Journal Potuguese Release - February 2024 - Flipbook - Page 29
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children. They left behind schools, relationships, friendships, leisure, and
professional stability. They faced professional and financial obstacles and the
expected help from their family members did not materialize. The couple
underwent a reorganization of their responsibilities as family providers, with the
children's father expanding his professional activities, while Aurora saw hers
reduced due to the care and education of her children. Thus began a lasting
period of frustration, overwhelm, and exhaustion.
“Hello, May I Come In?”: Expanding the Meaning of the Problem
Aurora and Daniel attended the first meeting. Daniel was a silent and observant
boy apparently uninterested in participating in the conversation that concerned
his failures in everyday life. Aurora spoke about all her disappointments with her
son, such as: watching too much television, complaining about everything
although she was always helping him, lacking autonomy for schoolwork, avoiding
physical activities, and being uncooperative and disobedient to his parents'
expectations. His greatest difficulty, however, concerned the inability to control
himself before exploding into fits of rage when contradicted. Uncomfortable,
Daniel silent and sad, slowly walked away and disappeared from the room.
Another environment was more interesting to him: the playroom.
I invited the mother to accompany him and, looking for a way to involve him in
the issue that brought them to the consultation, I said that many children suffer
from all sorts of problems, and that, as if that were not enough, these problems
also interfere with the lives of their families. Curious to know the face of the
problem, I asked if we could take a picture of it; problems that haunt children's
lives are invisible and we can only get to know them by drawing them. Continuing,
I said that a camera has not yet been invented to register the existence of these
beings that disturb people so much. The mother looked open and curious; Daniel
looked incredulous at what he had just heard. Aurora took the initiative and soon
the two of them found themselves sitting on the floor, dealing with paper,
brushes, paint, and enthusiasm. While planning what could be drawn, a different
conversation took place. New vocabularies sprouted from a much more
collaborative mother-son relationship: “Is it a monster or a ghost? It's quite big, so
it needs a larger paper. It has a skirt; and many teeth in the mouth; the hair is
spiked.” Daniel started to see the image of the problem: “Mom, the monster will
be red, because red is the color of anger”. The boy, encouraged by the change of
The Bad and the Good Ghosts: A Story of Reauthoring in Narrative Therapy with Children
Journal of Contemporary Narrative Therapy, February 2024 Release, www.journalnft.com, p. 2446.