More than any other, the chief concern for which children 6-13 are brought in to see me falls in the area of anxiety disorders. Observed by parents in behavior such as hyperactivity resulting in problems with school performance, fears and phobias leading to avoidance or failure to self-advocate, obsession, and repetitive ritual where kids try to soothe themselves with what they can most easily get their hands on ranging from phones, tablets, and video games to hand sanitizer and sugar-rich food.
If I’m lucky, kids come in before their symptoms have been medicated. I say this because I’m looking to help kids communicate with me about what’s ailing them through the language they know best – play. Rather than be dulled pharmacologically. I’m looking to work with the sharp edges of what’s bothering them before their hurts get amplified by adolescence.
It helps when children connect strongly with themselves in bursts of in-session body-centered activity where a therapist goes beyond observation and talk therapy to play alongside that child, allowing for creative aggression to come out as a child’s clay monster rears up to destroy the one crafted by adult hands or that same child dons red boxing gloves to batter away safely against her therapist holding a padded shield.
I am sure that the resulting healing for children who often hold their pain inside for years, a long time in a short life, comes from that child observing how deeply they affect their adult therapist like me who’s engaging with them. An outsider who’s been trusted by parents to see a child in ways, for the moment, they cannot. Because these parents often hold their un-processed pain and also fears about how effective they are in their parental role.
Throughout, the therapist must serve not only as an ally for the child but as an ally for parents who will inherit the fruits of their child’s progress, nurturing that progress in ways only they can know best after a child completes a chapter of therapy.
It helps if a parent is willing to do their adult therapeutic work so their kids don’t have to do it for them, now or later…
-MORE in my upcoming book to be published by Routledge/Taylor & Francis in 2025.
Here’s a link to some audio and an earlier interview if you want to learn more about what motivates Neal in this work.
https://www.coreenergetics.org...
To subscribe to Neal's Substack, please click here.