Joseph a twelve years old adolescent didn’t quite understand what was happening to him .Every time he would want to say something to his parents or even to the teacher in the school it would be taken as an upfront defiance .His father would rebuke him and mother would end up in tears resting the blame on Joseph .Joseph had been identified as the trouble maker in school too .
Jatin a 13 years old lad had been singled out by his class teacher for creating trouble for others in class and he had been set up a bench to sit away from others in the class room ,causing so much embarrassment to him.
He would be rebuked each time others would make a noise in the class .The teacher would simply name him out first and would not even make amends when she found it was some other student who led the riot .
Swara’s family didn’t quite understand why she had started shouting back at her parents and teachers of late .They looked at it as her sulking behaviour and brought her to the clinic for counseling.
Apparently all these and many more of such Children and adolescents are singled out by the parents and their teachers as defiant kids and they are brought to us so resolve their behaviours issues and treat them for oppositional and defiant disorder . Such children are often referred to psychologists or even psychiatrists for behaviour correction because of their regular bad behaviours ,emotional adjustment problems – aggressive outbursts ,disrespect of others ,not following the norms set up by schools or families.the other issues often referred to are truancy , skipping exams ,acts or threats of self-harm, suicide attempts , running away from home .None of the parents would understand that the problem is not the outward expressive behaviour but the underlying stresses ,trauma and unhealthy family relationships ,environment or dynamics could be the cause of the unacceptable behaviour and problematic adjustment in society.
Teachers would simply complain to the parents about the non cooperative manners of child and when parents fail to correct the child by way of punishment or admonishment ,they walk into the clinic with only one expectation of “just fix my kid.”
In all such cases it has been observed that come what may the parents will simply look at the Counselor for help and magic cure without realising that the parental active participation and the school teachers pro positive approach will be more helpful along with the therapy sessions at the psychologist’
Just one way efforts by the therapist do not work with adolescents with ADHD /Dissocial behaviour / Adjustment disorder .They regress sooner to the same behaviour as soon as they return to the familiar negative environment The relapse will occur as soon as the affected adolescent returns to the same unhealthy patterns in the family /school environment.
A few changes at Joseph’s school with support from an understanding teacher helped us bring about a very positive result .The same child now has become a favourite student of all teachers . As a result of active participation by Swara’s parents Swara has become more tolerant of her parents expectations and a very healthy environment prevails at the family.
Similarly we found out that a comprehensive holistic treatment with the entire family of other children mentioned above has been very productive and effective way of treating Oppositional Defiance disorder /ADD/ADHD /Dissocial disorder without taking resort to medications.
Our experience at the Family Therapy India and Alka Mansik Pramarsh Foundation has been to go for the top down approach by involving school teachers and parents to help kids with above problems and bring about a positive changes to the defiance and anxiety of the kids .
Mrs Sharma sounded worried when she handed over the school bag of her daughter to bus attendant, “Please tell the driver not to drive too fast. He fetches small children, They can fall off their seats “. The bus attendant just nodded her head in affirmation. Not satisfied with just a nod, Mrs Sharma moved to the front of the bus .”Please drive slow and take care of our children” she had told the driver. The driver too nodded his head. Mrs Sharma waited for the bus to move. She kick started her scooter . She paused for a moment and then turned her scooter towards the direction in which the bus had been going. She followed the bus at a safe distance and eventually having seen the bus safely getting into the school gate, she turned back . Such melodrama has been going on with Mrs Sharma for over a month now.
Julie is only six years old .She studies in the neighborhood kindergarten school. She had been fine all this while and used to be very eager to go to school every morning .Last week suddenly out of the blue she complained of stomach ache and refused to go to school. Her mother had taken her to the pediatrician who found nothing wrong with the child . The child had been referred to the school counselor. A few sessions with the parents, the child and the class teacher revealed, the child has been always worried about her mother being alone at home and this worry always prevailed upon her mind.
Mrs Narwhal was so much worried of getting affected by the germs or carrying the germs back home that she would hang an extra set of clothes in her toilet in advance , which she wanted to wear the moment she would get back home from her trip outside. Every time she had come back to her house, she would first get into the bath to wash her clothes, bathe herself in order to cleanse herself of all the germs that she thought she might have brought with her from outside. She would feel completely relieved once having done this ritual .But it is obvious, such a ritual can be a great pain to other members of her family as the rule of changing into the fresh clothes after returning from outside and of washing the clothes that had been worn for going outside immediately on return from outside played havoc with the peace of the family . Any kind of advise to Mrs Narwhal to stop worrying created further problems as she would avoid such person who would advise her to not to worry .
Alka Mansik Pramarsh Foundation Clinical Psychologists-Family therapists Indore 0731-4263087,9179383554 
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Posted in daily writings and musings of the psychologist, tagged anger, angry, anxiety, clinical psychologist in indore, clinicalpsychologist, counselling psychologist, depression, family counselling, family counsellor, family counsellor in indore, family dispute counselling, family fights, family systems, family therapist in indore, family therapists, family therapy, familytherapist, familytherapistin indore, lifestyle, marital counseling, marital counselling, marital counsellor, marital disputes, marital disputes counseling, maritaltherapy, marraige counselling, marriage, marriage counseling, marriage counseling in Indore, meditation, mental health, mindset, premarital counselling, premarital counsellor, premarriage counselling, premarriage fears, psy, psychiatrist, psychological abuse, psychologist, psychologist in indore, psychologistinindore, psychologistsinindore, psychology, psychotherapyLeave a comment, reflections, relationship, relationships, sad, society, Tagged anxiety, women on June 20, 2026| Leave a Comment »
A few sessions with the couple revealed that they both in spite of their long dating history had failed to emotionally connect with each other so far. Seema had wanted to make the emotional connection but had not understood how to proceed with it. She had always wanted to make Jatin part of her inner life. Each time she tried she sounded more pathetic and distressed and felt completely remorseful when she did not get the desired attention and response from Jatin.
It has been observed by us that one partner in a marriage is depressed , the cause would always be a marital situation between the two spouses. The solution to such a situation has to be found within the marriage situation only.There can be no solution by putting the onus to only one of the members to the marriage, as the reason is not individual but a common factor is responsible for whatever is happening to the spouses.
-Ramneek Kapoor – Family Therapist, Psychologist Counselor and Science of Living Expert.
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