by Dr.Harald Wiesendanger– Klartext. 5. Mai 2015
What the mainstream media is hiding
How can a twelve-year-old still pee in bed in his sleep, night after night? That’s what happened to Christoph (pseudonym) when he came to the 4th therapy camp of my Ways Out Charity/ Foundation in Kleinwalsertal near Oberstdorf in August 2010, accompanied by his 50-year-old mother, a commercial employee from Hesse. “He has never been dry at night,” she noted on the registration form.
The family doctor was puzzled by the incontinence as well as the recurring stomach pains that the boy had been complaining about for years. Organic causes could not be found.
Shouldn’t a doctor know that traumatic experiences of separation and loss are among the main risk factors for “secondary” non-physical enuresis, especially in minors? After establishing that the pituitary gland produces sufficient amounts of the antidiuretic hormone vasopressin, that there is neither a narrowing of the urethra nor a dysfunction of the bladder, and that everything else with the organs in the abdominal cavity and adjacent areas is fine: shouldn’t he have considered that there was a psychological stress “pressing”? How could he have neglected to ask the boy and his mother about it?
In addition, and apparently unrelated to these symptoms, Christoph persistently refused to go to school; he did so, but only with great reluctance.
At some point, the mother decided to entrust her boy to a psychotherapist. But months of sessions were of no use. “So,” concluded his mother, “it can’t be psychological.”
What could we do in such a stubborn, mysterious case in just eight days of treatment?
In the initial interview, our head camp doctor described the boy as a bright, “intelligent student,” as he noted that the fact that Christoph wasn’t doing well at school was definitely not because he was too stupid. In the first few days, the boy was “very quiet, almost shy,” and the other team members experienced him no differently: he followed the camp events with wide eyes, uncertain, reserved, stubborn, and almost fearful. Until Tuesday, the third day of camp, he whined incessantly to go home.
But little by little, he thawed out, became more and more open, happier, and more relaxed. The persistent stomachache subsided, and the enuresis disappeared completely. “Christoph didn’t wet himself once the whole week,” the camp doctor wrote at the end. His mental state and social behavior had changed radically: after just eight days of treatment, the boy was “much more self-confident, he became more and more open, approached the other children more and more.” He chose his therapist himself. The mother confirmed in surprise: “He played with other children in an exuberant, liberated way. Towards the end, he made appointments with the therapists and the head doctor on his own. He was very attentive in the intensive discussions with them. He seems more relaxed, downright ” relaxed.” It remains to be seen whether he will return to school because “it’s still the holidays.” He did, as a follow-up survey revealed.
How were these breakthroughs possible? If Christoph’s psychotherapist couldn’t do anything, it was probably because he couldn’t get through to the boy. We obviously succeeded. The focus of more than a dozen healing sessions with Christoph was not his wet bed or his stomach but his psychological stress. The following emerged: “The boy is very attached to his 15-year-old brother, whom his parents kicked out of the house because of his violent behavior,” noted the camp doctor. “His biological father left the family shortly after his birth, and he doesn’t care for his children. When I asked the boy about his separation anxiety and loss, he burst into tears.”
Parents who separate are rarely sufficiently aware of the high risk of illness that their children are exposed to when they separate. For them, the separation may be an act of self-liberation; but for their children, a world collapses – at any age. Between 1998 and 2008, one in three marriages in Germany ended in divorce – 2.2 million – meaning that 1.7 million minors experienced the disintegration of their families. (1) No child is unaffected by this; many develop behavioral disorders and mask their insecurity, despair, and anger with physical symptoms. They become hyper-aggressive, start sucking their thumbs again, can hardly concentrate, sleep badly, develop eating disorders, chronic pain and allergies.
But how could a boy miss his dad if he never consciously experienced him and has no memories of him? At least he knows that Dad exists and that he has left. Couldn’t it be that he is sending signals to both parents by refusing to go to school? “If Dad were here, he would take care of it.” Or: “If mom tried harder, he would come back.” Or: “It’s mom’s fault that dad is gone. By defying her, I’m punishing her for it.” Or: “Dad didn’t do what Mom wanted, and he must have had his reasons for doing so. So why should I obey her?” Or: “I only get bad grades at school. That’s why Dad can’t be proud of me. So I don’t even go there.”
For ten years, the lost father had been a taboo subject in Christoph’s core family: Mom never wanted to talk about him; she avoided questions. The healing sessions broke this taboo. They brought up what was secretly bothering the boy, gave him the opportunity to vent his feelings, offered him explanations for what had happened, and freed him from tormenting suspicions about why his dad left and never came home. The supposedly “therapy-resistant” symptoms promptly disappeared.
In order for the successes achieved at camp to be sustainable, “the disturbed family life must be better organized, and Christoph must be included in this,” our camp doctor recommended in the conclusion. Couldn’t the mother bring herself to contact the father for Christoph’s sake, make him understand how much his child misses him, and hope that he will be more willing to take on responsibility ten years after the separation? We couldn’t recommend these recommendations more emphatically to her. Have they worked? If not, have the camp therapists failed – or the social environment?
Note
1 Michael G. Möhnle: “Families in danger – children in need,” www.moehnle.net/themen/familie.htm, 2008, accessed on November 15, 2015.
(Harald Wiesendanger)
This article first appeared in Harald Wiesendanger’s book Ways Out – helping the Sick differently (2015, supplements). See also the text “Nothing is purely somatic.”