— It’s absolutely terrible! What I mean to say is that it looks absolutely awful! said a young, well-dressed woman sadly but energetically. She was sitting on a chair, clutching an expensive bag made of good leather and fiddling with her long belt.
Her daughter, with the fabulous name Vasilisa, was sitting in a chair across from me. The girl had a pleasant, somewhat rustic face, large, regular features, a well-knit figure, and strong legs tightly covered in white tights. Vasilisa was also wearing a heavy, wide dress of dark green velvet with a white lace collar and lace cuffs. Both collar and cuffs looked heavily starched. More than anything in the world, Vasilisa resembled the Frog Princess, who had just passed the transformation, in which something distinctly frog-like was still preserved.
. It was pleasant to listen to her, although the topic of the story did not seem to be conducive to that. The daughter listened very attentively, she did not allow herself any remarks or even gestures. Even though it was about her.
— Before school, I studied a lot with Vasilisa. I just then lost my job and I had enough time. In general, she is a very capable girl, she learned to read and count very early, and she wanted to go to school in the previous year. But I was against it, because then she was only six years old. Why overload the child — so I then thought. Vasilisa went to school at the age of seven, like all children. We chose a good school, Vasilisa passed the test easily. However, I was very surprised by her reaction. She was so nervous, as if she was deciding something. I reassured her, saying that all these tasks were just fie for her (so it actually turned out), that, in the end, the light didn’t converge at this particular school, and there were still five thousand schools in the city, many of which still better than this one, but she didn’t seem to hear me. I am talking about this because maybe it is important for understanding what is happening today.
I nodded vigorously because it really mattered.
“So, she didn’t seem to hear me and only heard what was happening somewhere inside her. But then everything somehow worked out, that is, it didn’t even work out, but it ended very well, everyone praised Vasilisa very much and enrolled in the best “a” class.
She studied very well from the very beginning, but that’s what we expected. In fact — a capable, prepared, accurate girl — why not? The teacher often used Vasilisa as an example to other children, but don’t think that my daughter became conceited or something like that. Vasilisa is a very responsible girl, she understood that if she was set as an example, then she needed to study even better. And she is always ready to help others if needed. In addition to studying, in her class there is a very active, as it used to be called, social life. They put on performances, prepare for various holidays, publish a wall newspaper. Vasilisa took an active part in all this, sometimes drawing something at home, teaching, sometimes staying at school. I didn’t mind because it seemed to me that it was good for general development. Maybe it was an overload? But after all, many children go to school and attend several circles at the same time, and nothing happens to them. And Vasilisa did not attend any circles. Don’t know.
Vasilisa finished the first grade with only A’s, the best student in the class. For the summer I went to the country with my grandmother. There she swam, sunbathed, went to the forest, ate berries and fruits — in a word, she rested. And when I arrived in the city, and again went to school, at the end of the first quarter, it began …
How exactly did it start? Why?
— Yes, that’s just the point, that from nothing. Everything was fine the night before. Vasilisa came from school happy, got three fives, said that they would stage a new performance and Veronika Ivanovna promised her the main role, did her homework normally (sometimes she sits up late, but on that day everything was pretty fast), had dinner, went to bed . Everything was fine in the morning too. I got up, did my exercises, washed my face, sat down to have breakfast. I didn’t have time to eat porridge, when suddenly — vomiting. We were terribly frightened, school, of course, was out of the question. They called a doctor. The doctor came, examined, rumpled his stomach, said: “Everything is fine, there is no surgery, maybe overwork from school. Just in case, take tests and drink vitamins. And all summer she ate these vitamins by centners. And I’m not a doctor, of course, but what kind of overwork can there be from school in the first quarter? We, of course, immediately handed over the analyzes. Everything is fine. A day later, vomiting again. Yes, what! And again in the morning. Then in the evening. And it went. Vasilisa is pale as a sheet. She tries to calm me down, but it is clear that she herself is utterly frightened. Still would!
This is how we live for the second month. We have already examined all possible specialists. They found a heart murmur and flat feet. You understand that neither one nor the other has anything to do with our symptoms. And then it subsides, then again. We don’t know what to do. Here, I was advised to contact you.
