This second story tells the story of Richard and what became possible when the problem he was experiencing was externalised (as The Fears), he was consulted about his own ideas as to ways of educating this problem, and how these solution knowledges were then shared with others through a novel association.

** Don’t miss the animated video below **

Richard 

Richard is a boy of seven years of age who was brought to see me by his sole parent mother, Jane. Richard wasn’t doing well in life. He was generally fearful, quite frail, considered to be ‘school phobic’, and was suffering from a condition that was believed to be ‘psychosomatic’. As well as this, he was experiencing persistent insomnia. Richard’s father had abandoned the family when he was an infant, and from that time had no contact with Richard.

In response to my questions about Richard’s experiences of life, I learned that he’d had some experiences of trauma which were not recent, and I consulted Jane about her thoughts on the merits of addressing this in the context of our therapeutic conversations. Jane said that she thought that it might be a good idea to attend to these experiences, but wondered if there was something that I could do that might have a more immediate effect on Richard’ fearfulness, which was becoming increasingly pervasive. In witnessing the present circumstances of Richard’s life, this was a priority that I could highly appreciate.

To attend to this priority, I encouraged Richard to introduce me to these fears that were giving him such a hard time – I wanted him to characterise these fears for me so that I would have some idea of what he was up against. He was surprised by this request, and there was suddenly a spark of interest in his eyes. We soon decided that I might get a better picture of things if he painted his fears. I fetched some art materials, and Richard went to work. I peered over his shoulder as he did so, and as these fears began to take shape it took my breath away to see what Richard had been struggling with. These were indeed very scary fears, and I observed:

M: No-one who had fears like this running around in their lives would be able to get any sleep at all!
Richard: Well, I hardly get any sleep myself!
M: Well, is that fair?
Richard: What?
M: Do you think it is fair that these fears take away your sleep?
Richard: No, it’s not fair. It’s really not fair.
M: Are the neighbors getting any sleep with these fears on the loose at night?
Richard: Uh.
M: Are the neighbors …
Richard: What do you think mum?
Jane: Maybe you could ask them?
Richard: Okay, I’ll do it! I’ll do it as soon as I get home. Mum, I’ll ask Mrs
Murphy first. And then I could go and see Johnny and find out what is
happening there.
M: Has Johnny been looking tired lately?
Richard: Has he mum?

I invited Richard to take a further step in characterising these fears by naming them, and we then spent some time figuring out what these fears were up to in his life, and what this said about the agenda of these fears. It didn’t take long for us to develop some understanding of the specific tactics employed by these fears to set themselves up as an authority in Richard’s life, of the purposes that shaped these tactics, and of the plans that these fears had for his future.

As all of this became clearer to Richard, he became quite indignant and decided that he wasn’t all that happy about going along with the plans that the fears had dreamt up for his life. In fact, this suddenly seemed quite intolerable to him. The three of us then spent some time figuring out why it was that he was so displeased with these fear-filled plans for his future, and before long we were discovering what it was that he wanted for his life that didn’t fit with the agenda of the fears. It was upon this basis that Richard decided that some action would just have to be taken:

Richard: Something just has to be done about this.
M: Sorry, what …?
Richard: Something just has to be done about this. These fears need a good education.
M: Oh, so a good education would …
Richard: Fix things, yeah …
M: Okay. Great!

As our conversation unfolded I learned that Richard was going to begin by educating his fears about what he wanted for his life, about his own plans for his future. What’s more, he decided that these fears shouldn’t be free to roam about at night creating havoc in his life and in his connections with others. To this end, he developed a program to curtail their activities:

Richard: These fears could be upsetting everyone.
M: Yeah, they could be.
Richard: They must be ruining other people’s sleep.
M: Probably.
Richard: They shouldn’t be allowed just to run around all over the place at night.
M: I reckon you could be right about that.
Richard: They should be locked up at night.
M: Locked up at night?
Richard: Yeah.
M: How would you do this?
Richard: I’ll put them in a box and tie it up.
M: Sounds like a good plan. When will you do this?
Richard: Before bedtime.
M: What then? Will you just keep them tied up in a box all of the time?
Richard: No, I’ll let them free in the morning before school, so that they can just play around.
M: This does sound like a good plan!
Jane: It sure does.

When we met again three weeks later, I learned that, with Jane’s support, Richard had put these plans to educate his fears and to curtail their activities into action. He had brought back to this meeting the paintings that he’d done of his fears. This time they were shut safely in a cardboard box, which was secured by strong elastic. Richard had been feeling much better, and as a consequence of this had been sleeping more soundly and had returned to school on a part-time basis. He was looking stronger and more confident. Upon hearing about the initiatives and efforts that Richard had undertaken to educate the fears and to curtail their activities, I asked about how the fears had taken this. Richard informed me that it hadn’t been easy for the fears, and that ‘they had been quite pesky’. He then demonstrated this peskiness [See the video re-enactment below!]: