and several times he was secretly hiding a knife. At night, he is full of energy, does not want to sleep, cannot sit still during the day, except for playing games is playing games, it seems that only playing games can make him relax.

Because of the lockdown of the epidemic, we can't go out, and my wife and I learned about and accepted the disease in the shortest possible time, as well as the current situation of our children, and accepted his lying flat. Of course, at that time, the two of us did not have a deep understanding of "acceptance".

We kept asking for solutions and looking for medical advice online. About a month later, we came into contact with a chief TCM physician named Director Fan online. He uses a combination of traditional Chinese and Western medicine for treatment, and the general idea is to take Chinese medicine, and then slowly reduce Western medicine when his symptoms improve.

It takes almost 1 year for a child to eat it. Personally, I feel that Chinese medicine has a role in calming the nerves, assisting sleep, and improving mood. But then the child was bitter and stopped eating.

This image is AI-generated

02. The main root cause of the child's illness turned out to be my wife and me

During that time, I really couldn't sleep every night and swiped my phone when I couldn't sleep. One day, I happened to read an article written by Director He, which contained real cases, so that I could see the shadow of my own child more or less from each child.

I remember that there was an article at that time that said that a child was in a bad mood when he saw the sunset in the evening, and wanted to cry, so he cried silently. I feel a lot like my kids. During that time, he was often better during the day, and he was easily irritable at night before going to bed. He said that his mind was like a movie, with all kinds of images and images appearing inexplicably.

For example, once he cried and said, "Mom, I have a picture in my head of a big tree. The other children were playing happily in the sun, but I was the only one in the shade of the tree, watching the other children play alone. Hearing this, my heart was really cut like a knife. Later, I wondered if the child's irritability and distress at night was caused by the psychological damage I had caused to him at this point in time.

After coming into contact with Director He's article, I learned about the concepts of "superimposed psychological trauma" and "pathological positive emotional experience", and learned about the three-step process of "empathy, listening, and positive guidance" for benign communication, rather than telling children big things at the beginning. I also realized that the change in the way parents are homeschooled, the improvement of the family environment, is no less effective for children than psychiatric drugs.

So, in the face of our children's situation, my wife and I began to reflect on the harm caused to our children by our past actions.

First of all, it is inappropriate to praise education. Because we believe in the concept that "good children are boastful", we used to say things like "you are great" and "you are so smart" to our children, ignoring the process of affirming our children's efforts.

This can easily lead to the formation of pathological positive emotional experience in children, and it is also easy to lead children to doubt and deny themselves when they encounter difficulties and setbacks, thinking that they are not smart and giving up on themselves. If a child thinks that it is natural to be smart or not intelligent, then he is prone to "learned helplessness" and feels that his life is over, and thus falls into panic.

Also, I realized that I used to like to tease children, which is probably very bad. When my child was young, I liked to tease him when I was fine, twisting his face, slapping his buttocks, and watching the child's funny appearance, I laughed.

I thought it was just a joke with the kids. But now it seems that this kind of behavior may make children feel uncomfortable, scared, and aggrieved, forming superimposed psychological trauma and planting the seeds of hidden dangers. Because the child doesn't know what a joke is, he may think that a behemoth is really going to hit him, and there will be a lot of fear and anxiety in his heart.

My quarrel with my wife probably had a bad effect on him as well. Because of some differences in concepts and some contradictions in life, my wife and I quarreled many times in front of our children, and it was the kind of hysterical yelling. Once, when my children and wife locked me in the living room, I kicked me hard and broke down the door. This can also cause a lot of fear and hurt to the child.

At that time, I came home a few times drunk, sometimes I couldn't help but tease the child, sometimes I vomited in the toilet or even in the living room, which must have brought a lot of fear to the child.

Another time, I forgot why the child was crying loudly. I said, "If you make any more trouble, I'll put you in a little dark room!" "The child was still crying, and I lost patience and picked him up and locked him in the dark bedroom. After the child became ill, he said that he was afraid of the dark alone, and he thought it was related to this incident.

When our children were in kindergarten, our family went on a trip to Beijing. The child is unhappy because of something, and he doesn't leave. I said cruelly: "If you don't leave, we will all leave, and we won't want you!" "When he didn't listen, I took my wife around a corner and secretly observed him from where the child couldn't see. Presumably, at that time, the child's heart was also very frightened.

When my child was in first grade, there was a summer vacation when I didn't finish my homework and wrote sloppily. I once tore up my summer homework in a fit of rage, and my children were very scared. In addition, I also spanked his ass for studying. Thinking about it now, his later dislike of school must have something to do with these.

Moreover, my wife has low blood sugar, she has had several seizures at home, and she fainted at home twice, and then she gradually eased up after drinking glucose water. The child witnessed these scenes, because he was relatively young and was too scared at the time.

Because of his busy work, his mother is more in charge of the child, and he has always been close to his mother, but he is more distant from me. My wife has accused me many times in front of my children that I don't care about my children, that I don't care about my children, and that I only know how to take care of myself and my children.

I have also warned my wife many times that it is not that I don't care about my children, but that the time and way are different, "If you slander me in front of my children like this, it is not good for the growth of my children."

