You are working with Michelle, age 32, who is a single mother to Jaime, age 12.

Question

You are working with Michelle, age 32, who is a single mother to Jaime, age 12. Jaime's father, Dennis, has been incarcerated since he was 5 years old and he has had very limited contact with his father since his incarceration by choice. Dennis verbally and emotionally abused Michelle and was known in his neighborhood for his gang involvement Fearing retaliation from other gang members and Dennis' family, Michelle moved out of state and has started over with the support of her family. Recently, Jaime has been engaging in aggressive behavior and giving Michelle a hard time at home. While you are conducting the intake, Michelle tells you that Jaime had gone to therapy when he was younger and was discharged after a few months because he seemed to have adapted to the transition and was not impacted by his father's behaviors. Michelle does not understand why Jaime is behaving this way and assumes that he hates her and is struggling because he does not have a male role model in his life. She also reiterates that 9 9 Jaime never observed his father being aggressive and denies that there was any physical abuse in the home. Michelle is having a hard time understanding how Jaime may also be a victim of Dennis' abuse, gang involvement, and/or incarceration. How do you explain to Michelle the impact of Dennis' behaviors on Jaime? How do you clarify that Jaime was also a victim despite the fact that he was never physically injured or at risk? 1 to 21 of 21 ite

Explanation / Answer

Denis had verbally as well as emotionally abused Michelle, though, he never did so to Jamie. For Michelle, it is not very easy to understand Jamie’s psychology and the impact that Jamie has had while witnessing the abuse that took place with his mother. In order to explain this to Michelle, simpler terms have to be used. We can explain by giving example of a horror movie. Here, horror movie is used, since it gives perfect visual as well as auditory example of a dark surrounding. For Jamie, visualising his mother being abused was like watching a horror movie all alone in a theatre. We need to explain Michelle, that just like, even when she is not in the movie, but when she would visualise evil hurting a small child or any victim, her eye brows would crunch, heart beat increase and she would get engrossed in the picture, even if that isn’t her own life. When Jamie was watching his mother, though things weren’t happening with him, he was watching his mother being verbally abused, that created a passive impact in the unconscious mind of Jamie. The unconscious mind does not actively react to things, but absorbs the observations, without the conscious mind knowing it. These observations, are reflected, sooner or later in life. Just like after watching a horror movie, some people would be having nightmares. This is the impact of passive information absorbance. Despite Jamie not being directly abused, he has been emotionally abused. When he would watch his mother being treated This way, he would los be emotionally a victim to the wrong doings happening. He might have cried or felt that he was the reason for all these things being happening. Though he hasn’t been impacted directly, he has been indirectly emotionally abused. And since, all of this took place at a very young age, an age less than five, that is the critical period of human brain development. At age four, whatever is taught to the child, they are deeply impacted by it.

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