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12. Using "containment" in therapy sounds both difficult and invasive. It seems much more suitable to working with a younger child. Is it difficult at first? Does it get easier? How do most people respond to it? |
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The only time I recommend and utilize containment is during the actual therapy. I believe containment should only be done in the context of the family and in the immediate environment of the therapist. I do not instruct or encourage families to do holdings at home without their therapist. Containment or holding should never be controlling, punitive, aggressive, confrontational or harsh. One cannot overcome fear through force but only through love. In this manner all containment done in therapy is loving, encouraging, understanding, and accepting. Period. In fact, in most recent work I have began to redefine containment or holding in the manner which I conduct it as a ‘Dyadic Support Environment.’ I believe this is more accurate to the work I now do. I have experienced and practiced the gamut of treatment styles and it has taken much of my own inner work and acknowledgement as well as a dedication to healing and peace for me to make it back to this perspective. The only holding done in a family should be loving holding. If a parent is unable to calm their child without touching them, then they should not lay hands up on him. It’s much easier for holding to be forced upon a child because that buys into both the therapist and parents own fear about not being in control. The only time we seek to control is when we are afraid. Children should not be forced into holding. When a child does not feel threatened then he or she will never resist the loving arms of a parent.
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