Beyond the Surface

 When I wrote FROM THE INSIDE OUT,  I hoped to bring to life a story of adoption and what it could be like if an adoptive family were ready for the challenges they might face. It is also about a family full of faith and hope. As I wrote, I thought about what could go right rather than what was wrong. I imagined the family lived in a world where people asked the right questions: What is driving this behavior? Why am I getting so upset? How can I create felt safety and love? What can I do right now to improve my relationship with this person?  What if the school and church was part of the treatment plan? What is really going on and what does this child really need from me? What resources can we use? How do we connect through every difficulty? What is happening inside the child (or any of us) resulting in this behavior seen on the outside?

Based on what I experience and learn in my work with adoptive families, foster children, hurt kids and adults with past pain, I believe we have to focus on deeper issues than the behaviors seen on the surface. We must work from the inside out to provide healing, understanding and real changes. Having said that, I find myself as a therapist working on the outside to provide support for people who are desperately trying to reach inward for personal healing, for their families or for their children. In doing so I find more than ever I am looking closely at behaviors and I am challenged by the puzzle a person's actions often create. It only works because I have to look beyond the surface into motivation.  My question about behavior is not how to stop it, but more of a curiosity as to what it means and what the person (adult or child) needs. I am not the healer or even the provider to meet the needs. I find I am part of the scaffolding to support the individual or family as they begin to work from the inside out.

So no matter where you in this process...perhaps things are not working for you personally and your own behaviors, thoughts and feelings need a deeper look; or maybe you are a parent of a child or two and you are struggling to provide a safe place for your hurt kid to heal. Maybe while you tear down some walls, or work to rebuild a life torn apart by tragedy you are in need of support-scaffolding so to speak so you can feel safe to go to ground zero. Here are some considerations that are quickly becoming core value beliefs for the work I do:

• Trauma produces a sense of hopelessness, helplessness and/or powerlessness. These three feelings often drive aggressive and/or defensive behavior because no one wants to feel this way. Fear is a main factor hiding below to the surface of it all.

• Stress makes relationship impossible.  Love gives and understands nothing can be given back until a person is safe enough to give.

•  You might be in a position to give something to someone (your adopted child, a step-child, an abused person, etc.) because of a loss they have suffered. Think about their loss through their eyes. It is difficult to receive when the person giving does not understand what you have truly lost.

• Challenging people need a balance of nurture and structure. The structure set up without understanding and nurture is just another set of rules, where as love and nurture without the structure of boundaries within the confines of relationship is often seen as manipulation or something weak and too frail to trust in.

Recommended for more information: From the Inside Out by Michelle Alden,  The Connected Child by Karen Purvis, Beyond Consequences by Heather Forbes, & Achieving Success with Impossible Children by David Ziegler.