No. 1970
Behavior and Ego Ideas
Children are placed in a therapeutic milieu so that we can help them change their behavior. We are using the term "behavior" in its broadest connotations and intend it to include intellectual and emotional aspects of childhood as well as actions or observable behavior. The changes we have in mind are not narrowly conceived as correction and even include growth and maturation. Without getting into the complications of diagnostic labels (mostly broad statements of what needs changing about the child), we can agree on some major categories of desirable change. We would like to help a child stop or diminish deviant, dangerous, age-inappropriate behavior. We would like to help him start or develop adaptive, productive, age-appropriate behavior. In short, we need to help the child to alter his behavior. The alternatives we teach are a complex and various pattern involving the interruption of deviance or "sickness" and the substitution of age-appropriate, productive, coping skills. Of course, this should not be thought of as a simple progression from bad to good, to better, to best behavior. A child's development should not be seen as a series of golden means in smooth ascendance to maturity: neat but not so neat as to be compulsive, has friends but can deal with solitude, asserts his rights but is not too aggressive, happy but can deal with sadness, etc. A series of twists and turns, ups and downs, extremes in one direction or another would be more appropriate descriptions. Add to that the complication that change for the better often leaves a child uncomfortable between old ways and not yet fully mastered new ways, and you can see all will not be smooth in this business of helping children change.
In what follows, we will explore the concept of alternative behavior, and consider some categories for identifying and communicating about behavior problems. Then we will seek guidelines for our teaching of alternatives from a developmental view of the child's ego and from a view of what daily events require of the ego. Finally, we will look for the areas of support to ego teaching that are available in the milieu.
We hope these sections will present both a means of satisfying children's needs and a means of helping children develop new competence to deal with life and learning. We are interested in curing mental illness, in serving children's needs, and in undoing the crippling effects of the past. But we are equally — perhaps more — interested in challenging children with the adventure of life, in promoting improved capacity to deal with the struggles of human existence, and in anticipating the opportunities of the future. The adults in a milieu are not just the suppliers of psychological medicine to empty, sick children; they are also the knowledged companions of children in an adventure full of challenges, obstacles, and opportunities. By combining giving something to and expecting something of children, we teach the lessons that promote love and competence.
AL TRIESCHMAN
Al Trieschman: Extract from Understanding the Nature
of a Therapeutic Milieu,
in Trieschman, A.E., Whittaker, J. K. and Brendtro, L.K. (1969). The
Other 23 Hours:
Child Care Work with Emotionally Disturbed Children in a Therapeutic Milieu.
New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Pp.4-5
