children and trauma a yuen

3The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work2007 No. 4 www.dulwichcentre.com.au

Modern discourses of victimhood, which are often presentin instances of childhood trauma, can contribute considerablyto establishing long-term negative identity conclusions.However, focussing on children’s responses to trauma can aidin conversations that contribute to rich second story development,without re-traumatising children or young people. These kinds ofenquiry can focus on children’s acts of resistance, places of safety,and other skills of living. This paper gives examples of therapyinformed by this approach, and provides a map of four levels ofenquiry for conversations with children and young people whichelicit and build upon responses to trauma.

Keywords: children, trauma, externalising conversations, re-membering conversations,memory theory, second story development, double-storied memories

Discovering children’sresponses to trauma:

a response-based narrative practice

By Angel Yuen

Angel Yuen is a school social worker and private therapist in

Toronto. She is also a founding member and on the faculty of the

Narrative Therapy Centre of Toronto where she can be contacted

c/o P.O. Box 31030, 15 Westney Road North, Ajax, Ontario,

Canada. Email: [email protected]

4 The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work2007 No. 4 www.dulwichcentre.com.au

PART ONE: CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE ASAGENTS IN THEIR OWN LIVES

When I first met with Megan1 when she wasfifteen years old, she told me how her mother haddied two years previously after a life of destruction,depression, alcohol and hopelessness. In our firstconversation, Megan provided me with a synopsis ofher difficult childhood. This had included not onlythe trauma of her mother’s death, but alsoexperiencing child sexual abuse, being exposed tohigh alcohol and substance use, and witnessingviolence. After she had described this to me, shestared at me knowingly and said, ‘As you can see,I’m pretty messed up and I’m not even sure if youcan help me!’

As a school social worker and private therapist,I have had many conversations with children andyoung people who have been vulnerable to an arrayof very serious and traumatic events. As a result,I know well that children are not strangers totrauma. Children and young people have confidedin me stories about the deaths of parents, exposureto abuse and violence, living with a parent withserious mental health difficulties or high substanceuse, abduction, severe bullying, ongoing racism2,emmigrating from war-torn countries, and/or facingseveral injustices from within and outside theirfamilies. After hearing these sorts of stories, it isnot unusual for the child or young person to repeatMegan’s statement and identity conclusion, ‘I’mmessed up!’ It’s also not uncommon for otherpeople to ascribe negative identity conclusions tothese young people, such as, ‘He’s damaged for lifebecause of the years of abuse he went through asa child’.

DISCOURSES OF VICTIMHOOD

Contemporary discourses of victimhood cancontribute considerably to establishing long-termnegative identity conclusions. In Toronto, as inmany other major cities around the world,discourses of victimhood are ever-present in themedia with regard to violence and other traumaticevents. For example, a few months ago the Torontocommunity was shocked to hear of the murder of afourteen-year-old boy in his school in the middle ofthe day. Almost instantly, the news was splashedwith headlines such as: ‘The pain of the loss will be

there forever’, and commentaries describing ‘Twentyper cent of the students will never get over it’!In these statements, there is a perception that thechild/young person subjected to trauma is unableto have any effect whatsoever on their own life andthat they will be forever vulnerable.

When helplessness becomes the dominant storyin a child’s life, their sense of agency is erased.Caregivers and professionals referring children tome who have experienced significant trauma oftensay things like ‘He will never get over it’, ‘She isruined for life’, ‘How could he/she ever be thesame?’ Often, these well-intentioned concerns areaccompanied by caring and compassion, but I thinkthese narrow descriptions inadvertently havechildren experiencing less and less agency in theirlives. I do not want to minimise the intensity of painand distress resulting from trauma and thedevastating effects on children and young people.However, these single-storied accounts can becrushing of hope and promote the construction of‘disabled’ identities. These victim stories not onlyshape an individual child’s life and identity, butthey can also define communities of children whoare vulnerable, thus creating a picture ofpowerlessness and desolation for their future.

UNHINGING FROM ‘VICTIM’ LIFE STORIESDespite the discourses of victimhood, there are

also individuals and groups who are determined tonot be defined by stories of trauma. With regard tochild sexual abuse, counter-stories to the notion ofpsychological long-lasting damage are offered whichquestion the claims that child sexual assaultinevitably leads to lasting emotional distress(Kamsler, 1991; Mann, 2006; Silent too Long,2001). Adams-Westcott, Daffron, and Sterne(1992) considered the use of a number oftherapeutic conversations to help people who haveexperienced childhood trauma escape victim lifestories and discovered that they can make adifference in their own lives.

More generally, we hear unique survivor storiesof childhood trauma and the ability of individuals toovercome adversity. These tellings offer animportant counterpoint to pathologisingdescriptions. However, I believe that these stories of‘beating the odds’ go much further than just achild’s capacity to survive and thrive. Ungar (2005)


argues that it is a shallow description of ‘resilience’to attribute success to something inside anindividual alone, and emphasises the necessity todevelop thicker descriptions of resilience. With thisnotion in mind, it’s my preference to unearth thesources of resilience which are linked less tocognitive strategies and internal understandings,and more to children and young people’s actions,skills, and knowledges. This, then, is resilience thatis the outcome of experiences, identity stories, andconnections with others.

Along with these preferences, it is my intentionto engage in explorations which can be hope-filledby assisting children and young people3 to unhingefrom victim life stories before these take hold oftheir identities. These explorations seek out sourcesof resilience and open space to alternativeknowledges. These conversations elevate personalagency by exploring where the child feels that theycan be influential in their own life, where they canbe an agent in their own story.

CENTRING CHILDREN’S KNOWLEDGESABOUT THEIR OWN LIVES

I am continually reminded of, and saddened by,children’s limited power in the context of talkingabout their dilemmas and troubling situations.Within the dominant psychological cultural beliefsand the many theories about children, it seems thatchildren are often not consulted about theirthoughts, actions, and the problem-solving skillsthey possess.