Therefore, to this day, I still think that my child is not close to me, half of the reason is that I neglect management, do not accompany my child enough, and used to tease the child indiscriminately, and the other half is because my wife misinterpreted my behavior in front of the child, so that the child really thinks that I don't care about him, resulting in the child's lack of fatherly love and security.

Now that I think about it, the onset of the child's illness was not completely without symptoms, and there were several signs before the sudden outbreak of the disease. It's just that at that time, our cognition was limited and we didn't know how to recognize.

During the eleventh day of that year, we had a fireworks display here. On the first day, I went to see it with my child. The next day, my friend and I took our children to see it again, but my children and I had a big disagreement over the choice of viewing routes.

The child wants to take us to the places we went yesterday and say that it is beautiful. As a result, we were reluctant to go, it was too far. The child said, "I want to show you the best, what's wrong!" ”

I taught him, "What you like is not necessarily what everyone likes, and if you let everyone go with you, you are selfish!" ”

At that time, the child cried for a long time. We ate together after we went back, and he threw up after eating a little bit, and I didn't know it at the time, but it was probably a physical symptom.

A few days later, one of his parrots died. His mother did not comfort him and accused him of not feeding him properly. At that time, the child was also hit hard, crying hysterically and out of breath. Not long after that, he became ill.

At that time, there was also the most direct trigger - I asked him to sleep in a separate room with us. I said to him, you're 10 years old, it's time to sleep in a room by yourself. As a result, more than half a month later, the child became ill.

Later, I learned that after he slept in a separate room, he couldn't sleep alone, so he listened to his mobile phone all night, but he was afraid that we would quarrel because of this (in the past, our husband and wife had quarreled many times because of the disagreement between the children sleeping in separate rooms), so he has been silently enduring the fear and did not tell us. As a result, he didn't rest well at night, and he had to take online classes during the day, which was nervous and stressful, and he might not be able to bear it later.

03. "The famous doctors of the tertiary hospitals cannot fundamentally solve the problem"

After my child fell ill, my mother and I actively sought medical advice and learned to improve the family environment. We can basically reach a consensus on the treatment of children, form a joint force, stop quarrels, and communicate and resolve conflicts in private.

We strive to accept the child's shortcomings, empathize with him, listen, actively guide him, empower him, guide him to release negative emotions, and try to meet the child's desire to consume.

Because we understand that the cause of the child's illness is mainly superimposed psychological trauma and pathological positive emotional experience, we try to repair the child's psychological trauma and change the way of praising the child, from the past "emphasis on results" to the current "emphasis on the process", and guide the children to realize the importance of their own efforts.

After one and a half years of treatment, as well as the efforts of my wife and me, the child has gone from depression, self-injury, and emotional elevation at the beginning to basically stable mood now; From the beginning, I couldn't go to school at all, and I couldn't talk about studying, but in the second semester of last year, I was able to go 2 or 3 days a week, but I didn't go to the extended class.

In this semester, he only took one day off a week, and he could attend three or four times a week in the extended class.

However, he still has serious learning disabilities, such as poor concentration, poor memory, fear of exams, etc., and is still taking psychiatric drugs. I don't want my child to take medication for the rest of his life, and in the next step, I plan to continue to heal the psychological wounds while letting the doctor gradually reduce the amount of medication when the pressure of studying is low during the summer vacation.

Finally, in terms of medication, after the child became ill, we could only see a doctor at our county mental health center because of the epidemic, and the doctor prescribed escitalopram oxalate and aripiprazole. Later, the child took Chinese medicine for 1 year.

During this time, I also took him to the Provincial Mental Health Center for a check-up. Speaking of this examination, it really made me angry.

Because I have watched Director He's video, I am afraid that the process of seeking medical treatment will bring secondary psychological harm to the child. I discussed with the child's mother, and I went to communicate with the doctor first, and if the child had any problems, the doctor told me directly, don't tell the child, so as not to cause a bad impact on the child.

As a result, the doctor said impatiently, "Okay, I know, I don't know about this?" Bring the kids in, there's a bunch of people waiting outside! "After the child went in, he kicked the couple out again, saying that he would talk to the child alone.

Later, the doctor called us in again and said that the child needed to be hospitalized in such a situation. During the conversation, I was very dissatisfied with the doctor's self-righteous, high-minded, impatient attitude that did not allow me to ask questions and questions.

We didn't follow his advice to have our child hospitalized, and now that we think about it, it's fortunate that we didn't live at the time, otherwise the consequences might have been worse than now.

This experience made me feel that the so-called famous doctors in tertiary hospitals are just doctors who only know how to prescribe psychiatric drugs, and their cognition also has great limitations and cannot fundamentally solve the problem. It is likely that this experience has also caused some psychological trauma to the child.

Therefore, in the follow-up treatment of the child, I put more hope and energy on healing the child's psychological trauma, and I think this is the fundamental place to solve the problem fundamentally.

That's how my child got sick and got better. Due to the limited ability to express, some words may not be written to the meaning, or the expression is not clear, and I would like to ask Director He to point it out, and I will continue to make up for it.

I hope that Director He can take time out of his busy schedule to guide the maze, I am very grateful and honored!

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