Family Therapy Case Studies, 1990, 5 (1 ), 3944

Michael Durrant*

I yoing girl's fears and sleeping dfficultieswere persisting despite her parents' bestefforts to help her overcome them. Their feel-ing of helplessness, and the idea that thesewere manifustations of some serious problem,prevented theirfeeling they could do anything.Utilising the girl's imagination and love ofbool<s, the problem was able to be defined assomething less serious and both she and herparents discovered ways of feeling sttongerand overcoming the difficulties.

Julia, aged seven, attended thempy with hermotli'Jr, Louise, step-father, Ian, and baby sis-ter, Kate. Louise had separated from Julia'sfather when Julia was three-years-old and hadcared for Julia on her own until marrying Iantwo years ago.When I asked Julia why she thought they hadcome to see me, this quiet girl said 'because ofmy dreaming'. Ian and Louise explained thatJulia was very troubled and frightened, andthat all their efforts to reassure her were to noavail.Some four months previously, the family hadretumed home from a vacation to find thattheir home had been burgled. Julia was thefirst one in the door and she was greeted by ascene of havoc inside, with the family's pos-sessions strewn around the house and variousitems missing. Later, she overheard the police

* Eastwood Family Therapy Centre, PO Box 630,Epping, NSW, AUSTRALIA 2 12 I

SAYING'BOO' TO MR. SCAREY:Writing a book provides a solution

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speculating to her parents that perhaps theintruders had still been in the house when Juliawent inside and had fled through the backdoor as the family was entering through thefront.

Understandably, Julia was upset that night andwas hesitant about going to bed. When finallycoaxed into her bedroom, she discovered thather toys had been disturbed and her wardroberansacked and she fled downstairs. That eve-ning Julia slept with her mother and, when sherefused to retum to her own room, the follow-ing day she moved into a spare bedroom. Overa few nights, however, she had more and moredifficulty sleeping and continually went to herparents' bd. Certain that they did not wanther to get into the habit of sleeping in theirbed, Ian and Louise put a mattress on the floorin their bedroom and insisted that Julia sleepthere if she was unable to sleep in her ownroom.

Ian and Louise described the regular eveningevents, saying that Julia becomes visibly upsetas it gets dark outside and insists on staying inclose proximity to them. If they try to take herto bed she becomes hysterical, so was nowfalling asleep on the couch in the living roomwhile her parents watched television. What-ever time they canied her, asleep, to the sparebedroom, she wakes and cries, saying 'no, Iwon't ... I can't ... I can't go to sleep'.Finally, they put her on the mattress in theirroom, where she cries for fifteen minutes or sobefore falling asleep. This sequence of eventsrecuned every evening.

Originally published in Family Therapy Case Studies, 1990. Author's contact details: This online PDF version © 2008 Brief Therapy Institute of Sydney michael@briefsolutions.com.au www.brieftherapysydney.com.au

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During the day, Julia was happier however sherefused to be in any room of the house on herown, followed her parents from room to room,and would not go into her bedroom at all.Louise and Ian were concemed that thingsseemed to be getting worse.

Whilst they realised that Julia's reaction to theburglary was understandable, Ian and Louisecould not understand why this reaction waspersisting. They had tried everything theycould think of to reassure Julia, includinginstalling additional locks on the doors andwindows, instituting a nightly rituat of check-ing every room and every door with Julia, andhaving Julia lock Ian outside the house so hecould prove that he was unable to get backinside. They could not understand that each ofthese activities seemed to make her moreupset.