— Did I understand correctly that Vasilisa was always a neat and responsible girl by nature?
— Yes Yes. She won’t go to sleep until she has learned all her lessons. And there is absolutely no need to push her like other children. All by herself.
— Do you scold Vasilisa for deuces?
“But I never had twos,” Vasilisa herself spoke for the first time.
“And if they were, do you think mom would start cursing?”
«I don’t think so,» said Vasilisa, thinking honestly.
— Please name the most hooligan act that you have committed in your life. Well, there she broke the glass or put a button on the teacher’s chair …
“I have never done things like you say. So I can’t say… Once I accidentally broke my grandmother’s glass when I was wiping it with a towel.
Did your grandmother scold you a lot?
No, she didn’t swear at all. On the contrary, she comforted me, because I cried a lot. The glass was very beautiful, I felt sorry for him.
“Tell me, Vasilisa, do you have dreams?”
— Yes of course.
— Do they have nightmares? Well, that someone is chasing you, you fall somewhere or something falls on you and all that …
— No, I don’t remember that. It only happens that I didn’t have time to do something for school or I forgot my notebook at home. Veronika Ivanovna says: «Children, open your notebooks.» I reach into my briefcase, and instead of notebooks, I have apples there. From the cottage. Vasilisa allowed herself a cautious smile at this point. — But this is probably not a nightmare, because Veronika Ivanovna is kind.
“So she wouldn’t scold you for a forgotten notebook?”
“Actually, she sometimes swears, but never at me. And I don’t know about notebooks, because I never forgot them. Only in dreams. Vasilisa smiled again.
After the end of the conversation, I sent Vasilisa to another room to draw projective drawings.
«What do you think is the matter with her?» — no longer hiding her anxiety, exclaimed the mother. — All doctors shrug their shoulders, but sometimes it seems to me that this is something completely terrible. I haven’t slept at night for the second month, I swallow pills … Do you think it will pass?
«I think it’s a neurosis,» I said. — And I think that it is not worth waiting until he passes by himself (although this is possible). I think he needs to be treated.
So, if I assume that Vasilisa has a neurosis, then all its components must be present. Let’s watch.
Preneurotic character — takes place. Vasilisa is hyper-responsible, pedantic, anxious, despite all her abilities and achievements, she is not confident in herself (“She will double-check everything a hundred times”). Very dependent on the opinions of others, afraid to make a mistake and behave «wrongly». The character of Vasilisa, apparently, is the result of the interaction of upbringing and temperament. By temperament, Vasilisa, most likely, is a phlegmatic person, she tends to do everything slowly and properly. And her mother and grandmother brought up hyper-responsibility, high demands on herself in her. To do a lot, conscientiously, and even to do everything right, to keep up with everything is hard. Therefore, Vasilisa sits up late at lessons, hardly walks, does not attend any circles.
Further. The clinical picture is more than obvious. At first glance, there is only one symptom — vomiting, but this is only at first glance. In conversation, the mother mentioned that Vasilisa had been struggling to fall asleep for more than a year, under her eyes by the end of the day there were blue circles, sometimes crying over nothing, last year some kind of “vein” twitched under her eyebrow for almost a month (most likely — teak). So, there is a clinical picture.
What about internal conflict? In theory, the main symptom should indirectly indicate its character.
Sometimes this «instruction» looks very peculiar. For example, one of my colleagues told the following story. A woman finds out that her husband is cheating on her. Her principles call for an immediate divorce. But her husband feeds her and two minor children. She has nowhere to go. She has practically no specialty. But she cannot «give up her principles» either. Then there is a way out of this impasse — in the disease. A woman falls ill with hysterical neurosis, she is paralyzed in both legs. Now she simply physically “cannot leave” her husband, and the symptom clearly and unequivocally points to the localization of the internal conflict.
So, the symptom we have is vomiting. What is he telling us? Vomiting is not nausea, belching, or other gastrointestinal disturbances. This symptom is demonstrative, strong, external. What is vomiting in the minds of Vasilisa, an excellent student and neat student? Something dirty, obscene, disgusting. What shocks others, what cannot be hidden, endured. Something that shouldn’t be. From here it is already a stone’s throw to an internal conflict. Vasilisa’s upbringing and early self-education has suppressed and pushed into the unconscious exactly half of her personality — the one that is responsible for pranks, insolence, childishness and other similar things. But Vasilisa is only 8 years old and such “things” do not go to her for nothing. Consequently, we have an internal conflict — between the conscious attitude “everything must be right, on time, positively” and the cry from the unconscious part of the psyche “it is impossible to always be positive and always look decent!”. Hence the «obscene» character of the symptom.
