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Children

Behavior

Angry teenager

Important Note: This article was written prior to 2010 and is now outdated. Please use my newest advancement, Optimal EFT. It is more efficient, more powerful and clearly explained in my free e-book, The Unseen Therapist™.  Best wishes, Gary

By Dr Tam Llewellyn-Edwards

I am a homeopath and I find that EFT complements homeopathy in that it often works in areas where the homoeopathy is either ineffective or difficult.

This article is such a case and although it is presented as a case study in EFT, both therapies were used to bring a successful outcome.

The Client

The client - we will call him Patrick (not his real name) - was a 17-year-old boy. Normally he was quiet and well behaved, but on occasion he was subject to violent outbursts. At the time he consulted me he had not been physically violent. His violence had been restricted to verbal violence and threats. Generally he was a quiet lad, who got on well with his peers at school and who has a good relationship with obviously caring parents.

He normally took life and all the knocks which it gives to a teenager in his stride, but on occasion some small thing, which normally would have past unnoticed, produced a violent out-burst. These out-bursts only lasted a few minutes and following them he returned to his normal self. The out-bursts had been noted, with some amusement, by his peers at school, and there was a tendency for some of his classmates to play a game of "Lets make Patrick lose his rag". He was beginning to gain a reputation for having a short temper, which was generally undeserved.

One such outburst occurred at school when he was overseeing a group of younger children, and it was observed by the teacher who was in charge at the time. This particular teacher had, some time before, received successful homeopathic treatment from me for a similar problem, and he suggested that Patrick also seek homeopathic treatment from me.

First Session

His parents were concerned and agreed to bring him for homeopathic treatment. A full homeopathic case taking took place, which need not concern us, in this EFT case study, except to say that he had a family history of short temper. His grandfather was known as a "wild Irishman" and he had an Uncle who had been imprisoned for violent behaviour. He had no significant physical problems except for slight ache - normal for his age - which bothered him considerably and for which he was using the drug "Stiemycin".

The case taking led to the identification of Merc vivas his constitutional remedy. He was given a single dose of this and also given an acute remedy, PQ to take should he feel the anger building within him.

At the end of the first session I discussed EFT and we did a simple routine together, which involved only a routine of tapping without the 9-Gamut. It was based on an affirmation regarding"This occasional anger". I left him tapping and went to make up his homeopathic materials. On my return he greeted me with,"This tapping is good. It makes me feel relaxed". In view of this we had a more detailed discussion regarding the use of affirmations and how he could build up suitable affirmations to suit any day-to-day problems.

He left my clinic with a further appointment booked for three weeks. It should be noted that this rather long period between first and second appointments was based on my homoeopathic practice and was to enable the constitutional remedy to take effect. Had I been considering his case, at that time, as an EFT case I would have made an earlier second appointment.

Second Appointment

Patrick did not attend his second appointment. I made telephone contact and was pleased to hear that he had been so well that he had forgotten that he had a follow up appointment booked.

Two days later his father rang up to apologise for the missed appointment (and offered to pay for it). He was very pleased with the results and confirmed that Patrick had returned to being his normal pleasant self.

Relapse

That could have been the end of the case, but unfortunately Patrick had a relapse. About two weeks later he rang and spoke to my secretary (as I was busy with a client) and asked that I ring him back as soon as possible. This I did and he, rather sadly, told me that he had hit his mother in another fit of temper. He had not hit her violently - more of a push or shove - but he was terribly upset by the incident. I arranged an immediate further session that evening.

Third Session

When Patrick arrived at our clinic he was very upset, but no longer angry - except with himself. He had taken his homeopathic remedy and that had calmed him, but the damage was done - he had hit his mother for the first time in his life and he was desolate about it. At the start of the session he needed considerable simple counselling about the incident. It appears that his mother had been nagging him, and that he was under pressure to finish an assignment for a school project, which he was finding difficult. However, he did not consider this a just reason and was very remorseful about the whole incident.