Louise wondered if this traumatic event hadtriggered some 'deep seated' problem h Julia,perhaps related to the break-up ofherparents'maniage. She told me that, during the twoyears that she and Julia had been on their own,Julia had been very 'clingy' and had had diffi-culty separating from her to attend preschool,and that this had led to some counselling forthe two of them at a child psychiatry clinic.Whilst she.felt that she had followed the sug-gestions that had been made at that time andJulia's preschool and school attendance hadpresented no further problems, Louise saidthat Julia has always been a sensitive child andperhaps whatever problem was underlying allthis had not really been resolved.In thinking about this situation, it was appar-ent to me that Julia's initial reaction to the bur-glary was understandable and 'normal'. Manypeople who hav'e been victims of burglaryreport feelings of distress, fear and that theyhad somehow been 'violated', and I couldonly begin to imagine how much more terrify-ing this experience must be for a seven-year-old. Conscious of ttre fact (as I often tell mycliens) that therapists have spent a number ofyears studying and training in how to makethings more complicated than they usually are,

Miclnel Durrant

I felt the most straightforward explanation wasto be preferred. White Louise's questionsabout deeper problems were understandableand reflected her frustration and feelings ofhelplessness, I preferred to accept that the pre-vious difficulties had been resolved with thecounselling received at that time and that itwas not necessary to conclude that the currentdistress was somehow related to these. Todecide that the current problem was anothermanifestation of some unresolved difficultyseemed both to be unnecessarily complicatedand to risk making a problem that alreadyseemed overwhelming appear even bigger andmore serious.In many ways, the persistence of Julia's diffi-culties was understandable. The simplestexplanation was that her quite normal fear andpanic had 'taken on a life of its own' as sheand her parents became more and more preoc-cupied with it. Watzlawick, Weakland andFisch (1974) explain how family membersattempts to solve the problem, which flowfrom their way of making sense of the situa-tion, often seem to become or exacerbate theproblem. Louise and Ian's attempts at reassu-rance, which 'made sense' to them, had beenhaving the effect of helping Julia focus moreand more on her fears about safety and made itmore difficult for her to leave her fears behind.One thing that struck me was that Ian andLouise had stuck to their decision that Juliashould not be allowed to develop a habit ofsleeping in their bed, and I commended themfor this.I talked with Julia for some time about herbedroom, and the things she enjoyed about it.She described her pink bedroom, her teddybear, and her enjoyment of bedtime stories.We discussed the various books that sheenjoyed reading and discovered that her partic-ular favourite was the 'Mr Men' series. I hadthought that I knew most of the books in theseries, but leamed from Julia that there weremore 'Mr Men' books than I had realised.For no particular reason, and without anythought of a clever intervention, I asked Julia

Case Studies

if she had read 'Mr Scarey'. She took delightin informing me that there was not a 'MrScarey' in the series (I did not confess to herthat, when I had asked the question, I couldnot remember whether or not such a titleexisted!).

I began to ask Julia what she thought might bein the story of 'Mr. Scarey' if it did exist and,as she engaged in this discussion enthusiasti-cally, it struck me that this might be a way tohamess Julia's enthusiasm and imagination toget her doing something practical that mightbe helptul.

Being an expert on 'Mr. Men' books, Juliatold me that the story would include Mr.Scarey and one other person (The Mr Menbooks always involve the main character and asecond character who acts as something of a'foil' and usually finishes in the 'one-up' posi-tion). I wondered if the other person would bea little girl, and Julia suggested that it wouldbe a girl of about her age. She decided to callher'Peta'.

I speculated ttrat Peta might be scared by Mr.Scarey, because she might not realise that hereally wasn't as scarey as he pretended. Juliathought this might be the case, and waspleased when I suggested that perhaps shecould start to write the story of Peta and Mr.Scarey.

Again, I complimented Ian and Louise on theirefforts and their concem and commented that,since it seemed that Louise had done such agood job resolving the earlier difficulties withJulia, I thought the current difficulty was afairly normal reaction to an upsetting event.They were happy to encourage Julia to writeher story and to retum to share it with me.

Second session

Two weeks later, the family retumed and Juliaappeared a little more animated than before.She insisted on showing me her storyimmediately.

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Louise had purchased a new exercise book forJulia and had helped her cover it in brightpaper, and Julia had written four pages of thestory of 'Mr. Scarey'.

