Have you been in hospitals as a child? Especially alone? Have you undergone complex, scary procedures or manipulations? Has it ever happened that you didn’t understand what was happening? Were you tied down? Were you scared? Were you ashamed? For the cards of clients traumatized by hospital stories, I can have a separate shelf, because there are many of them. Different children received injuries. And some were not injured, despite the violence used. I remind you that not all violence leads to injuries. If the child screamed, called for help, struggled, bit someone, and then told his relatives or his roommate about it, and also received approval and encouragement for his actions, everything is fine. But if he froze, was ashamed, did not understand how to This could have happened to him, he didn’t receive support, he kept silent and repressed it all into PTSD. He practically squeezed into a chair from the first session. A lot of shame in the internal system is always visible to the naked eye. I don’t know. If I had not worked with subpersonalities, we would have gotten to the story of his “shame” in the hospital. It’s good that schema therapy provided an excellent rescripting tool in the imagination. With its help, we were able to return to the past and, as if cutting out a piece from pain, shame and disgrace, they inserted a new one, with the protection of the boy, giving him a helping hand in the literal and figurative sense. The accusing and shaming medical personnel were stopped, they were explained what they have the right to and what they do not. No, definitely humiliating the child. More a couple of Rescriptings (rewriting a negative experience based on the child’s need for that time) quickly gives positive results. Now HE doesn’t squeeze into a chair. And it behaves quite naturally. And I even recently crossed my legs - :) By the way, it’s interesting to observe how a person’s physicality changes over the course of therapy. As he liberates himself, his speech becomes clearer and more confident. Instead of an embarrassed little man, an adult man with a subtle sense of humor appears... And if we return to hospitals... I see a lot of tears when people talk about their experiences THERE. An adult should gather for what -The procedure is not easy. And even more so for a child. He needs his mother nearby. But often, especially in the 80-90s, children were admitted to hospitals alone... In addition to manipulations with syringes, needles, probes, IVs, etc., there are a lot of shameful stories with peers. They laugh that they are not dressed properly, they laugh at the symptom, they laugh that they peed themselves, that they can’t do something. Another: a feeling of loneliness and abandonment. I remember this well from myself, how at the age of 4 I stayed in the hospital for three weeks and experienced these feelings very strongly. It's like you're alone in the whole world. It seems like people and children are walking around, but it’s as if they’re passing you by. Everything in the hospital is so big... When the doors close and mom remains on the other side, it seems like it’s forever and your heart breaks. The situations are different. It is clear that medical intervention may be necessary. But then the task of the parents is to talk a lot, a lot with the child, to normalize his fears. Assure of your love, giving a lot of support. Pay any money to be together, if possible. Check the psychological state of the child before the operation, for example, and after. If you see changes in behavior, it is better to contact a competent child psychotherapist for a short course of healing possible traumatic experience. In our culture it is not customary to do this. But in vain! The child’s psyche is flexible and through even play therapy, sand, clay, you can quickly correct the harm caused to the child. Otherwise, with some injuries, he will enter adulthood and it will be a completely different, perhaps sad story. All coincidences are random. The facts have been changed. With respect to you, Elena Kislova.