The situation is more complicated with a traumatic situation. It doesn’t seem to be on the horizon. To think of it as such is prolonged tension and trying to do everything right and always is a rather big stretch. After all, Vasilisa has been successful so far. Why did the breakdown occur precisely then, at the beginning of the first quarter of the second grade? But here, too, there is a catch. When I asked Vasilisa about the proposed performance, Vasilisa informed me with undisguised joy that because of her illness, the main role was given to another girl, and she got a positive, but insignificant role.
— Isn’t it a shame that you didn’t get the main role? I asked.
— No, what are you! Vasilisa answered very sincerely (it seemed to me that deceit was by no means among her shortcomings). There were so many words to learn there. And now I have very little — just one page. I already learned it, so I don’t even have to go to rehearsals. But I still sometimes go, sit in the hall, listen.
With some stretch, but still it can be assumed that Vasilisa, of course, without realizing it, was fatally «injured», having received another honorable load — a big main role in the new performance, and this was precisely what served as a «trigger» for the development of neurosis . From here, the moment with psychological defense becomes somewhat clearer. The disgusting symptom, however, allowed Vasilisa to «get away» from the main role and significantly reduce her participation in public work in general. In addition, it is possible that due to illness, Vasilisa herself was able to allow herself some minor indulgences, which I am simply not aware of.
So, all the components of a neurosis seem to be present. It’s time to start treatment. It is clear that it must be complex. After consulting with a neuropathologist, we decided not to carry out any medical treatment for the time being and would limit ourselves to psychotherapy.
Mom was given recommendations to talk to the teacher and insist on the following in the conversation.
- Remove all social burdens from Vasilisa for a while.
- Never, under any circumstances, set Vasilisa as an example to other children. If necessary, praise her personally, without mentioning other children at all.
Further, I advised my mother to create an atmosphere of «hooliganism» in the family, acting to the best of my ability and imagination.
“Throw pillows, spill the ink on something very useful,” I advised seriously, ignoring my mother’s waxy pallor. — Beat the dishes, get twos, write on the walls in the front room, call someone on the phone and advise you to stock up on water, as it will soon be turned off. Half an hour later, call the same number and advise to let the boats in the collected water.
“I understand you,” my mother said in a whisper. — I’ll try.
I worked with Vasilisa herself according to a method that is conditionally called fairy tale therapy. The child, with the minimum participation of a psychotherapist, composes a fairy tale. The problems of the heroes of the tale naturally reflect the child’s own problems. Solving them together with the psychotherapist, developing and completing the plot, the child comes close to resolving his own internal conflict, and hence to overcoming neurosis. Naturally, everything is so simple only in words. In practice, getting to a genuine conflict in this way is very difficult. But Vasilisa was still too small for «real» psychotherapy, and too serious for play therapy. So I didn’t have much of a choice.
Vasilisa began willingly to compose the fairy tale. And the conflict in the fairy tale was in full view — the nauseatingly positive girl Asya and her antipode — the negative heroine Tanka. I almost triumphed — it was enough to make Tanka and Asya friends, merge them into one character, and now the overcoming of the internal conflict has been achieved and the long-awaited victory over neurosis is in our hands. But it was not there. Vasilisa categorically refused to recognize Tanka and her virtues. And none of my evasions and tricks helped. We fought for almost a month, while there were some shifts.
Then help arrived from my mother — she somehow persuaded Vasilisa to put a plastic fishing fly in her compote. And two more times Vasilisa went to bed, never having prepared for a lesson in natural history. And the teacher, alarmed by the state of the girl, honestly fulfilled her mother’s requests — no social burdens, no public praise. After about five weeks, Vasilisa relaxed a little and the disgusting symptom immediately disappeared, disappeared, as if it had not been there. At the same time, our “long-playing fairy tale” also came to an end. At the last session, Vasilisa admitted to me that if it were possible and not given so many lessons, she would like to go to the ceramics circle at school. Children there themselves sculpt from clay, and then paint … It’s so beautiful. I assured Vasilisa that her dream is quite real.
