To better protect and heal children from trauma and its emotional impact
Family Stories
Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavior Therapy – Family Stories
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Matthew
Matthew: A child who experienced traumatic grief
Matthew’s father went to work one morning and never came back. He had a heart attack, collapsed and died. Matthew felt like his life collapsed, too. He was just 6-years old and adored his father. After the death, Matthew was acting out in class, withdrawn at home, and wetting the bed at night....
Matthew and his mother received Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Traumatic Grief. They learned how trauma and grief affect feelings, thoughts, and behavior. They were then taught coping skills to handle anger and depression. Matthew and his mother taught his teacher the coping skills so she could support him in the classroom. As he used the skills, Matthew’s behavior improved.
Once he learned the coping skills, Matthew’s therapist helped him write a book about his father and his father’s death. Matthew drew a picture for each of four chapters: life with his father, finding out that he died, going to the funeral, and life without his father. With his therapist’s help, Matthew added a chapter about how he had changed since his father’s death and what he learned in therapy.
The therapist scheduled a time to share the book with his mother. She was sad, but also relieved and proud. When it was Matthew’s turn to share it with his mother, he cried and crawled under his mother’s chair. His mother supported him by sitting on the floor next to him. She told him that she was going to do some belly breathing; after a few seconds, he began to do it with her. He reached for her hand, and they read the story together, holding hands. When they finished, Matthew told the therapist that “Sometimes it is just someone’s time to go, and then they die.” He was beginning to make meaning of the tragedy.
Matthew, his mother, and the therapist continued working on his grief, which included making a memory box that he filled with mementos of his father. Matthew opened it when he wanted to think or talk about his father. He and his mother planned for anniversaries, like his father’s birthday. They would tell stories and look at the memory box. Mathew still missed his father, but he was no longer afraid to think and talk about him.
Maria
Maria: A pre-teen who experienced sexual abuse
Maria loved soccer. Practicing penalty kicks was her favorite. But when she was sexually abused by her soccer coach, her 11-year-old life got turned upside down. She was having nightmares and refusing to walk onto any soccer field. Her parents didn’t know what was going on. When they asked Maria about the...
changes in her behavior, she told them about the sexual abuse. Her parents’ hearts broke as they listened to her blame herself. They tried to convince her that it wasn’t her fault, but it didn’t seem to work....
Maria’s parents reached out to CHP. After the initial assessment of Maria’s emotional and behavioral reactions to the abuse, the family was offered Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. Maria and her parents each met with their therapist once a week. They learned about the prevalence of child sexual abuse, which made Maria feel less alone and lessened her self-blame. They also learned how common it is for children who have been through abuse to avoid people, places, and things that remind them of it. Maria and her parents were taught relaxation skills to calm their bodies. Belly breathing and progressive muscle relaxation helped her fall asleep.
As part of the healing, her therapist worked with Maria to write a book about what happened and share it with her parents. This helped her understand that she was not responsible for the abuse. The next step was gradually overcoming avoidance of reminders of her abuse. This was done with in vivo exposure. Maria and her parents made a list of people, places, and things that made her panic. With her therapist, Maria put the situations in order, from least to most anxiety provoking. With support from her therapist and parents, she faced each situation, one at a time, using her coping skills to manage her worried feelings and recognize that the scary thing she thought would happen (i.e., being abused again) did not happen. After a few rounds of in vivo exposure, Maria told her parents that she was ready to play soccer. They found a new team and she was beaming when she came into therapy wearing her team jersey.
Alternatives for Families: A Cognitive-Behavior Therapy – Family Stories
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Jamal
Jamal: A teenager who experienced physical abuse
Jamal was having a hard time with the adjustment to high school. He was getting into fights with other students. His teachers described him as disrespectful and distracted. His guidance counselor met with him and, when he took off his jacket, she noticed a bruise on his arm. She gently got to know more about him, asking about his hobbies, friends, and family. When she asked about the bruise, he acknowledged that his mother “sometimes goes too far” when she disciplines him...
Following the proper investigation, Jamal and his mother, Tanisha, were referred to CHP for Alternatives for Families: A Cognitive Behavior Therapy (AF-CBT). When Jamal and Tanisha did their initial assessment, it became clear that they had similar reactions to things. They misinterpreted people’s behavior as threatening, which resulted in going into “fight or flight mode.” They felt like they were defending themselves when others experienced their behavior as aggressive.
The goals of AF-CBT are to reduce family conflict, improve parenting skills, and help children manage their anger and anxiety. During her individual sessions with their therapist, Tanisha described “getting beat” as a child by her parents, how that felt for her and what it was like now that she was a parent herself. This helped her understand how her behavior affected Jamal. In his individual sessions with their therapist, Jamal learned strategies for managing his anxiety and anger which helped him build a positive relationship with his mother. With careful guidance by the therapist, Tanisha and Jamal each wrote separately about the family conflict. Tanisha acknowledged her role in the fighting, apologizing for it, and offering a plan to parent differently. Jamal wrote a story about how his mom treated him and how he felt about it. After learning how to communicate more calmly and effectively, the therapist brought the two together to share what they had written. Being able to describe his experience to his mother and hearing her apologize for what she did made Jamal feel heard and safe. Today, Tanisha better understands her anger and has more effective parenting tools, and Jamal uses his coping tools at home and school. As a result, they are able to disagree respectfully, without anger or violence.