White (2000) poignantly questions thecompeting ‘truths’ of childhood as described in theculture of therapy:

There is now such an abundance ofexplanations about children’s expressions oflife, such an avalanche of competing ‘truths’about the origins of such expressions, such amultiplicity of assertions about children’snature and about their needs, and such anexplosion of narratives about childdevelopment and its stages, that it nowappears that childhood has been theorised inall of its intimate particularities. Regardlessof the relative merits and veracity of thesetheories, they are routinely taken up, inpopular and in professional culture, in theinterpretation of, and in the management of,

children’s actions in ways that neglect anyexploration of the possibilities that areavailable for consulting children about theseactions. In fact, in relation to children’sexpressions of life, the term action is rarelyemployed. (p. 15 emphasis added)

This is dramatic in relation to children who haveexperienced significant trauma, where diagnosessuch as attention deficit, post-traumatic stress,conduct, and anxiety disorders have becomepervasive and medications typically prescribed.With these deficit descriptions, children’s sense ofagency is lessened, while reliance on expertprofessional knowledge is increased. Often, whenchildren and young people do have something toshare about the meaning they attribute to theirsymptoms and injustices faced, these are commonlythought to be inadequate, irrelevant, orinsignificant.

I highlighted ‘action’ in the quotation above, asI agree that it’s a term rarely employed in relation tochildren’s expressions of life. Children and youngpersons who have endured trauma are often askedquestions which elicit effects and impact on theirlives, yet children are often not consulted about theactions they took and how they responded. Anexploration into only effects of trauma is concerningto me, as there is a risk of re-traumatising children.

CONVERSATIONS ABOUT TRAUMAWITHOUT RE-TRAUMATISING

My hope is that, in working with children whohave experienced trauma, we can ensure that theyare not vulnerable to re-traumatisation whenspeaking of what they have been through. This hopeand concern has been important in guiding me inthe questions I choose to ask in therapeuticconversations, and in creating a safe context forchildren to speak about their experiences.

Over some years, I have learned that howI speak with children and young people aboutevents of suffering, injustice, and/or oppressioncan make a significant difference to how engagedand comfortable they are in the therapeuticconversation. In my experience, many children donot want to talk about the ‘bad things’ that havehappened to them. Their reluctance is indicated bysaying, ‘I don’t want to talk about that!’ or, more

subtly, they may change the subject, provide a thinresponse, or perhaps respond simply with ‘I don’tknow’.

White (2006a) speaks about the importance ofproviding a different territory of identity in which achild can stand, prior to speaking about theirtraumatic experiences and how second story4

development provides this different territory:When meeting with children about

experiences of trauma, the story of thistrauma and the effects that this has on thechild’s life is often the first story that isbrought to our attention. This story requiresrecognition. But there is also a second storyof how the child has responded to theseexperiences of trauma, and this second storyis often overlooked. No-one is a passiverecipient of trauma. Even children respond inways to lessen the effects of the trauma, toseek comfort, to try to preserve what isprecious to them, and so on. This secondstory is very important. The ways in whichchildren respond to trauma are based oncertain skills. These skills reflect what thechild gives value to. And what the child givesvalue to is linked to the child’s history, totheir family, to their community, and to theirculture. (White, 2006a, p. 87)

With the development of a second story,children are provided with a safe space to talkabout their experiences of trauma without relivingthe experience. The second story also acknowledgesthat, even though a child may not have been able tostop a traumatic event which may have involved arange of abuses, or had no control over events ofsuffering such as disease or death5, amplepossibility still remains to co-discover how they haveresponded to these events in many ways. With thisin mind, I am interested in asking questions thatelicit experience-near descriptions of children’sactions and responses. In doing so, I want topresent a willingness to engage in conversationswith children using their words and language,thereby privileging their knowledge.

CHILDREN’S RESPONSES TO TRAUMAAs I thought more about this concept of the

second story, I found myself curious and eager to

embark on a project of discovering responses.Asking about responses essentially involves askingabout what children did. I ask specific, yetstraightforward questions about the actions theytook during times and events of trauma: ‘How didyou respond or what did you do?’ The children andyoung people are asked to describe how theyresponded to trauma rather than how they wereaffected (see Wade, 1997). While these questionswere already familiar to me, I have recently becomemore active and deliberate in routinely entering thisline of enquiry.

A PROJECT OF DISCOVERINGCHILDREN’S RESPONSES

Over the past year and a half in this project ofdiscovery, I have engaged in several conversationswith children and young persons, ranging from six toseventeen years old. Half were children who werecurrently experiencing or had experienced trauma,and half were adolescents who had historicallyfaced significant trauma when they were children.As I have become more purposeful aboutdiscovering responses to trauma, I have begun toexplore what they did and how they respondedbefore, during, and after traumatic events.

The following questions have assisted myinquiries:

• How did you respond? What did you do?• What did you do when you were scared?• What did you show/not show on your faceduring times of abuse?

• Where did you hide when you were scared?• What did you do once you found a placeto hide?

• Even though it was not possible for you tostop the violence as a child, how did youattempt to protect yourself or others?

• How did you comfort yourself andyour siblings?

• How did your brothers and sisterscomfort you?

• What did you do/are you doing to lessen theeffects of abuse/witnessing violence/death ofyour parent, etc?

In my ongoing efforts to create an atmospherethat was child-friendly and not intrusive, I am



conscious about asking the above questions in alow-key way. I find that with gentle persistence,children and young people offer a multitude ofresponses. A six-year-old boy shared that he taughthis two-year-old toddler brother how to count to tenin English, French, and Spanish, to distract himand lessen the effects of abuse after beatings. Fromthis conversation, I also learnt how that toddler,barely able to talk, would comfort his big brother bybringing him a tissue when he cried.

I also learn about children deliberately findingways to not show distress, anger, fear, or sadness ontheir face in order to minimise the severity of abuseor to lessen the effects of trauma on their everydaylife. One child named this skill his ‘fixing-faceabilities’ while another young woman whoexperienced years of sexual abuse as a little girlcalled it ‘putting on my outside happy look while atschool’. Now as a sixteen year old young woman,she thinks this may have been one of her ‘skills inliving’ which allowed her to continue playing withother children.

