The Apricot Centre

Being held in someone’s mind is no small thing. It is known to be a huge factor in child development whereby the child experiencing  themself to be held in the mind of their parent becomes increasingly self-aware or self-conscious, learns about the separation and connection of self and the other. When children deal with separation from their parent it seems to be immensely helpful for them to have a sense that their parent is aware of their whereabouts and that they are in good hands. Children who are anxious about separating from their carer may need to know that you are thinking of them even when they are across the room or in another space. Children also benefit from feeling held positively in their parents minds and later in the minds of others.

From my experience of the more attachment-based therapies i have come to understand the value for both children but parents too, to be held in mind. It’s a great contribution to a parent’s resilience to feel they are held in the mind of therapists, but better still in the minds of their families and community. I wonder if this has both local and non-local aspects. A non-local connection may exist between people who are somehow entangled (as Dr Arnold Mindell calls it when he relates this connection to quantum entanglement).

We have found in the Child and Adolescent Service (CAMHS) i work within that very vulnerable parents seem to find it easier to sustain the parenting of their child or children when they know they will attend a therapeutic support group over time, and that there is a group of therapists thinking about them even during the long-gaps between contact.

I had the great pleasure to work with one young man and his mother at one point in my career whereby the boy was increasingly being excluded from school and had the label of being one of the most difficult students some of the teachers had ever taught in their long career. This pre-adolescent boy was in the last year of his primary school and he had a tendency to become very frustrated in lessons sometimes leading to him lashing out at others. When i met him, i was struck by a lovely young and childlike quality in him. He was constantly being cheeky and was wanting to play. There was something very intuitive about his thoughts and ideas, and at the same time i could see that he would suffer in a mainstream education environment where he would be expected to knuckle down to the learning task with the rest of his peers. The boy had an estranged father and his mother was struggling with him at home also. The minds of most of the adults around him seemed to struggle to see him in an appreciative light.

Over time we used sessions to work with reframing his behaviours and spending great amounts of time following his interests and his urges to play. His mother seemed terrified by the irrational nature of play, and thus was somewhat terrified of him, but over time she seemed to see him in a different light and began to explore and enjoy his nature to a greater degree. What became particularly fascinating to me was that really it was the mother who was supporting the greatest changes in this young man’s life, she seemed to relax and celebrate who he was. I, with another therapist began to see mother and son with increasingly lengthening spans of time. I felt the sense that our holding the pair in our minds somehow also contributed to the Mother’s ability to deal with some further very challenging moments.

I believe that the therapeutic relationship takes place not only during the framework of sessions given, but also in the spaces between, the entanglements and mind-holdings that take place over time. I am personally also grateful for some of the minds in which i myself feel held.

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A youngish teenage boy came to see me each week in his secondary school. He sloped into the room for his session and lolloped onto his chair. People were concerned about this young man’s low mood and that he had a tendency to being bullied and then not attending particular lessons. I was quite unsure how to approach the situation with him, mainly because he was fairly unresponsive to most of what i would say to him.

At some point i began to notice that his eyes seemed to fix me with quite an intensity. I commented on his intense blue eyes which i experienced as something of a bright light or ‘glint’. He seemed to stare at me even more intently. At this point i dropped all my previous theories and plans of how to intervene with him, and just began to stare into his eyes while telling him what i was noticing. It wasn’t long before we both began to giggle which then developed into hilarious and joyful laughter….

Each week would involve more moments of catching one another’s eyes and then descending into raucous laughter. I was struck by the similarity of this eye contact as when an infant has an attuned relationship with their parent. This was a boy whom i felt hadn’t experienced enough enjoyment and appreciation of his nature, his essence. Just noticing the glint in his eyes seemed to ignite humour and a joy for life. I discovered that he lived in very stressed family environment with a brother with debilitating symptoms and thus he received very little attention indeed.

One day he told me that he had run away from home. When i asked about the story I discovered that he had had an argument with his parent, and this had felt the end of their relationship. Together we rang his mother who was quite shocked that he felt this way, and we were able to discuss his need for her love and attention.