Latest / Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour / Inside The Consulting Room. Episode 6. Trust, Betrayal, And A Sixteen-Year-Old’s Guard Up

Transcript

Inside The Consulting Room. Episode 6. Trust, Betrayal, And A Sixteen-Year-Old’s Guard Up · Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome back.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is episode six from Inside the Consulting Room.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it's about the adolescent who trusted no one.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: She sits facing me with her arms folded and her legs crossed.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I noticed that her fists were clenched.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Not it seemed in anger, but in tension.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Answers very brief, very carefully measured, almost as if every word must pass through some kind of filter before it's spoken.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: She's polite but distant and guarded, very guarded.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: She was sixteen years old, and her name was Ava.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Her teachers described her as intelligent and articulate, but she seemed to avoid close friendships, and often she would be seen on her own reading or on her phone.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: She didn't appear to have any particular friends.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes she was on the periphery of a group, but it was as if she was on the edge just watching.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Facial expressions, they said, seemed to indicate that almost as if she didn't want to be there or that she wasn't there.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it was almost as if if relationships became emotionally or otherwise intimate from a conversational perspective, she would just withdraw.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And at home, she spent longer and longer periods alone in her room, seemingly on her phone, but her parents became worried.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: They described her as increasingly distant.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: She wouldn't join for family meals.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: She declined opportunities to go out with or do anything with the family.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't that she seemed depressed, it was this sense of distance which was concerning.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Her grandmother said Where is the Ava who used to be here?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Which I think was a particularly poignant and quite insightful comment because where was Ava?
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Where had she gone?
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And why?
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now her behavior suggested what's called avoidant attachment and defensive relational withdrawal.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: There was no element of social withdrawal as such, but relational withdrawal certainly.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps there had been repeated experiences of betrayal or humiliation because this can lead adolescents to protect themselves by limiting emotional closeness.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: The behavior was communicating something, but what?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps by expecting nothing from others, she was reducing the risk of disappointment, but perhaps there was more.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is that the strategy of this kind, whilst it has a protective function, also creates isolation.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: In the early sessions, she spoke very cautiously.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: If I asked her a personal question, and by personal I mean just going beyond the practical into what she thought, what she felt, she would often respond with very short answers.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes she would redirect the conversation towards schoolwork or general topics.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: It was almost as if there was this sense of there being no-go areas, and as if my efforts to do that were experienced as intrusive.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I also felt that there was something about her that was evaluating me.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Was I able to read the signs?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Was I able to respect the necessary defensive boundary that she'd put in place?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: My trust had to be earned.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: One afternoon I asked her about friendships and she just shrugged.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, can you tell me a little more about friendships?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: And she just responded, Well, they're fine.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Find how, in what way?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, Well, people are okay until they aren't.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: And this, of course, gave me a doorway which I had to wait by rather than go barging through into what Ava might be carry carrying.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I waited and just looked.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, everyone changes eventually.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's the voice of disappointment.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: But over several sessions, Ava began describing previous relationships, and what was really noticeable was a sense that there had been situations where private conversations and private experiences had been shared publicly.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Moments where she felt humiliated, ashamed, embarrassed, or betrayed.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And these experiences had shaped powerful expectations.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: And she learned that closeness, closeness inevitably, is going to lead to humiliation and disappointment.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to explore in more detail what the events had been, but by doing so I risked causing her to feel humiliation again.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I said, it sounds like trusting people has not worked very well, almost like trusting people has been pretty risky.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, Well, it's just easier not to expect anything.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, No, I can understand that.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you don't expect anything, then you can't be let down.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess you've kind of learned to protect yourself.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was a slow progression.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was an experience where nothing was going to change quickly.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it seemed to me that the therapeutic task was to ensure that I didn't behave in a way which signaled some kind of expectation.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: But gradually she began to share more personal experiences with a little more detail.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: One afternoon she paused after she'd spoken about a particularly difficult incident with a boy that she had liked, but who communicated to his friends something about her that was intimate.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was untrue, but the fact was he communicated it anyway.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: And once he had, that communication had become widespread.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: She shrank and at some level decided I can't trust anyone.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: I listened to this and explained to her that when we feel exposed, it is quite natural to protect ourselves and not trust anyone.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, I think I might trust you a little bit.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that statement carried enormous psychological meaning because for someone who'd learned to trust no one, this was a moment of considerable risk.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I needed to acknowledge it carefully.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, That sounds like an important change.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: That you can allow yourself to trust me a bit.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's good.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: She nodded.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: It does feel strange though, she said, because I don't really trust anyone and I don't know you.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know anything about you.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, I wonder what it is that you trust.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: What is it that you trust a little bit?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, You're always the same.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, in what way?
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: She said, Well, you just don't change.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I I tell you things, and you don't say anything about them.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I reminded her that this was an experience where it was what she had to tell me that was important, and it was certainly not for me to tell others.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, that must feel strange, because it seems like you're learning that things are safe and you can only feel trust if things feel safe.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when a person has been damaged after relational injury, and there are many forms, particularly for young people where relationship is so important as is belonging, the trust doesn't return quickly.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: It grows slowly through repeated experiences of reliability.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now inside therapy, Ava discovered something she'd not experienced: the closeness doesn't always lead to betrayal.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: As the weeks passed, she learned about the concept of being discerning rather than distant.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Learning that being distant is protective but isolating, and being discerning means selecting, considering to what extent it is possible to trust something and someone.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not something you can automatically just know.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: You have to learn through the experience, which means being selective in what you say, selective in how you understand the responses of others, and remembering that a part of you doesn't feel like it can trust.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Inside the consulting room, trust is rarely rebuilt through promises.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: It returns through experience.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it begins with a single sentence.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.