EXPLORING PLACES OF SAFETY

In asking about the places6 of safety for childrenduring times of immense fear, children bring forthmany images of their creative responses, and aretherefore less likely to feel like a passive recipientto trauma. Michael, a seven-year-old boy who facedemotional abuse which he described as ‘the bad,angry, and scary voice’, would often hide from placeto place in his house in attempts to ‘get away’ fromthe harsh voice. His hiding place of choice was acloset that was never used. By simply asking whereMichael hid, he became more in touch with whatelse was happening at the time and how heresponded, thus providing a more experience-neardescription. When I asked him, ‘So when you hid inthe closet, what did you do to comfort yourself onceyou were safe?’, he replied, ‘The way I made myselffeel better was to sing a song to myself and thatwould make the tears go away’.

I mentioned Megan earlier who describedherself as ‘messed up’. As she told me more aboutthe difficult times of her life, I wondered about theways she had kept herself safe when her motherwould pass out from high alcohol use. She replied:‘I think I was about six years old and I remember

being so afraid that intruders would come in whilemy mom was passed out. Sometimes drug dealerswould come. So I would hide. There was this oldmattress that was tucked underneath a bed andI would wiggle in between the mattress and hideunder the bed’.

I asked her how long she would be under thebed, and she remembered that it was sometimes upto eight hours at a time. I asked her, ‘What did youdo all of those hours underneath the bed? That’s along time to be hiding. I know it was ten years ago,but do you remember yourself as a little girl andwhat you did or what you thought about whilehiding?’ Megan thoughtfully said, ‘Hmmm … thissounds funny … but I used something sharp tocarve things in the board above my head whileI was lying underneath there all that time. I wouldcarve ‘x’s and hearts. I would put the initials ofpeople that I knew I wasn’t safe with beside the‘x’s and I would carve the initials of people thatI knew cared for me inside of the hearts. ThenI would think about my mom eventually waking upand how I would help her to feel better and takecare of her. And then I guess at some point I fellasleep’.

ACTS OF RESISTANCE

Often open opposition, rebelling, or fightingback would have posed danger to the childrenwho spoke with me about their experiences ofabuse and violence. Therefore, I have found ituseful to enquire about their acts of resistance byasking questions that elicit descriptions of verysubtle and micro-level responses (Wade, 1997).For instance, one eight-year-old boy describedand recollected his resistance to the upset andunfairness of his ongoing abuse and mistreatmentwhen he was very little: ‘I knew that I couldn’t showthat I was really mad or else she would hurt me.So I just kept a straight face and instead clenchedmy hands tight inside my pockets. She couldn’t seemy hands, but clenching them meant that I couldbe mad without her knowing or seeing it. I wouldn’tgive her the satisfaction of having a reason to beatme!’ By learning about children’s acts of resistancesuch as this, I also find out more about thethoughts and actions that sustained them duringdifficult times.


RESPONDING TO ‘I DON’T KNOW!’

Sometimes, when I first ask these response-based questions to children and young people, theyreply with ‘I don’t know’ or say ‘Nothing … I didn’tdo anything!’ When asking questions aboutchildren’s responses, I am mindful that many ofthese young people have been in contexts wheretheir actions may had been negated, put-down,insulted, or minimised, and that children’s personalagency and ‘sense of self’ is often erased bytraumatic experience. Moreover, discourses ofvictimhood perpetuate the idea of victims ‘doingnothing’, thus adding to the erasure of children’ssense of agency.

Hence, it can take time for children who haveendured traumatic experience to believe that wereally want to learn about their life, and hear abouttheir experiences in their words. I also believe thatif a child cannot answer a question, it is myresponsibility to ask a question that they can morereadily answer.

To assist children in not experiencing a ‘failure-to-answer’, I sometimes share a story of anotherchild’s response, and ask if they can relate to thisstory. I also become eager to be introduced tostuffed friends, pets, and imaginary helpers thatchildren have had. These are often light-heartedconversations in which I get introduced to Ellie theElephant, Pookie the Bear, Max the dog, the EasterBunny, and many others. With imaginativequestioning, many stuffed friends and loved petsare brought into the therapy room, and I learn thatthey have lots of information to share about thechild’s responses, skills, and values – and how bothprovided comfort to each other during very hardtimes.

PART TWO: BUILDING UPON CHILDREN’SRESPONSES TO TRAUMA

RENDERING SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGES VISIBLE

Like other narrative practitioners, I aminterested in rendering the skills and knowledges ofchildren and young people more visible andaccessible (Buckley & Dector, 2006; Hayward,2006; Mitchell, 2005, Ncube, 2006). Theseinclude children’s abilities, talents, cleverness, and,most importantly, their own understandings of theirexperiences and competencies.

Interestingly enough, upon discovering amultitude of responses to trauma, children andyoung people’s many knowledges and skills alsobecame more apparent. As seen in Megan’s story,by finding out how she kept herself safe by hidingunder a bed, her skills in discerning safety duringunsafe times were brought forward. Furthermore,her knowledge about ways of caring for her motherduring hard times was rendered visible.

A young man named David shared traumaticmemories of being locked in a small basement roomsometimes for eight to ten hours at a time. Atseventeen years old, his best guess was that heprobably spent a few hundred hours locked in thebasement from when he was five to eight years old.David recounted this period of immense fear in hischildhood: ‘He put me there every other day. Therewere many days that I had to go in there just afterreturning home from school. It was a cold tiled floorand it was very scary – and hard to see with hardlyany light. Sometimes he would sit there for hoursscreaming at me just outside the room, and hewould tell me that demons were going to get me.I was scared to death’.

