Alternative Therapy for Children Guidelines

"Children reflect the treatment they receive" Jan Hunt.

Necessity to respect the children :

The basic need for efficiency is to never force a child to do what ce does not want to do, because that will surely block the therapeutic process and damage the relationship the child has with the forcing adult. Further, that can even deteriorate the child's physical and/or mental health. As such, this matches the definition of abuse.

Definition of abuse : abuse is extreme disrespect inflicted on a child, that is to say acting in disregard of the child' s legitimate needs in order for the abuser to satisfy one' s own needs which are not legitimate.

Abuse can be physical, emotional, sexual or professional.

Professional abuse : definition : when a professional (dentist, physician, psychologist, psychiatrist...) does harm to a child with consent from parents. Is unnecessary, physically or emotionally painful, repeated, not in order to do good to the child but with actual intent to allow the professional make more profit, this under cover of "care", is exploitation of the parents' need to have their child "improved" in whatever way the professional says is necessary. The professional uses ces position under the guise of science and advanced knowledge, with alleged superiority of knowing better than parents what their child needs.

Messages coming from your body are important : if you ignore them too much and for too long, you are at risk of becoming sick sooner or later, that will be your body' s way to protest and to tell you it can not continue that way. Once you are sick, you have no choice but review your way of life and make changes to try regain health. Of course the same is true for children : when they are pushed too much or forced to do things that go against their needs, that can make them sick, and everybody loses.

When a child refuses to do something an adult wants, it tells this is opposite to that child's needs, at least at the present time. In such a conflicting situation, what matters then is to know whose needs have priority over the other 's needs : the adult's needs or the child's needs ? (from Active Listening by Thomas Gordon).

In an environment designed to help some children cure from their chronic condition, children's needs have priority over adults' needs. Further, respecting somebody means not forcing ce to do what ce does not want to do.

When we want to respect somebody and we ask something, we know we must allow the person the right to refuse. Why this basic social rule is derogated when it comes to children ? Are children not persons ? Are children not worthy of respect ? Can respect be forgotten with children because they have no power ?

This project of a therapeutic milieu proposes to break from those negative habits and this carries good chances of helping such children out of their chronic sufferings.

Children have the right to heal and grow even if their parents or person(s) having custody of them don't want them to change :

we believe that every human being is entitled to a fulfilling and independent life, and maintaining a child in a condition of disability in order to continue making profits or to satisfy on the impaired person one's need to dominate is not acceptable.

"When a child feels loved and secure ce goes forth courageously about this business of living and life is an exciting adventure that ce rushes out eagerly to meet" (V. Axline).

The growth impulse is the main force that acts in each given child toward the best possible self-achievement within ces particular life setting. We thus have to look for everything that stands in the way of this main life force within each particular child : personal blockings, hindrances due to the home features, lack of flexibility from assistants because of their prejudices...

"The motivating force for all therapy is that it is more satisfying to be mature than to be infantile. It is this and this alone which makes it basically possible for therapy to take place " (V. Axline).

Children's self determination : no matter how apparently defeated and heart broken a child is, any child at all must "be given the right and the opportunities to stand on ces own two feet and to make ces own decisions" (V. Axline).

Such conditions are a prerequisite for recovering mental health and for turning into a responsible and autonomous person.

As long as a child is suffering from disturbances, that shows there is still some traumas to be uncovered.

Abuse destroys in the victim ces sense of personhood : efforts in therapy must be oriented toward restoring the little person 's internal life so to rebuild ces sense of being someone. When having repressed most of ces emotions in order to adapt to the abusing situation, the child victim may then suffer from depersonalization which is loss of contact with reality and with ceself : the child feels ce is "not there" because ce had to withdraw from reality for ces own protection to try limit the sufferings, but then this adaptation makes ce disabled with reality and with others.

Once they have at least partially recovered out of their disturbances, young people usually do not ask for an easy life but they want the responsibility to create their own life and build their own future. We fully support their right to do so because by this they show they are on the way to independence, maturity and self-responsibility, which are the necessary components for fulfilling a happy and meaningful life.

Assistants must be ready to hear the worst in abuse, whether it has been emotional, physical and/or sexual when a child comes to the point of opening ces heart about ces past. The assistants must accept as well the emotional burden which is attached to the traumas, i. e. accept the heavy display of negative emotions that the child might let out, no matter how painful, as it is a necessary step for recovery (a good detailed example of such extremes and of therapy can be read in the nonfiction book "Sybil" by F. R. Schreiber).

For example a child may cry for months and seemingly endlessly, the adults then must not try to stop nor shorten the process, as there is no shortcut when having to get free from the past. The worst cases are when the child has been repeatedly and deliberately submitted to the worst painful experiences and this only because the perpetrator had pleasure to see ces little victim turning insane thru anguish and terror, because the perpetrator ceself when a child was submitted to similar traumas, so when grown up ce is driven by a compulsive need to inflict pain on a little and helpless person, ces pleasure being in finding what can cause the worst pains and see all the distress that the victim experiences repeatedly while having no way to escape. When the sufferings are too acute, the victim loses ces normal conscience to adapt to the situation by disconnecting from ces feelings as they are unbearable. Then the victim is alienated from ces own feelings.

Such created hells are beyond common understanding and often go beyond imagination. They go to such an extend that they can develop during a long time before anybody suspects anything because such acts are too far away from common life and social behaviors.

A frequent self-protection is when a non-aware person experiences growing weird feelings about some particular facts happening to a child, and feels tempted to deny reality and thinks "no, this is not possible", thus tries to withdraw to avoid experiencing personally some of the victim's distress. As a consequence of self-protection, witnesses may be unsure about if they suspect correctly what is going on : that is why law makes it mandatory to report any abuse even if it is only suspected.

Some professionals prefer to diagnose in the child a brain abnormality rather than to see that the child's condition is due to what ces parents or somebody else do because those adults apparently do not display anything wrong and the professionals being paid by the parents want the money and don't want to displease their customers.

The more damaged a child is the more atrocious the traumas were. It is then our honor to try help the little victim as ce is still alive and we must strive to provide ce with the best care as a reparation for the worst ce has suffered. "You can't help the hurt by hiding it. You cannot act like it never happened" (a woman in a mental institution raped at age 9 by her grandfather).

Self-esteem : to be in good mental health, children need their self-esteem. Self-esteem develops in each child by the way ce is treated by others. When well loved, the children will have a good self-esteem. If badly treated they will have a bad opinion of themselves and will be depressed, passive, not creative and will remain dependent on others. Love must then be included to what we bring to those little victims to help them cure and rebuild a better personality.

rev. 2017