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We talked for some time about her beautifulartwork and the story she had written. I wasespecially interested in page four, and the ideathat Peta was going to scare Mr. Scarey and go

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42

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'Boo' to him. Peta told me that the story wasnot finished, and I wondered how it wouldend. I wondered if she thought Mr. Scareywould get bigger and bigger and bigger andPeta get smaller and smaller and smaller, or ifmaybe Peta would get bigger and bigger andbigger and Mr. Scarey get smaller and smallerand smaller. She said she thought Peta wouldget bigger.

Miclnel Durrant

Ian and Louise were pleased to tell me thatJulia had been going upstairs by herself andchanging her clothes in her bedroom eachaftemoon after school, and that she was spend-ing short periods of time in other rooms byherself and away from them. Although stillsleeping in their room, Julia was now goingupstairs in the dark, tuming on the light andputting her nightdress on by herself.I was genuinely surprised by these events andwondered what they ahd been doing differ-ently. They insisted that they had not doneanything, although it transpired that they weretaking a more 'matter-of-fact' position andhad stopped their tireless efforts at reass-urance.Louise also said that, on two evenings, she hadencouraged Julia to 'practice' lying on herown bed for five minutes before moving to hermattress in their room. I congratulated her onthis ingenuity (whilst wondering why I hadn'tthought of something like that).Ian asked me if I thought they should put somemore pressure on Julia, to which I replied thatit seemed that they were already finding somethings that were working and my guess wasthat they would be the best judges of howmuch pressurc to use. It seemed important thatI confirm their position of expertise rather thanimply that there was a 'right' way of dealingwith the situation. I was already feeling thatthis family was finding its own solution andthat my work was simply creating enoughspace to allow things to feel a liule less stuck.They appeared surprised that I did not offerthe advice rcquested, but also felt they couldwork out what was needed. I invited them toretum when Julia had completed her book.

Third sessionThree weeks later, Julia brought her finishedstory to show me. She had added three furtherpages.

Julia explained to me (obviously frustrated bymy stupidity) that page five showed Mr.

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Case Studies

Scarey getting smaller and smaller from thebottom of the page to the top, and Peta's facegetting bigger and bigger.She was obviously proud of her story, and herparents seemed equally proud of her efforts.They told me that Julia had been sleeping inher own bed for the last week and not waking

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in the night. Louise explained that she hadrealised that Julia was going to bed with farless problem and sleeping without intemrptionfour nights out of seven, and so had decided itwas time to move her back into her own room.She had been surprised ttrat Julia had shownonly token resistance to this idea. During theday, Julia was still following them around thehouse a little, but this was far less than before,and Ian wondered if it had just become a bit ofa habit.The family was happy to finish therapy at thispoint, and I congratulated them on theirachievment, confessed that they had left mebehind, and suggested they might like to readthis newest (and best) of the 'Mr. Men' booksfrom time to time.Some weeks later, I heard that Julia was com-pletely 'her old self' and was enjoying beingback in her pink bedroom.

ConclusionWhat happened? I am not completely certain,however it seems ttrat the family found someways of feeling that they could do somethingabout their situation rather than feeling over-

43

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44

whelmed by it.Having, almost by accident, introduced theidea of 'Mr. Scarey', it was important that Iresponded to Julia's enthusiastic embracing ofthe idea. Had I had my own clear agendaabout what needed to happen, I may well havemissed this. As it was, my building on Julia'sresponse allowed us to build something thathelped her feel that she could do something.The story was an obvious metaphor for Julia'ssituation, however I never explicitly made theconnection between Peta and Julia. Juliaclearly made the connection and perhaps itwas her ability to imagine Mr. Scarey beingdefeated in the story that gave her the confi-dence that she could leave her own fearsbehind.

MiclnelDunant

Ian and Louise obviously began to reqponddifferently. It was probably the combination ofmy suggestion that this was not a deep prob-lem and my commending them for what theyhad been doing, along with their observationsof Julia's more relaxed state in response to herliterary efforts, that enabled them to develop aless toxic view ofthe situation and not feel soimmobilised.

ReferenceWatzlawick, P., Weakland, J. and Fisch, R.

(1,974). Change: Principles of ProblemFormation and Problem Resoltttion.New York, WWNorton.