To assist David in noticing his responsesI asked, ‘This may seem like a strange question …but what did you do during all that time when youwere scared? For all of those hours you spent lockedin that small and dark room, what did you do?’David explained that there was all kinds of junk inthe basement room: ‘Sometimes I would look at ajar of screws and examine each and every one andfocus on them. This would help to not let the feargrow or to think about the possible demons. If I justfocused on looking intently at the screws then itwould stop me from thinking about being scared’.After this response, we then had a conversationwhich explored David’s ‘focusing skills’. I askedhim, ‘Would you say that you started to developsome focusing skills? Did your focusing skills helpyou at other times when you were scared?’ Davidthought of another time that Fear could haveovertaken him by attempting to convince him hewould die from extreme cold: ‘Once he locked me ina shed in minus ten degree weather with just acandle burning. I just sat there and stared at thecandle and focused on the flame so I wouldn’t thinkof the cold getting to my body, or the fear offreezing and never being released. I watched the


candle burn for a few hours and didn’t take my eyesoff of the flame’.

David then decided that these focusing skillshad been not only helpful to him at that time, butthey also had grown and developed over the years.He remembered that when he was seven years old,fear was no longer getting the best of him and hewould focus on all the different odds and ends ofjunk in the small basement room. As an anti-boredom tactic, he began making and fixing thingswith all of the different pieces of junk: ‘I had tospend hours at a time in the basement, so I wouldfind things to fix and do. I remember once I took abroken circuit board, a walkie-talkie, and a talkingdinosaur and made a moving robot. I liked figuringout how to make things work’. With thedevelopment of a second story based on hisresponses, David now noticed his focusing, fixing,and figuring out skills where before these wereneglected.

CLEVERNESS AND PERSONAL AGENCY

Hearing about Megan and David’s responses totrauma as children had me thinking how clever theyboth were at a very young age. As I always want tocheck out the significance of events with youngpeople consulting with me rather than makingassumptions, I was interested in finding ways inwhich Megan and David could reflect upon thesignificance of their earlier actions.

I asked Megan, ‘You were only six years old andwere able to find a way to keep yourself safe duringdangerous times. And you knew who you were safewith and who you were not safe with and carvedthose initials in the wood. What’s it like for you tothink of that six-year-old girl doing those things?What do you think about yourself as that little girl?’Megan smiled and replied, ‘You know … I thinkI must have been pretty smart when I was little!’When I asked David to reflect on the meaning of hisresponses, he was somewhat surprised about hisability to focus and concentrate so well at an earlyage: ‘I think that’s pretty amazing for a five-year-oldboy to be able to focus so well’. Now as aseventeen-year-old young man, he realised that histalent for handy-work most likely began at a veryearly age, and he expressed feeling proud of hisability to fix things.

During these conversations, not only were Davidand Megan invited to think differently aboutthemselves but, more significantly, they began tofeel that they could be influential in their own lives.Eliciting responses and making connections of theseresponses to skills and knowledges were importantpractices to this second story development and co-constructing personal agency. Where previously theeffects of the trauma identity story blinded themoments of exception, there was now a developingsense of personal agency.

SHRINKING THE STUCK THOUGHTS:CONVERSATIONS WITH A BOY EXPERIENCINGFLASHBACKS

Developing rich stories about children’sresponses and skills can generate renewed andmore positive identity conclusions. The followingstory demonstrates in more detail how this canoccur.

Billy7 was referred to me by his father Doug andstepmother Lucy when he was eight years old. Fouryears previously, Billy had been abducted by hisbiological non-custodial mother. For three years,while Billy was between the ages of four to seven,Billy and his toddler half-brother experienced dailyphysical and emotional abuse from multipleperpetrators. Upon his return and hearing about theabuse, Doug and Lucy consulted with me abouttheir immense worry and fear of Billy being‘damaged’ from the trauma he had experienced.They themselves had been left immobilised fromthe three years of not knowing whether they wouldever see Billy again.

In the first sessions, I met with Billy individuallyand with Doug and Lucy. Billy shared how he hadresponded to the trauma in ways which lessened itseffects: ‘I would just try to draw the thoughts off mymind by finding any paper and pens, crayons todraw. I still do this and it helps’. He also talkedabout how he used his ‘fixing-face abilities’ to notshow anger or upset, and to minimise the severity ofthe abuse. Billy recollected how he used hismemory to keep thinking about his father,stepmother Lucy who he called ‘mom’, and babybrother, and his wishes and hopes to return tothem: ‘I was only four years old and even thoughI was told over and over again that my mom, dad,


and brother weren’t my real family … they couldnever take my memory away’.

After several conversations over a six monthperiod, and with a great deal of family support, Billydid settle back into his old home. The ‘damaged’negative identity conclusion was diminished as hestarted to play again, have fun, cherish family timehe had missed for three years, and do well in schooldespite his large gap in learning.

However, a year later, Lucy called to say thatshe was again very concerned, as Billy wasexperiencing multiple flashbacks of the abuse. Incatching up with Billy, now nine years old, heshared that he had awful thoughts and memories ofthe abuse ‘stuck in his head’. We entered anexternalising conversation8 about the effects andinfluences of the Stuck Thoughts. They werebringing fear and worry to him in the day time andthey interfered with his ability to get to sleep atnight time. The Stuck Thoughts had been remindingBilly of the past violence, cursing, untrue stories,threats, and weapons. They repeatedly played visualimages in Billy’s head of him and his brother beingphysically abused, and a dog named Max beingbeaten as well.

At this point, Billy was holding his head in hishands to show me how the stuck thoughts werephysically hurting his head. I therefore didn’t wantto pursue enquiries about the effects, nor invite himto give details of visual images of the flashbacks, asI was aware that this could be re-traumatising.Before talking about the ‘bad thoughts’, as Billy hadtermed them, I wanted to provide him with another,safer territory of identity to stand in. I was alsocurious to learn more about Max the dog, who I hadnot heard about in our initial conversations, asI thought he might provide clues to discoveringfurther responses that Billy had made in relation tothe traumatic experiences he had been subjectedto. I soon learnt that Max lived in the home wherethe abuse had taken place, and that he would lookout for Billy and help him when he was hurt.Hearing this, I inquired as to how both Billy andMax comforted each other:

RE-MEMBERING9 MAX

Angel: What would Max do when he knew you werehurt or sad? How did he try to comfort you?