He needed considerable counselling to satisfy himself that he was not a lost cause and that therapy would be able to help him. Once he accepted that on the evidence that he had been so much improved over the previous weeks we discussed further treatment. It was not considered necessary to change his homeopathic medication, but we agreed that we could do more work with his tapping.

It was not possible to use a SUDS index with regard to his anger, as he was calm and even when taken back to the incident with his mother he could only see the emotion of sorrow at the event and could not recall any feelings of anger. We discussed a number of affirmations and tapped experimentally on some of them, but found nothing better than the original one - regarding "This occasional anger" - that we had used in the first session. In this session the 9-Gamut was introduced and used. Each time he tapped for this he reported that he felt happier and more relaxed although he did not report any emotion of unhappiness or sadness before the tapping. It must be assumed that the affirmation was resonating with some subconscious emotion within which was hidden to his conscious mind (or which he was not yet prepared to share with me). This result was similar to his reaction to simple tapping in the first session.

We agreed that he should continue tapping with this affirmation each day, and that I would be available to him for telephone consultation if he should need it. A further session was book four weeks later, to act as a backup should he not need intermediate telephone sessions.

Preliminary Conclusion

Patrick has not needed to call for a telephone session and the date for the next session has not yet arrived, but a phone call to his father has confirmed that all is well to date.

This case cannot be considered complete, nor will it be for many months, if not years. We can never be satisfied completely that some event or combination of events will not trigger an outburst of anger in Patrick. Nevertheless, the therapy he has already received can claim considerable success as his outbursts have been eliminated except for the one unfortunate incident involving his mother.

Should further sessions be necessary the line I take would depend upon how Patrick presents himself. If all is well, little more than a consolidation of the previous work will be necessary. If things do not go well or if other issues appear there are a number of other avenues that EFT treatment can take to help him further. It may be worth exploring any incidents in his past which led him to suppress his anger and he may well be helped to allow his anger through in a non-violent way, to prevent it building up to bursting point. He may also need help with the incident involving his mother. This may stand as a force for good as it has deeply affected him and shown him that his outbursts of anger are "bad", but care needs to be taken to ensure that the incident does not grow subconsciously into a problem for the future.

An interesting and ongoing case.

Dr Tam Llewellyn-Edwards


Update

CASE OF ANGRY TEENAGER (cont)

The client visited my clinic for a check consultation just over one month from his last consultation. He reported that all was well and that he had not had any further incidents. This closed the case except that I remain available to him by telephone at any time (The clinic runs a 24 hr telephone contact service).

However, the client reported a nice tapping experience which is worth recording. The client was well taken with the tapping routine and had continued to use it in his daily life on all manner of "problems", but one in particular is of wider interest.

At his school there is a girl (we shall call her Anne - not her real name) who is "drop dead gorgeous" and also a star student. All the boys fancied her but none had the confidence to ask her out on a date. Patrick told me that he knew tapping would not make him more attractive to Anne, nor could it make her fancy him. However, with all the enthusiasm and energy of a new convert, he decided to use tapping on the "problem". He tapped using the Set Up Statement,"Even though Anne will turn me down, I fully and completely accept myself" and the reminder phrase, " Anne will turn me down" - I would not have suggested either! After some rounds of tapping he approached Anne and suggested a date and, somewhat to his surprise, was immediately accepted.

Now he is looking forward to a round of Christmas and Millennium Parties with the most attractive and intelligent girl in the school on his arm. Yet another success for tapping! However, this is not just an interesting side line but a good learning pointer. It would seem that tapping can act to avoid an emotional trauma which is expected to occur in the future. In this case Patrick and all his teenage peers were so worried about being rejected by this girl that the fear of this trauma was preventing them acting. By using EFT to over come this fear a future emotional trauma Patrick had freed himself of those restraints and was able to move forward in his life.

Confidence to move forward was all he needed as Anne was probably worrying that there was something wrong with her as no one had asked her for a date.

Regards,

Dr Tam Llewellyn-Edwards

More articles on Children's Issues

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