How to address a victim of bullying?

How can we address a victim of bullying, if we have no way of yet dealing with Trauma in this way.

Actually, we have the tools and techniques already with approaches. However, therapists have to start looking beyond what is viewed as cognitive research. They have to in a way go outside the box, and start a genome of prevalent happenings. It is likely that what the therapist is hearing is only at the forefront of the problems being exhibited by the patient.

How then do we get them to open up further to explore what is the bottom line hurt?

To get a child or even adult to fully understand this wide range of problems, we must first get them to reconnect with their emotions. As mentioned before in some of my articles, the child simply learns to turn them off, and completely tunes out their environment. In a way, we have to tune them back in, and get them to understand that emotions are everyday in our lives, but how we regulate them is up to us as individuals. They need to talk about what is happening in their mind in the here and now, to be able to rest, and give the mind a chance to explore some.

What we don't often realize, is that it takes some time for things to unfold for a child, to process what it is that they are viewing, and when they do, further images, flashbacks, or just further memories will start to unfold. They will recall things in detail in their sessions, and look as if they are lost at points of the sessions, like that of a blank look. However, at the end of what they are viewing, they will be able to tell you what it was they viewed, but won't be able to identify some of the strengths of those areas as fear relation. Example would be to ask them to rate how afraid they were of what they were viewing. They have been stigmatized by the constant viewing of it, and may present a false answer, as they really are not sure. They know they just dislike what they are viewing and fail to understand why it is it keeps coming forward, even into their adult years.

Once they are able to identify with the emotions, and the significance of why the traumatic viewing is taking place, they will at some point be able to rationally rectify their line of thinking and ultimately process the image.

Again, once this happens, and most of what they thought was the main problem is gone, another set can emerge, those hidden and repressed to give the main images room. They will be able to identify with them immediately as remembered memories. However, they face again a harsh challenge of identifying cause and effect with them, and fail to resolve them. Again, the therapist has to fully understand what they are viewing to help them understand how to process and identify with those situations. It is not uncommon for a child to have problems with people dieing around them and not have dealt with it. It will show that the extent of the trauma was more severe in the fact that the child turned off their emotions years back, rather than more recently. It can be assumed by the therapist that the child was left at a loss at a much younger age in understanding, and that the trauma may present more and more traumatic cycles, images, flashbacks, from even further down the spectrum of thought process.

The therapist for this type of abuse, and couple with school bullying that relates to more severe trauma compiled, has to be able to think outside the box, and needs to be able to deal with emotions at a more complicated level. The therapists currently dealing with PTSD don't rationally understand what a child is viewing, because unlike war veterans who view a image that bothers them, abuse, and school bullying can cause hundreds of these images, and cycling flashbacks. A child can get completely wrapped up in them, as to create a new and faulty perception of the world. It can also get very dangerous to the school environment quickly, if the child is not identified. Children that go through these cycles also go through cycle much like that of sexual abuse trauma, but slightly different.

These children can seem ok one minute and the next they are completely out there, and not even with the here and now. The simple fact of the matter is that the child can be re-traumatized at any point, and like that of opening a sore wound, can unleash a lot of damage in the school environment.

Children will sometimes open up to others in their community, but have no idea of the meaning of onset triggers. They just know that certain things make them feel certain ways. Some things will rub them angry, and some things will make them passify into their regressed state. If anger is present from adults, the child will likely also show anger, but will ultimately back away. As they get older in their upper teen years, the child feels more confident in their abilities and will start to confront those that are angry head on, possibly to the death of one or the other.

These triggers are severe emotional and intermittant anger spurts that will cause a lot of damage in quick successions. After the rage subsides, the child/teenager looks for isolation, likely has a headache, and will seclude to something more peaceful. However, if the child/teenager cannot find that peace, they will have anger in quick successions again, until the environment becomes more soothing to them.

Children like this will also expedite more energy in processing all of the information their brain is exerting, causing more sleeping, and anger toward a person that wakes them when they are not ready. They may complain of headaches or try to medicate themselves in secret to handle those headaches. Parents who see some of these things need professional help to identify what is happening with their child.

As therapists, they don't always look for this issue, and it is construed to be something altogether different. Therapists need to look at agression, self medicating, and the childs environment in all contexts to find the main problem. However, in saying that, if the therapist sees a problem, but the child runs them in circles, then it is time to move to the problem area, and expand into it.