Billy: He hopped like a basketball when he knewI was hurt, or upset. He did silly things likechase his tail or he would run in circles andfall down … and he would try to cheer meup.

Angel: Why do you think he would he want to cheeryou up?

Billy: Because I was nice to him and didn’t hurthim and I was the only one who took care ofhim. In the mornings other people in thehouse wouldn’t wake up to look after him …but I would.

Angel: If you could imagine that Max had a voiceand could talk what would he say if I askedhim about how you took care of him?

Billy: He would say that I fed him and cleaned upafter him and that I would wake up for himin the morning when he was barking.

Angel: What would you feed him … dog food?

Billy: No, there was never any dog food becauseno one would ever buy food for him. I’d givehim leftovers.

Angel: What kind of leftovers?

Billy: Anything that was there … bones and anyfood that was leftover.

Angel: You were only four years old … how did youknow when Max was hungry?

Billy: By his bark! He barked a certain way whenhe was hungry and would pant when he wasthirsty.

Angel: Do you think you had some skills in knowinghow to take care of animals even though youwere really little?

Billy: Yeah! I guess I did!

Angel: What do you think of that four-year-old boyand about all of the ways he knew abouttaking care of a dog?


Billy: (smiles and keenly replies) I think he’s prettysmart!

Angel: It’s nice for me to get to know Max and howyou helped each other during difficult times.And to hear about how you took care of himby making sure he was fed and how youplayed with him. If I asked Max what thismight tell me about the kind of boy you arewhat do you think he would say?

Billy: Ummm … Max would say … ‘He’s good, fun,and he cares a lot’.

Angel: Why did you care about Max so much?

Billy: I like Max! He’s like my little brother.

Angel: Do you think Max thought of you like familyas well?

Billy: I think so because he’s known me longerthan his own mother. I’m like his bigbrother.

Angel: If I asked Max how much he cared about you… what do you think he would say? Wouldhe say a little –medium – lot – huge?

Billy: He would say … ‘More than you canimagine!’

Angel: What’s that like for you to think of Maxsaying that he cares about you ‘More thanyou can imagine’?

Billy: I would say, ‘Wow, that’s a lot!!’

Angel: How is this conversation going for you by theway? Are these questions okay?

Billy: Yeah! It’s really good! I haven’t thoughtabout Max in a while.

Angel: If Max knew that you were having a toughtime today with Stuck Thoughts hurting yourhead a few years after the abuse … what doyou think he would do?

Billy: He would play with me to make me feelbetter. He was always happy to see me.I think he would jump for joy.

Angel: What does this conversation about thinkingabout Max wanting to make you feel betterand being so happy to see you do to thethoughts in your head? Are the StuckThoughts the same, shrinking or growing?

Billy: They’re shrinking …

Angel: Knowing that the Stuck Thoughts areshrinking … I’m just wondering how yourhead feels now compared to the beginning ofour conversation?

Billy: My head feels a lot better and it doesn’t hurtright now.

Angel: If you continued to think about Max and howyou and he cared so much for each otherand played with each other during terribletimes … would that help to continueshrinking the terrible thoughts in your head?

Billy: Yeah … for sure!

DOUBLE-STORIED MEMORIES

With an enquiry into responses rather thaneffects, Billy’s associations of the trauma of theabduction were now not only about the harm doneto him, but also about how he and Max helped,comforted, and cared for each other throughdangerous and fearful times. This conversationcreated double-storied memories, with fullmemories rather than half memories of thetrauma10. For quite some time, Billy had not thoughtof Max. Through remembering Max as a loved pet,the period of trauma was restored to full memory.

Having developed a second story of goodnessand caring, an alternative territory of identity wasprovided for Billy to stand in to begin to talk aboutthe ‘bad thoughts’ which were stuck in his head.At this point, I heard more details about the abusethat he had been subjected to, including memoriesof severe violence, tricks, and dishonesty. Billymade it clear that he wanted to share with someone


the details of the Stuck Thoughts (which hadotherwise been unmentionable up until that time)and to feel less ‘alone’ with the effects of thetrauma. By bringing forward Billy’s ‘clever’ skills, hecould now be an agent in his own story. Restoringhis sense of agency was evident as he keenlyreflected on his taking care of Max. With elevatedpersonal agency, revised understandings of his ownactions and identity, and with the opportunity tospeak about what had previously remainedunspoken, the Stuck Thoughts (flashbacks)diminished and were eventually no longer present.

CONNECTION-MAKING QUESTIONSAND CONVERSATIONS

In conversations with children and youngpeople, I ask questions in order to co-createmeaning. While I am not wanting to impose mythoughts or assumptions, I still aim to be influentialby asking what I call ‘connection-making questions’to assist children in attributing their own meaningor significance to an event or action.

In the conversation with Billy, I discovered thathe responded to trauma in many different ways.These included acts of comfort, feeding Max, andrecognising a certain ‘hungry bark’. In naming theseresponses, I was interested in the significance Billygave to them, so I asked the connection-makingquestion, ‘Do you think you had some skills inknowing how to take care of animals even thoughyou were really little?’ Billy became wide-eyed andeagerly replied, ‘Yeah! I guess I did!’, and heimmediately made links between his taking-careskills and knowledge of himself as a smart boy.

Providing children with a summary to reflect ontheir new meaning of hidden experiences, followedby a connection-making question, can also be veryhelpful in helping children attribute meaning toevents that might otherwise have been neglected.With Billy, I provided the following brief summary:‘It’s nice for me to get to know Max and how youhelped each other during difficult times. And tohear about how you took care of him by making surehe was fed and how you played with him’. After thissummary, I followed with the connection-makingquestion, ‘If I asked Max what this might tell meabout the kind of boy you are, what do you think hewould say?’ Through this questioning, alternative

knowledges of Billy’s identity were discovered: ‘Maxwould say, “He’s good, fun, and he cares a lot”’.

