I am seeing a couple of small children just now for therapy – both are lovely children and both have had traumas. One was bitten by a dog, the other was not hurt when a tree bough fell around him. In the aftermath, both have developed symptoms that make their lives harder. The first – not unreasonably – was terrified of dogs, hiding when one came near, breathing heavily and supremely vigilant so that she could see a dog almost when it was leaving the next town. The boy was playing with his brother in the park when the branch creaked and cracked and fell down. They needed a crane to lift it, and although he was not hurt, his parents came rushing over screaming and expecting to find his body among the leaves. He now worries about leaving his parents and being apart from them – and worries when he sees huge trees.

There are a number of approaches to this sort of problem and I usually describe what I do as ‘eclectic’, meaning I use lots of different approaches, whatever might work. So we have done a lot of memory stuff, using Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing, some drawing, I’ve used Emotional Freeing Techniques and might even use some hypnosis. We start with two particular things, trying to reduce the fearful memory and trying to build up confidence.

Confidence is initially built up as a theory and then we practise close and closer to real situations. This is harder when we are talking about trees falling over, but with regard to the dog, it was easy to find a dog and spend some time first getting physically closer and then encouraging her to stroke and play with the dog [obviously, I looked for a well-trained and pleasant animal.] My intention is to enable her to treat dogs with respect, and this is a difficult line to tread – friendly But careful. Not Anxious but Aware. And this has been going well, so that we now can go to the animal sanctuary and she is positive about the experience.

The boy has been rehearsing his experience in his head, going over what happened and what might have happened. I am trying to encourage him to realise that this was a once in a lifetime experience, beyond his control, and that playing in parks is alright.

What has become very clear to me is how important is the support of parents. The parents of the girl who was bitten are, themselves, frightened of dogs. [again, this seems reasonable]. They are anxious when she goes near a dog, worry that any dog might hurt her, be dirty, might snap…and they have not done any back-up work like taking her to the park or to meet dogs in a casual way. The only work has been with me, and it is not really satisfactory. Like any exercise, daily is so much better than occasionally, and her progress is less than I would have hoped. By contrast, the boy’s parents have done lots of exercises with him at home, so that he has gone through what happened again and again with the reassurance of his parents’ arms around him, and their promise that it is not likely to recur.

[Note:’ not likely’. It is not possible to promise something that is so far beyond our control. It is like promising your children that you will live for ever. You can only promise to try.]

Both children are coming on; they are delightful and I look forward to their increasing independence. But I could wish that her parents were better able to support what I am trying to do. I work with parents as a partnership. Together we are so very much stronger.

Today was another of my trauma mornings. I have been pushing for some time to be able to use the techniques I have with people who are hurting, rather than forcing them to go through the more traditional but slower methods. And it had been agreed that I can. Obviously very many people experience a trauma, though not all are traumatised as a result. I have heard of children who were in a car crash, were knocked down by a car, found a broken paving stone that threw them into a manhole full of water, a boy on a bike who was nudged by a car into a crowd of children, where both parents died within a short space of time or together…… And have worked with adults who have been horribly bereaved, have been in house fires, witnessed a drowning they were helpless to prevent, as well as all those people who are genuinely traumatised by seeing their dog run over, or fear they are lost on a mountainside etc. Yesterday I read one of those magazines were most of the stories are about rape, awful suffering, assault etc. Some of the stories end with ‘I will not let this person ruin my life’ but very many conclude that they are now unable to leave the house, walk in the dark, go on holiday etc. This seems very wrong. There are an awful lot of techniques now that have been found to be very useful indeed, but somehow people are not aware of them.  Obviously, most people should be able to access counselling. But after that, they may be on their own. How do you know where to go for help? And what is best? What if you feel that counselling is not for you anyway? My trauma person this morning was lovely. She looked calm and sensible, but as we approached the stuff she was anxious about, she fidgeted more and more with the clasp on her bag. She was very relieved it wasn’t going to be a counselling session as she had talked – she felt – far too much. I’ve probably said before that I have wands in my room but that they don’t work well enough; she and I and her mum talked about the other ways. We talked about Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing, and hypnosis, as well as how it is often supremely helpful for the client to be in charge of the process so that she can do it for herself. We skirted around the issues, and because time was nearly up, did a Container exercise. This involves inventing a container for your problems. It’s magic, so the size is not important and it can be any shape and material and colour you want. You decide how you want to lock the container, and put all the nasty thoughts and memories you have in there and lock it tight. Then you put the container somewhere safe, until you are ready [perhaps with your therapist] to take out a problem and deal with it. This morning, the container was tossed into the sea – it might as well wait there for a while.