Fourteen-year-old Luke, who was a member of the "family mentioned earlier in the Storm Metaphor (page 46), had been suspended from school for possession of various drugs. With this development, Luke's father and stepmother requested that I work with him in individual therapy on a short-term basis.
In demeanor, Luke appeared easygoing and "cool." He laughed a lot but spoke little and had a sheepish peripheral smile. Despite the laughter and the smiling, it was obvious that he was masking most of what he really felt.
During our initial session, I asked him to draw a picture of some things he enjoyed in his life. There was a threefold purpose for this request: 1) to lessen his anxiety by shifting the focus away from the problem area to an area of enjoyment; 2) to elicit favorite experiences to serve as a background structure in a storytelling metaphor; and 3) to look for possible clues about how Luke's sensory systems were Luke's drawing clearly expressed his enjoyment of stereos and music
(Drawing 3)- This positive auditory resource was further validated in
his comment, "Just having music on makes me feel good." From a sensory system viewpoint, Luke's kinesthetic expression of feeling good was generated by his auditory experience of music. This information was later integrated into a storytelling metaphor that described the emotional conflicts within a rock group on rour. Luke's lack of self- worth and his need ro "get high" were matched throughour rhe metaphor by various characrers and events. His "solutions"—his positive auditory resources—were integrated with enjoyable kinesthetic experi- ences from his past such as bicycle riding and skateboarding, which he had ail but forgorten. In addition, I gave him a "living metaphor" assignment to go home and rearrange all his music to fit his moods
170 THERAPEUTIC METAPHORS FOR CHILDREN so that he would become consciously aware of what made him feel better. Rather than focusing on the drug problem, or even mentioning it again, I sought instead to simply help him feel better about himself by utilizing the things he really liked to do.
D R A W I N G 3 Luke's Positive Auditory Resource
After a number of sessions, individual therapy was terminated with Luke. By this rime the father and stepmother had decided to keep Luke and Carolyn in their family because of the marked improvements in behavior. Luke was attending school regularly and reported no use of drugs; both Luke and Carolyn were more cooperative at home. Ironically, despite all the successful work on the part of the father and stepmother, the cotherapists, and the teenagers themselves, within a year Luke and Carolyn decided for unknown reasons to return to their natural mother and her abusive boyfriend.
THE ARTISTIC METAPHOR 171 T h e Boy W h o W a s A l l Ears
Craig was seen initially when he was five years old for short-term therapy with his family. At that time the parents were having difficulties dealing with his constant tantrums, phobias, and aggressive behavior. Craig's problems had begun at the age of 18 months and were attributed to his father's absence from the home, which had lasted some two years.
Family relations had improved greatly after the initial twelve sessions. The parents reported thar they felt more comfortable with Craig, both at home and in public. Although Craig's level of fearfulness and aggression had diminished significantly, the problem was not yet ame- liorated entirely. He was seen periodically over the next two years to help him further develop appropriate coping skills for dealing with daily frustrations, especially as they related to his peers.
This case occurred when I was first beginning my study of Ericksonian approaches. O u t of habit, I was still viewing Craig from a traditional family therapy point of view: looking for what role he played in the family as the identified patient, helping him find ways to reintegrate into the family structure, working with the family and his school, and so forth. Yet obviously something was missing because his behavior problem was continuing. Even though the family had been willing to make tremendous changes, and the school had been willing to work with me and also make the needed changes, still Craig struggled with behavior he could not control.
In previous sessions I typically asked Craig to draw his painful feelings by saying, "Draw a picture of how you feel." He would usually respond by drawing himself looking "sad" and " m a d . " He would draw the picrure quickly and then spend the rest of the time covering it with descriptive words. The drawing itself (and his entire visual system) was thus quickly overshadowed by his more dominant verbal (auditory) process.