Billy continued to make connections andassociations as we explored his caring for Max ‘likea little brother’. To make additional sense of hisexperience I asked questions about Max’s caring forhim and Billy speculated that Max would care abouthim ‘more than you can imagine’. What hadpreviously been only a story of the effects of traumawas now linked to a story of two-way contribution,where not only Max helped and comforted Billy, butalso how Billy contributed to Max.

This back-and-forth conversational connection-making allowed us to further build upon Billy’sresponses to trauma. With every answer from him,I learned of new meanings, thereby allowing me toask the next connection-making question.

RICH SECOND STORY DEVELOPMENT

Connection-making questions and conversationsput children more in touch with their own skills andknowledges, and through this process second storydevelopment becomes possible. Children becomeable to richly describe their own responses totrauma, and what these responses, skills, andknowledges may reflect. I cannot emphasise enoughthe importance of this conversational partnership,as rich second story development will not happen bychance. As a therapist, I play a key role. I aminfluential by asking particular questions which helpchildren to make new meanings about theirexperiences and actions.

In following sessions with Billy, we hadthe opportunity to richly describe the importanceand value he places on being a big brother.When I asked Billy who would know about hiscaring brotherly ways, he immediately named hismother and father. In the following sessions, Lucyand Doug were happy to join me in tracing thehistory of these themes. They had several delightfulstories to share about Billy being a loving brotherwith his younger half-brother. To link Lucy andDoug’s knowledge with Billy’s, I asked him, ‘Howimportant is being a big brother to you?’ He replied,‘To me … it’s enormous. Being a big brother is likehaving a kid’.

I believe that these sorts of relational aspects ofchildren’s responses to trauma are significant in


sustaining them through traumatic times and injourneys of healing. ‘Relational aspects’ here refersto the contribution of significant figures in a child’shistory, and how their responses to trauma reflecttheir connection to these important figures.

In speaking with Billy, I recalled ourconversations from the previous year where he usedhis ‘memory skills’ to remember his mother, father,and brother despite three years of being forced tosay that they were not his family. Billy recollectedthat even though he could be coerced into sayinguntrue statements, his memory skills could never betaken away. These skills spoke strongly to Billy’shonouring and valuing of family life: ‘I would closemy eyes and picture my mom and dad and babybrother and how much they loved me. I knew thatthey were always thinking of me too. We werealways thinking of each other all the time. I justkept wishing every day that I would return to themand they could never take hope from me or mymemory of my family away’. Lucy and Doug sharedand recollected a similar hope: ‘We always heldhope that a lot of what we had taught to Billy aboutlove for family and caring for others was instilledbefore he was abducted and he and we never everlost that’.

In what otherwise could have easily beenoverlooked, Billy’s memory skills and what theyspoke to were acknowledged. The theme of love forfamily and caring which had sustained both Billyand his family during the years of trauma was richlyexplored.

A GUIDE FOR SECOND STORY DEVELOPMENT –QUESTIONS TO ELICIT AND BUILD UPONCHILDREN’S RESPONSES TO TRUAMA

The following guide is intended to assistpractitioners in talking with children about theirexperiences of trauma. The questions offered belowelicit varied responses to trauma and build uponthese responses to create a context for rich secondstory development. The guide is structured into fourlevels of enquiry11 in order to progressively co-createmeaning in conversational partnership. An answerfrom the child or young person at each level allowsmovement to the next level of enquiry by thetherapist. In this way, the child and therapist willincrementally move from level to level – startingfrom the lowest and progressing to the highest level.Level Four (the highest level) involves a richdescription of a child’s responses to trauma whichreflects the child’s values, skills, knowledges, andalso links to significant figures in their lives.

LEVEL 1DISCOVERING CHILDREN’S RESPONSESAND ACTIONS

In this level, we encourage children to name theevents (responses and actions) of trauma.

This level is the lowest, with questions that willmost likely be easier for a child to answer, suchas ‘What did you do?’

Note: An exploration of responses at this level(vs. effects) can help to begin to restore and/ordevelop personal agency where the child feelsthat he/she can be influential in their own life.

Questions that can be asked to elicit responses:

• How did you respond? What did you do?• How did you and your sibling(s) comforteach other?

• How did you comfort yourself?• What did you do when you were scared?• Where did you go during times of fear?• How did you attempt to keep yourself safe?• Where did you hide?• What would you do when you founda safe place?

• What would you show on your face?

DESCRIPTION OF FOURLEVELS OF ENQUIRY QUESTIONS


LEVEL 2MAKING LINKS OF CHILDREN’S RESPONSESTO THEIR KNOWLEDGES AND SKILLS

When a response has been named, questions inthis level involve making links and associationsof the response to knowledges and skills.

By asking connection-making questions, there isthe assumption that all children and youngpeople have meaning-making skills. Even verylittle children have meaning-making skills.

Provide a summary using the child’s descriptionsand knowledge in order for him/her to reflect onand give meaning to their responses to trauma.

Additional specific response-basedquestions re:

Lessening the effects

• After the abuse, was there anything you didthat helped to lessen the effects?

• How did you make yourself feel better?• Is there anything you are doing now that helpsto get through it?

Skills of living

• Did you have ‘imagining’ skills?• Did you have a refuge of sanctuary?• Was there a place that provided you withcomfort and safety during difficult times?

Acts of resistance

• Did you do things to resist or oppose?

Significant stuffed friends and pets

• Did/do you have a stuffed friend/pet thathelped you?

• How would your stuffed friend/pet try tocomfort you?

• How did you and your dog help each other?

Connection-making questions could include:

• How did you know to do that?• What name would you give to this skill?• What do you think of yourself as a youngerboy/girl and all the things that you did?

• How do you feel about this knowledge/skillyou have?