Concluding the article, I want to introduce you to Vasilisa’s tale (of course, I cite it in a significant reduction, omitting numerous repetitions and details).
There lived a girl, and her name was Asya. She had nine brothers and sisters, and a mother and father. She was very obedient, and always helped her mother, and went for a walk only where she was allowed. And she didn’t want to go anywhere else. And all her brothers and sisters were also very obedient and good, and they never quarreled or fought over toys, but they played all the toys in turn.
Once another family came to their village and settled in the neighborhood. In this family there was a girl Tanya (the same age as Asya) and her two older brothers. But Tanya always behaved badly, and did not want to do anything around the house, and ran away alone for a walk in the forest. Asya was not friends with Tanka, because why would she be friends with such a bad girl? Asya was friends with her brother, who was one year older than her. And his name was Kolya.
But now Tanka began to lure Kolya to her place. And Kolya began to play with Tanka, because it is interesting with her and she will always do some prank. At home, they scolded Tanka, but they could not do anything with her. But Asya did not want Kolya to be friends with Tanka, and she began to follow them.
And Kolya and Tanka took a boat and sailed on it along the river. And they sailed all day and all night. And Asya saw how they were sailing away, and called her older brother and older sister, and also Tanka’s brothers, and they all took another boat and set off in pursuit. And Tanka and Kolya stopped for the night in the mountains, lit a fire, cooked porridge and sat by the fire and talked. But then they saw that they were being chased, and they ran. They did not want to be caught, because they were afraid that they would be punished, and also because … because Tanya loved freedom.
And they pursued them, but they could not overtake them. And Asya and everyone else met with a mountain troll (he is so gray, big, scary and stone). The troll, in fact, was sleeping, but Tanka woke him up with her cries and pranks (she threw stones and sang songs), and he was very angry with her and agreed to help Asya and others to catch Tanka and Kolya.
At night, Tanka and Kolya made their way to the boat and sailed on, but the troll arranged so that the water in the river rose and all sorts of whirlpools formed. The boat was smashed against the rocks, but Kolya and Tanka escaped and climbed up the mountains. And so they saw the entrance to the cave and hid there. And a troll slept in the cave (the troll’s wife. Actually, they had been divorced for a long time and had not seen each other for a hundred years). The troll woke up and asked: “Who is there?” Tanka and Kolya told her everything, and she drove them out of the cave, and she herself went to look for her husband. And when she found it, she made up with him, and they went further and further. And the troll sent such a stone collapse, and large stones rolled down from the mountain, and they had to crush Tanka. (My question is: “What was Kolya doing at that time?”) And Kolya… Kolya pushed her aside and fell under this stone himself. Tanka dragged him back into the cave and sat there.
(My question is: “Well, what did the pursuers do?”) All of them … no, only Asya … Asya ran into the cave and began to fight with Tanka. And she won. And they all sailed home (My question: «Taking Tanya and Kolya with you?»).
No, Tanka and Kolya stayed in the cave. Tanka made a fire on the threshold, brought water, washed Kolya’s wounds (Kolya came to his senses, but he could not walk yet), and they sat and looked at the mountains, at the river, at the fire, at the sunset.
In Vasilina’s understanding, this is the clear end of the tale. But since the problem of the girl remained unresolved (frantic resistance), I insist on continuing: “And how did the life of your heroes turn out?”
Asya married one of the Tankin brothers. They had many children. All of them lived happily and were as obedient and positive as Asya herself.
Tanka and Kolya also got married. They moved from place to place all the time, because they were travelers, well, maybe those who are looking for stones — geologists. They also had children. They allowed them everything, and the children often ran away from home and hung out alone somewhere.
Tanka and Asya reconciled and wrote letters to each other. Sometimes they even met … Very rarely.
But one day … one day Asya found a bag of crackers, which was her youngest son, and asked him, and he said (because he never lied, and Tanka and her children always lied) that someday he would run away with Tanka’s children and they will sail far, far away… Where the sun rises.