One day during an office visit with Craig, who was now seven, we were sitting at the art table. He was talking very fast, randomly jumping from one topic to another. At one point he started crying about a hurrful school experience that had occurred earlier that day. I noticed that his eyes were in a left (auditory) position as he described how mean the children at school had been. I suddenly realized how I could apply what I was currently learning right then. I asked Craig how he
172 THERAPEUTIC METAPHORS FOR CHILDREN was recalling the incident. Was he hearing it again as he described it to me? He looked at me blankly and said he didn't know. I now perceived his overall behavior as expressive of an out-of-conscious auditory system: his tendency to talk incessantly; his excessive reliance on words rather than shapes when drawing; and his consistent eye- movement patterns in an auditory position as he described past events. I quickly reviewed in my mind the two questions we had been taught to use as springboards to ascertaining the child's sensory profile: Which sensory system is generating Craig's problem? Which sensory system is not being utilized to help Craig generate solutions? Since Craig was already overloaded kinesthetically from the incident at school and was expressing it in a highly anxious, out-of-conscious, auditory manner (the problem), my new approach suggested that he needed to shift to his little-used visual system (the solution). My instructions to him changed from:
Draw a picrure of how you feel Draw a picture of whar your problem .
using any words (Drawing 4).
looks like without
Even with this change in instructions, I realized that Craig was still left anchored into the problem. Again spurred on by my new Ericksonian perspective of emphasizing the positive, I asked Craig to:
Draw a second picture of
(Drawing 5).
what the problem looks like all better
D R A W I N G 4 Craig's Problem
D R A W I N G 5 Craig's Problem looking "All Bectei"
THE ARTISTIC METAPHOR 173 Drawing 4 is Craig's response to the instruction to draw what his problem looked like. Note that the eyes in this drawing are in a parallel left auditory position, which amazingly matched Craig's own eye movements as he described his upset at school. Also notice the multiplicity of ears surrounding the face, and the sharp, biting teeth sticking out of a wide-open, devouring mouth. From a sensory systems perspective, Craig had drawn an almost unbelievably literal depiction of his out-of-conscious auditory system—the system which appeared to be perpetuating his behavior problems at school.
Drawing 5 is Craig's response to draw what his problem at school would took like "all better." Several important changes appear in the second picture. First, he used very different colors (in the first pictute he used red as the only color; in the second picture he used soft btown tones). Second, the ears on the left side are fewer in number. Third, the mouth and teeth now form a wide smile. Most significantly, the eyes have shifted from a painful left auditory position to a here-and- now visual position of looking straight ahead.
Inner Resource Drawings continued to be utilized throughout Craig's therapy. In addition, it was suggested that he enroll in a sculpting class to further expand his sensory awareness into pleasant kinesthetic and visual areas.
W h a t is fascinating about this case is that I learned only after Craig's treatment had ended that his father was an alcoholic. In an emotionally intense conversation I had with Craig's mother, she told me how she , had not been able to reveal the facts about their painful family life ' at the time of her son's therapy. She now explained how Craig's problems were perpetuated by the intense denial and anger she had ' struggled with in relation to her husband's drinking problems. In public she would act as the "perfect wife and mother" in order to control and conceal her true emotions. However, at home her "perfect front" would crumble and she would take out all her anger and fear on her :
son. She went on to say how she would yell at him at home but never in public. I
This information was particularly interesting to me in relation to Craig's unconscious drawings of his out-of-conscious auditory system. | With the intense denial taking place in both his mother and father, ' Craig had been trapped in his own pain which was clearly depicted in his pictures long before the true situation was openly discussed.
174 THERAPEUTIC METAPHORS FOR CHILDREN more meaningful with this new information about his family. How dearly his drawings had demonstrated the availability and potency of his inner resources: Despite the blanket of denial and anger the child lived under, he still knew what "all better" looked like on an unconscious level. Equally impressive, his drawings illustrate how the therapist can work effectively with only the presenting symptom and despite the withholding of what is traditionally considered to be vital psychodynamic information.
In our conversation, Craig's mother proudly went on to describe how the entire family is involved in Alcoholics Anonymous, Al-Anon, and Alateen—and how the once closed windows to happiness in their lives are now opened. She also mentioned that Craig, who is now in the sixth grade, had become the top student in his school and has won many important accolades. She stressed that the most important "winning," however, was their family's newfound happiness and sense of well-being.