Glad to be deceived

Back to counselling at the school!

Today I talked to a girl who ran away from home during the school holidays, a sweet and soft spoken girl. She detests her parents whom she declares as irresponsible because they apparently dumped her at her uncle's home since primary 3 and do not care two hoots about her well being. She lives with grandma, an unmarried uncle who is a teacher and an unmarried aunty who together take on the parent role. This highly cognitive and rational thinking girl acknowledges their concern for her but says though grateful has completely no feelings for her aunt and uncle. The more they want to control and discipline her the more she wants to rebel and run away from "home".

To break the ice and start the ball rolling I usually get my young clients to rate their level of satisfaction (where 0 is extremely unhappy and 10 extremely happy) with 1) themselves 2) life at home and 3) their school life. The girl rated them as 5, 2 and 8 respectively.

Using the solution focused therapy, I asked what makes her rate life at home as 2 and not 1 or 0, to which the girl replied that her 12 year old brother brings her that 2 points of happiness at home. She then went on to talk with delight how she plays with and coaches him. I of course affirmed her care and love for her brother. I then asked her how she rates her relationship with her parents. Perhaps getting to know how I play my game, she straight away said "Zero", so that I could not draw out from her something good that she feels about her parents, that could warrant a 1 or 2 at least. I then asked what her parents need to do to move her score from 0 to 1, to which she answered "they won't do anything".

Amongst us counsellors, we often joke about the experienced clients who have so much of counselling experience with different counsellors that they probably know what we are trying to do. In the above case, I sincerely hope the zero rating is unreal and that she is just being smart in avoiding my question. It is quite sad if that is her true feelings isn't it?

Sometimes it just bewilders me, the power of parental LOVE and its lack of.