Provide a summary followed by a connection-making question:

Example:So ... when there was terrible fighting and thingsbeing broken, you would take your little brotherand sister outside to get away and play at thepark. You said you would distract them. How didyou know how to do that? Would you call whatyou did distracting skills? ... or do you haveanother name for what you did?



LEVEL 3MAKING LINKS OF SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGESTO PREFERRED WAYS OF BEING (SUCH ASVALUES, BELIEFS, HOPES, COMMITMENTS)

When a skill or knowledge is rendered visible,we can invite children to reflect on, evaluate,and draw realisations from the meaning theyhave made.

Personal agency is elevated when skills,knowledges, and values are made known.

When a skill or knowledge has been identified,we can provide a summary using theirdescriptions for the child to reflect on and givemeaning, and make links to values andintentions.

LEVEL 4RICH DESCRIPTION OF RESPONSESWHICH REFLECTS VALUES, SKILLS,AND KNOWLEDGES

In this highest level, we want to richly describeresponses and what they may reflect.

We can trace the history of the knowledges,skills, values, and commitments in life.

In this level, questions are asked to explore theinfluence of significant figures in the child’s lifeon their skills, knowledges, and values.

Connection-making questions could include:

• Why was that skill important to you?• What do you think of yourself as a littleboy/girl and knowing at an early age howto focus / keep yourself safe?

• What to you think this says about the kindof person you are?

Provide a summary followed by a connection-making question:

Example:You’ve shared lots of times with me that youused your distraction skills to keep your littlebrother and sister away from the fighting. Whywas it important to you that they did not see orhear the fighting? What do you think this wouldtell me about you?

Questions which richly describe responses, skills,knowledges, values:

• What is the history of this skill/value inyour life?

• Who introduced you to this skill?• Where did you learn this skill?• Who wouldn’t be surprised that youvalue________? What would they say theyappreciate about you and your value for_________?

• When did it first become important inyour life?



ILLUSTRATION OF A CONVERSATION WHICHBUILDS UPON RESPONSES TO TRUAMA

Level 1 Discovering responses and actions

David: I remember he took a heavy cane andhit me with it. He hit me so hard thatthe cane broke in half.

Angel: How did you respond? What did youshow on your face?

David: When I was being hit I did not show anyfear. I just looked at him and didn’tshow anything on my face.

Level 2 Making links of responses to knowledgesand skills

Angel: So you found ways to not show areaction? How did you do that?

David: I just concentrated!

Angel: Do you think you had someconcentrating skills as a child?

David: Definitely, if I set my mind to it …I could concentrate.

Level 3 Making links of skills and knowledges tovalues, beliefs and intentions

Angel: You’ve told me about other times thatyou made a point of not showing anyfear, upset or anger on your face. Whatdo you think that might tell me aboutwhat was important to you? Why did youwant to use your concentration skills tonot show fear?

David: It was the only way to get back withouthurting him.

Angel: Was that something important to you ….not hurting him or getting back withviolence?

David: Yes … non-violent ways of getting backwere important. Now I can look backand say, I never touched you!

Level 4 Rich description of responses

Angel: Is that something you stand for …Non-violent ways?

David: Yes … for sure!

Angel: Why is this important to you?

David: I know what it is like to be hurt andI don’t want to ever hurt others!

Angel: Has this always been important to you inyour life? Is there a history to this?

Who would know about your commitment tonon-violent ways and not hurting others?Is this something that you learned fromsomeone in your life? What might they say theyappreciate about this? And so on …

REFLECTIONS

Discourses of victimhood can obscure thecleverness, competencies, and knowledges ofchildren. These discourses can also influencetherapists. When working with children who haveendured significant trauma, counsellors sometimeslose hope during the process of seeking waysforward.

In this paper, I have tried to describe my own‘project of discovery’. In working with children andyoung people who have had traumatic experiences,holding onto the belief that regardless of the natureof the trauma, children and young people alwaysrespond, has opened significant possibilities. Anenquiry into the responses a child has made to thetraumatic experience (versus the effects of whatthey have experienced) can make many thingspossible. When we discover multiple actions,multiple responses, links can then be madebetween particular responses and children’s skills,knowledges, and values. Rather than makingstatements which imply the child will never get overit, by exploring responses we can co-discover howthey are getting through it. In saying this, it’s notmy intention to avoid the facts of the trauma and itseffects, as I know that children may express that


they want to talk about what they have endured. Infact, by providing safety and a newer territory ofidentity for children to stand within, we can openspace for children and young people to speak moreclearly about events which they have not previouslyspoken.

I hope that by sharing these ideas, stories of mywork, and a guide for second story development,that this will enable other practitioners to be on thelookout for children’s responses and for creativeways of acknowledging these and building uponthem… even one response can be a gateway to richsecond story development!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to acknowledge all of the childrenand young people I have worked with who haveexperienced trauma. It has been their stories thathave generated hope and passion in my work andcontributed significantly to the development of theideas in this paper. Many thanks to the followingpeople who all offered feedback on an earlier draft:Ruth Pluznick, David Newman, Sue Mann, HeatherJohnson and Linda Brown.

NOTES1 All of the names of the children and young people

throughout this paper are pseudonyms. I would like toparticularly acknowledge and thank Megan, David, andBilly for their willingness to share their stories withhopes of helping other children and young people whohave experienced trauma.

2 The trauma of ongoing racism is prevalent and relevantin my work in schools in the multicultural context ofToronto. Although the content of this paper does notinclude the broader considerations of the powerrelations of culture and race, it is an area which I havean ongoing commitment to address the inequities formany young people. For a description of a way ofworking with young men who are grappling with theeffects of racism, see Yuen (2007).

3 Although the focus of this paper is on work withchildren and young people, the ideas and questionshold relevance to adults who have experiencedchildhood trauma and particularly for those whose livesare continuing to be defined by trauma. I would like toacknowledge Sue Mann as a reader who reflected onthe relevance of the ideas to work with adults who haveexperienced childhood trauma.

