| EQI.org Home | - not finished Hollender Helping Teens Who Cut This is a temporary file where I am collecting a few of my notes on the Hollander book. I am critiquing this book partly for the general public and partly for one parent in particular who I am trying to help. There are some things I like about this book, but first I am going to list what I am concerned about. S. Hein -- Some general concerns: Hollander is very understanding of the parents, but not so understanding of the teens who cut. He calls teenagers "kids." He labels the teens as "emotionally reactive," "emotionally vulnerable," and "emotionally dysregulated" He devotes much of the book to telling us what the teenagers are doing wrong, or where they lack skills, but very little of the book to telling us where the parents lack skills or how they are contributing to the situation. He frequently "blames the victim." Here is one example with Penelope's story. Hollander tells us there are "two ingredients" which make a teen "emotionally vulnerable" and thus prone to self-injury. He says:
So the two ingredients are:
Note that Hollander says "an environment that has somehow made the kids doubt the validity of their own emotional experiences." (My emphasis on the "somehow". He isn't very specific considering he is a psychologist. I wonder what grade he would get on an exam if he said something like this. I would give him a D.) One might think the parents would be a major part of the teen's environment since their birth, yet Hollander assures parents that this is not the case. He says
Many other professionals would tell us that it is primarily the parent's job to help the child "learn how to identify, accurately label, and modulate emotions." Hollander, however, tells us that it is not the fault of the parents, but instead, "these children are difficult to parent." Hollander seems to go to great lengths to assure the reader (who we assume is usually a parent) that parents are nearly 100% blameless. In fact I really wonder if he has done so merely to increase his book sales to parents. I certainly don't believe many self-injuring teens would buy his book or find it very helpful. It is also possible that, being a parent himself, his own defense mechanisms simply won't allow him to see things more accurately. My partner, who used to regularly self-injure, said she is sincerely worried that a parent who truly wants to help their teen may one day feel misled by Hollander's book. They may find out too late that they were in fact the ones primarily responsible for the death of their son or daughter. Thomas Gordon said, "For a relationship to change in any significant way, he who holds the power must change." Michael Hollander does not seem to agree with this view. Instead, Hollander, concentrates more on what the teen can do to "calm down," "regulate," "self-soothe," etc. I believe Hollander would help both teens and parents more by strongly recommending the parents get immediate help to quickly unlearn their old parenting beliefs and methods, and replace them with new beliefs and skills. |
Core Components of EQI.org Respect | Empathy
Emotional Literacy
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Penelope‘s Story
Hollander says nothing about the father. Instead he only says this:
It seems Hollander thinks the father did nothing wrong, nothing to further upset Penelope, so thus the problem is 100% Penelope's. This is just one of the many examples where I would say Hollander is "blaming the victim." Although Hollander shows that he understands invalidation, at least intellectually, I'd say that recommending someone in Penelope's situation "take a bubble bath" is itself very invalidating. Also, Hollander doesn't suggest any solutions for the father who got angry. Nor does he suggest the father apologize to his daughter. Hollander also fails to mention that Penelope might not want to share her feelings with her father, even if she could identify them. It is clear that she already has learned that her father isn't helpful. Even if the father had good intentions, he did not respect Penelope's feelings about not wanting his help. Instead he kept trying to fill his own need to be helpful. Then he felt rejected and hurt when she made it very clear she did not want his "help." The father, in other words, was too emotionally needy himself. At some point in the book Hollander does address the issue of the parent's being needy, though he doesn't put it in exactly those terms. (When I find the exact quote again I will add it) |
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| sulk - sulking to her
room dwell - But if you dwell on the situation...; But dwelling on the situation wallowing revels in |
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| she‘s understandably put off by Celia‘s out-of-control behavior, | |
| In first 110 pages... he never suggest parents apologize. 10 times in first 110 pages he talks about the parents' good intentions. He never says the teens have good intentions in anything they do. 0 - emotional support 0 - listening skils 0 - listener, listeners |
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| 4. Think about your typical responses to your teen’s emotional distress. Do you tend to unwittingly make things worse? |
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| He does seem to understand that teens
self-harm when they are in intense emotional pain. He doesn't suggest their environments might be more painful. |
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| He could - Explain judging, punishing, threatening, rejecting, distrusting He could have a list of expressions and words not to use. And explain why. - Explain that their homes are more emotionally painful. Less emotionally supportive. |