Childhood: the symptom as a protest.

What does a boy or girl who presents psychological symptoms mean to us? What message does she unconsciously send? Is this message received, or is it thought of as a mere problem for the child in question?

In childhood, the manifestation of symptoms in terms of mental and emotional health frequently implies the communication of conflicts belonging to family dynamics. Many times this is the only way to express that something is happening, and that is why it is so important to be able to read it in this way, instead of trying to "remove that symptom" by quickly resolving the parents' demand.

Mothers and fathers, in general, arrive bringing a boy or girl with a "problem". In the infantile place, all the own conflicts are projected that cannot be observed. Thus, many times they think of solving their child's problem without intending to reflect on her own participation in the matter.

In cases involving more serious organic aspects, neurological issues, for example, or severe disabilities, the perspective changes a bit. Although family participation is essential and it is very important to address the problem based on the child's place in the family fabric, various factors already have an impact here. In this article, we will refer essentially to the child and adolescent symptomatology that does not present an organic correlate.

Children are like environmental sponges. They capture the dynamics, as we said before, and are in many cases receptacles of their parents' projections. They show what happens in the family, what is not recognized and is not manifested in other ways.

Its symptoms appear as a protest or as a complaint, in the face of something that is not being said or is not being properly elaborated. Children and adolescents may express fears or anxieties that their parents cannot recognize or that they have not processed. They can even manifest unresolved issues in previous generations, especially family secrets.

The unsaid becomes relevant in this sense. It is what is most likely to be conveyed symptomatically. What is spoken and symbolized has a greater possibility of being elaborated. What cannot be named or expressed in any symbolic way is transmitted in the shadows, sometimes taking on symptomatic modes of expression.

That is why when a child or adolescent presents a symptom, it never belongs to him/her in its entirety. It is a channel of expression of something that exceeds it. And beyond that, of course, many factors concern the child in particular, since not all respond in the same way to similar circumstances. It is necessary to understand that each child grows in a context, he is not an isolated being. He is in a plot, with conflicts and knots that need to be unraveled.

Work in psychology is always multifactorial. Human beings are influenced by very diverse and complex factors that come together and are linked. We cannot pretend to isolate the symptom and the child as if we were dealing with it in a laboratory. Everything has to be analyzed within the matrix of which it is a part.

Thus, we can say that the child symptom is in many cases an indication, message, protest, or complaint, insofar as it appears to expose, to a greater or lesser extent, the family dynamics of which it is a part. Looking at it from this perspective will help them come to light and become visible, preventing the child or adolescent from being the only focus of manifestation, and being able to remove him from the place of the "problem" making all the participating members occupy the place that corresponds to them.

 

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