4 Throughout this paper, I refer to second storydevelopment. However I do not want to imply thatthere are only two stories to trauma, as there can beother subordinate storylines to be found in the shadows

of the dominant trauma stories (see White, 2006c).Also, the second story does not replace the first story,but rather in the development of a second story, therecan be a parallel story alongside the first story oftrauma. The reason I have chosen to use ‘second story’more often than ‘subordinate stories’ is that I havefound this languaging easier to grasp in teachingcontexts for those who are very new to narrative ideas,and also when teaching in simultaneous translation.

5 For a description of an exercise which focuses onsecond story development when working with groups ofvulnerable children see the Tree of Life Project (Ncube2006) which describes work in Southern Africa whichhas an emphasis on creating safety for orphans andvulnerable children prior to having them talk abouttheir experiences of parental death and suffering dueto HIV/AIDS.

6 Asking about where children seek safety toucheson the ideas of ‘considerations of place’. ‘Place’is not usually included in the broader explorationsof the thinking that informs narrative therapy.This is an area that I look forward to exploring andconsidering with respect to children who haveexperienced trauma, and particularly the placeswhere they may seek refuge or find sanctuary. For acomplete exploration of the relationship of ‘place’ toidentity see Trudinger (2006).

7 Billy’s story was presented as a keynote address at the3rd International Summer School of narrative practicein Adelaide, Australia (Yuen, 2007). I would like toacknowledge Billy and his family’s contribution to thispaper by sharing their story. Most of all, I am thankfulto Billy for teaching me so much about children andpersonal agency.

8 For a description and illustration of externalisingpractices and conversations, see Russell and Carey(2004).

9 For a description and illustration of re-memberingpractices and conversations see Russell and Carey(2004).

10 For more on memory theory and systems in relation toa narrative approach to the consequences of traumasee White (2006b, pp. 67-81).

11 Michael White’s notion of therapists’ responsibility to‘scaffold’ conversations (see White 2007, Hayward,2006) has been helpful to me in developing thisguide. While the metaphor of ‘scaffolding’ is not onethat I readily relate to, the idea that it is therapists’responsibility to ask questions that children can answerhas been extremely helpful and has led me to developthe four levels of questions that are included in thisguide.

REFERENCESAdams-Westcott, J., Daffron, T, A. & Sterne, P. (1992).

‘Escaping victim life stories and co-constructingpersonal agency.’ In Gilligan, S. & Price, R. (eds):Therapeutic Conversations (pp. 28-270). New York:W. W. Norton.


Buckley, E. & Dector, P. (2006). ‘From isolation tocommunity: collaborating with children and familiesin times of crisis.’ International Journal of NarrativeTherapy and Community Work, 2:3-12.

Hayward, M. (2006). ‘Using a scaffolding distance mapwith a young man and his family.’ InternationalJournal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work,1: 39-51.

Kamsler, A. (1991). ‘Her-story in the making: Therapywith women who were sexually abused in childhood.’In Durrant, M. & White, C. (eds): Ideas for Therapywith Sexual Abuse (pp. 9-36). Adelaide: DulwichCentre Publications.

Mann, S. (2006). ‘How can you do this work?:Responding to questions about the experience ofworking with women who were subjected to childsexual abuse.’ In Denborough, D. (ed): Trauma:Narrative responses to traumatic experience(pp. 1-24) Adelaide: Dulwich Centre Publications.

Mitchell, S. (2006). ‘De-briefing after traumaticsituations – using narrative ideas in the Gaza strip.’In Denborough, D. (ed): Trauma: Narrative responsesto traumatic experience (pp. 103-113). Adelaide:Dulwich Centre Publications.

Ncube, N. (2006). ‘The Tree of Life Project: Usingnarrative ideas in work with vulnerable children inSouthern Africa.’ International Journal of NarrativeTherapy and Community Work, 1:3-16.

Russell, S. & Carey, M. (2004). Narrative Therapy:Responding to your questions. Adelaide: DulwichCentre Publications.

Silent Too Long, (2001).‘Trust’. In Working with thestories of women’s lives, (pp. 85-92). Adelaide:Dulwich Centre Publications.

Trudinger, M. (2006). ‘Maps of violence, maps of hope:Using place and maps to explore identity, gender,and violence.’ International Journal of NarrativeTherapy and Community Work, 3:11-42.

Ungar, M. (2005). ‘A thicker description of resilience.’International Journal of Narrative Therapy andCommunity Work, 3&4:89-95.

Wade, A. (1997). ‘Small acts of living: Everydayresistance to violence and other forms ofoppression.’ Contemporary Family Therapy (19)1,(pp. 23-39). Human Sciences Press, Inc.

White, M. (2000). Children, children’s culture andtherapy In White, M. Reflections on NarrativePractice: Essays and Interviews (pp. 1-22).Adelaide: Dulwich Centre Publications.

White, M. (2006a). ‘Working with children who haveexperienced significant trauma.’ In White, M. &Morgan (eds): Narrative therapy with children andtheir families (pp. 85-97). Adelaide: Dulwich CentrePublications.

White, M. (2006b). Working with people who are sufferingthe consequences of multiple trauma: A narrativeperspective. In Denborough, D. (ed): Trauma:Narrative responses to traumatic experience(pp. 25-85). Adelaide: Dulwich Centre Publications.

White, M. (2006c). Children, trauma and subordinatestoryline development. In Denborough, D. (ed):Trauma: Narrative responses to traumatic experience(pp. 143-165) Adelaide: Dulwich CentrePublications.

White, M. (2007). Maps of Narrative Practice. New York:W. W. Norton.

Yuen, A. (2007). ‘Responding to Trauma – Work withChildren’. Keynote address presented at theInternational Summer School of Narrative PracticeAdelaide, Australia.

Yuen, A. (2007). ‘Young men and violence: For the loveof mothers’. In Yuen, A. & White, C (eds):Conversations about gender, culture, violence andnarrative practice: Stories of hope and complexityfrom women of many cultures (pp. 181-193).Adelaide: Dulwich Centre Publications.

children and trauma a yuen

Documents