Because this website is concerned with the family and we are enthusiastic about everyone within the family growing and thriving we will start with a family situation.
What modality do we use (i.e. what way do we do things) if we are good enough parents and our 7 year old child is in distress due to a relatively minor incident such as a cut knee?
Our first priority is to connect with the child – and then assess what is wrong.
In the case of the cut knee, the method of connection might be to kiss it better and offer understanding and sympathy.
Connection in this context is an act of love and it assures our child that we really care. Our assessment will involve estimating the seriousness of the cut and deciding what form of plaster or other healing device will be used to ensure that it will heal properly and quickly. (Our assessment will rarely if ever be written down).
Unless it is a very complex situation the assessment will be done so quickly after the connection that both connection and assessment seem, to the child, to be one and the same process. While the assessment is important, (so we know what to do), for the good enough parent, the connection, i.e. the act of love, is the priority – it is our immediate response.
Following the assessment, what most practitioners call an intervention takes place.
So in terms of healing, whether it is an emotional or physical wound, I firmly believe that the connection is at least as important, if not more important than the intervention in respect of the healing that will take place.
That is not to say that the intervention isn’t important. There is no point in kissing it better and offering love and sympathy over and over again while the cut knee bleeds profusely. A practical intervention, e.g. a sticking plaster will also assist greatly in the healing process. Indeed, the practical response is also an act of love.
Nor (to give another example of expression of parental love) is there much point in connecting endlessly with a teenager who has a tantrum, and who refuses to stop smoking joints in his room, without intervening, i.e. having a common-sense strategy to ensure that the rules of the home will be adhered to, clearly outlining the consequences if they are not, so that he learns to take responsibility for his actions.
But in both cases, the intervention (that is, the practical step we use to effect change i.e. healing) is greatly enhanced, and is actually optimised, by the initial, spontaneous connection.
I also propose that the feeling of being loved and cared for, (i.e. that the hurt child senses that the healer – in the above cases, the parent – has a genuine interest, and is not just going through the motions) has huge implications as to how quickly healing takes place.
That’s because what is most important for healing cannot be touched or seen – it is held in the heart!