An example of this would be a parent complaining about nothing getting done at home. The parent talks about anger present in the home, damage to walls, etc. by the child. Yet, the child is indifferent, and remains fairly isolated as they talk about this issue around the home. The child simply slumps down and refuses to talk. At the second session, the child now alone with the counselor opens up some and talks, and the main theme is whats going on around the home, and why it is good to help out there. The child looks confused, but say they don't see it as an issue, mom really overdoes it. Counselor seems to be thinking that the parents needs to be controlling over the child, and is somewhat overbearing. At the next session, mother and son again in the session together, but wind up arguing about stuff not getting done at home, and there seems to be no balance to the equation. The mother states that said child rides off on moped all the time, or secludes to room, hates that he isolates, doesn't have much friends. The counselor sees now that their is some seclusion happening, however the child evades, and doesn't talk much. The child at this point cares not to discuss it, unless a point is touched on that spins off something that angers them. At the next session, the counselor asks the mother if he/she can talk with the child for the session alone, and the mother agrees. The counselor reviews the notes, and asks how do you think things are going at home so far. The child responds, that everything is going fine, "and I mowed the yard". The counselor thinks this is a positive that the child is helping around the house finally, and it must be sinking in. However, it was never mentioned that the child already did this prior in other sessions. The counselor then asks, how is school going for you. The child flushes in the face, and looks somewhat withdrawn, but then answers, its fine. The counselor asks the child, do you have friends in school? The child sits back, thinks, and then says not really, I have one though. The counselor asks just one? The child says yeah just one for now. The counselor makes a remark on how good friends can be, and that it is good the child can make friends. The child starts looking around the room, not paying attention. The counselor then asks, how is school going otherwise? The child says ok I guess. The counselor says I guess? Are you having trouble with your grades? The child says, yeah somewhat, I just don't understand some things, and I feel to much pressure a lot. The counselor now has a wide array of questions with one simple statement. The counselor then asks, are you having trouble with a particular class, student, or anything else? The child says, I don't like history class, I cannot focus in reading and remembering all that stuff, and fail on quizzes. I read, but then I space out, and I try to stay focused. As far as other students, I don't really want to talk about that. The counselor now knows there is some issue with classes and students in the environment, however, the counselor has to be cautious about approaching such a delicate issue. In this instance the counselor goes head long and directly asks the next question. The counselor asks, what is it about the students that you don't want to talk about? The counselor squints as if listening closely. The child notices the counselors expression, and starts thinking about hiding aspects that are to uncomfortable to talk about. The child says, they call me names, push me around, and I don't like it. This stupid rumor, and they have other names. I told you I don't want to talk about it!! I wish they would all die!! The counselor becomes alerted in facial expression, and the child clams up tight. It is the last time the child ever talked about it with him/her. The counselor tries to reopen the conversation, but the child has a barrier around that information, and ends up in talks of circles around the issue. If this is the case, the child is holding back a lot of trauma, ones they cannot face, but anger fuels from around it. The counselor learned that the child has issues at home, but with further examination, the counselor learns that it is being fueled by something going on in school. The counselor is likely thinking of depression due to sleeping a lot more than usual, but is concerned about the environment the child talked about in the school setting, which seems to have some sever anger fueling off of it. The counselor likely does not suspect trauma, as they have only seen bits and pieces of what is being said. Again, this is where a counselor has to be able to pick up on small bits of information, learn to approach in a meaningful way, and open further dialogue with the child. How should the counselor have approached this child on this topic? A counselor approaching this has to be creative in their line of thought. They need to approach this in a creative way, that enables the child to come out with what is bothering them little by little. It starts with the parent, but the parent needs to understand their is a major problem, and an overview of things happening in the childs life needs to be constructed. Family deaths, problems heard about in school, and triggered events like a timeline. Heres the thing most do not understand. When a child has this trauma, they are at some point trying to piece to gether a timeline, and it will help for the therapist to have something that helps the child identify with. The timeline made may also help the child put things back in order. It is not understood why a child that ends up this way loses track of the timing of events, but the events are severely scattered out in the mind. Helping to put things back in order can help heal the minds tracking of events. It will not heal the person by doing this, but gives them a base to work off of. It will also give the counselor a very good idea of when and where the most spoken event initially turned off the emotional cycle, and what events on the timeline cause the brain to get stuck and in what prior time frame. It is important to have some foundation to work from, and expand out.