Nervous Ticks

 

 

Thomas was brought to me aged 8 with a number of symptoms that were disturbing for the child himself, and were also making learning at school and normal socializing difficult. His mother said he had a difficult birth with a long labour, since which he had always slept with his neck arched back.  He would also have fits of extreme rage, especially at his father, when he would hyperventilate. He also had various nervous ticks, including incessantly wiping his eyes with a cloth, rolling his tongue involuntarily, a nervous cough and spasms in one leg.

 

No-one had been able to help, but Thomas was obviously both bright and extremely sensitive. Seeing him standing in the consulting room totally withdrawn and making repetitive movements it was easy to see why his parents were so concerned. He looked very disturbed as if controlled by some external force or energy.

 

 

His first session of cranio was intense. His head felt like a solid rock, no movement of energy through the body, and as we worked, ever so sensitively, his feet released streams of electrical energy like electric shocks.  By the second session, the main tick of rubbing his eyes had gone completely, never to return. He was also visibly less frightened. In the second session the brain stem started to respond, and feeling began to return to Tristan’s abdomen, and later feet.  After that session his mother reported that he had cried a lot, and also to her total disbelief, was no longer arching his neck whilst asleep. He was also sleeping much better in general.

Things continued to improve slowly, with the ticks getting less and disappearing in the order of the most recent first, and working backwards to the more ingrained habits. Thomas went through some intense emotional cycles including grief and anger, and dealing with intense sadness and insecurity every time his mother had to leave for work. I worked with his mother to help her understand what was happening to him, and to accept the cycles of emotions he was going through as normal, and to help him verbalise his emotions and ask for what he needed.

 

Thomas began to be able to make and hold eye contact after 5 sessions, and was visibly more present. After 8 sessions he started to relate again, to be able to be emotionally in connection with other people.  He was still jumpy and a bit withdrawn, but nevertheless things were getting easier for him and his family. After 3 months his schoolwork started to improve, and he reached a new reading level. His sense of self was also getting clearer, and also ability to verbalise. Thomas continued to enjoy coming to his sessions and slowly let his body and emotions unwind and straighten out. By the time the summer holiday arrived he was much more able to play happily and be around others, even though still slightly withdrawn and sometimes a little frozen or stunned as is common with trauma, but much better than before. His self -confidence had also improved markedly.

 

I sensed that the next level of improvement in him would depend on whether his mother would be open to looking at herself, since she seemed locked in an over-protective dynamic with her son. She was also scared to set authentic boundaries because of his vulnerability, and obviously a major factor in keeping his patterns in place. She has since started coming for sessions herself, which is a really wonderful development for Thomas too.

 

This family is a classic example of how and why the children’s welfare is so dependent on the parents also doing their work. Not much more could be achieved with the child without getting to the root of things and changing the emotional structures in the family which were keeping his own traumatic experience in place. Without parental co-operation there is not much hope for many children until they can leave home at age 18 and get a therapist. In that case they will have missed out on large parts of their own mental and emotional development and have a lot more catching up to do than if things were resolved during childhood…