The Power of Stories to Process Trauma - how one child used play to address the damage done to him.

Children who abuse other children - we don't want to deal with it...

Let me tell you a story...

I worked in a therapeutic community for children. I was often given to look after for the day, a small boy who had been sexually abused by his father and was now exhibiting offending behaviour towards other boys. At that time (and I doubt that it’s improved in the past few years of financial recession and funding cuts) there were only 7 places in the whole country in one single unit to help children who are already sexually abusing other children.

I said to another woman who worked there – “I know he’s only seven – but it really creeps me out and repels me when he slides his hand on my thigh and eyes me sideways from under his lashes.”

And she said, “That’s because he’s grooming you. That’s what was done to him.”

That was the first light bulb that went on for me. I stopped feeling guilty at being repulsed by him touching me – a sense of repulsion, in fact, was the correct response for me to have.

The second light bulb was the memory of a book I’d read some years before, ‘Children with Emerald Eyes’ – a psychoanalyst with children who wrote up some of the stories of the kids she dealt with. One story was about a learning disabled girl who the staff were scared of, and so they ended up treating her roughly because the girl was behaving so violently towards them. The author recognised that it was a form of projection. The girl couldn’t express her own feelings of terror, so was projecting them outwards to make those around her feel what she was feeling inside. When the author realised this she started to treat the girl really kindly and say to her, ‘I know you’re scared’. And she educated the staff, and they changed their behaviour and started to treat the girl as though she was frightened, and the whole situation was changed, and the girl’s behaviour was transformed.

And I looked at this boy and thought – he’s trying to communicate to me how repulsed and unclean he feels.

Day after day, I was left for hours in the playroom with him. It was up to the child to lead the agenda. He always wanted to play ‘Little Red Riding Hood’. He was the little girl in the story. When the wolf turned up I’d have to run in and kill it – or hand him an axe for him to kill it. I’d celebrate his being saved from the nasty wolf and then he’d kill himself. He insisted I play the role of the ‘mother’. Each time I ran in and cried and was upset that my child was dead and I gave a magic potion, or an antidote to bring him alive again and then threw a party to show how thrilled I was to have my child alive again. And then at the end of the party he’d get a basket of poison mushrooms (or a knife, or a noose) and kill himself again and I’d revive him again and throw another party – until I was completely exhausted. But we needed to do it over and over again until he moved on.

Sometimes I’d get him to play ‘Samson’ for a bit of light relief. I left the Delilah bit out (for obvious reasons). But I’d build two huge towers of the giant soft-play building blocks and say – “But now you are grown up and your hair has grown long and you have grown strong. You are no longer helpless and you can pull the roof down on your enemies,” and he’d put both hands out and with a huge roar, push down the pillars.