Dr. Stanley Goldstein - Author and Psychologist

The mind of a child differs greatly from that of an adult though nightmares can terrify both. Yet they, as does feeling anxious or depressed, are intended to be helpful since their purpose is to inform us about problems. As dreams do by telling us, symbolically, what troubles. Thus if an adult is angry with their boss they may dream of kicking their dog, the thought of hitting their boss being too frightening for their conscious mind to tolerate, and a child may imagine similarly about their parent or teacher. A common misconception about dreaming is that a dream of someone dying means they will. But dreams don't predict the future and dreaming of someone dying usually reflects either concern about their health or anger toward them.

To help a child cope with their scary dreams the parent should speak to them as follows: "Dreams are our friends. They tell us what we're worried about using pictures, like with a mystery movie that we try to figure out. If you dream about hitting a friend it just means that you're angry with them, not that you're going to hit them. If you do have a scary dream we can talk about it in the morning and try to figure it out." Many years ago I gave this explanation to a five-year-old girl and her nightmares stopped for a time. Later, after she again had a nightmare, I repeated my explanation and she erupted, "Oh I know that!"

Only weeks seem to pass before yet another child's murder by their parent is reported, often after activity by the Family Court which goal is to safeguard children. A New York State case immediately came to mind when a judge returned custody of a child to their parent who had just been released from prison for child abuse. This, despite professional plea not to do so. A lawyer later remarked that the judge had excellent legal credentials but lacked common sense. Sadly, the decisions of judges, lawyers, doctors, and the general public tend to lack knowledge of child psychological development, they instead relying on what a psychologist long ago described as "naive psychology," the knowledge about behavior which one gained through personal experiences, some being accurate but not all.
Other common troubling decisions derive from judicial beliefs that (1) children are best served by living with their biological parents, and (2) that a child should live with their biological parent despite the parent's lengthy non-involvement and failure to pay child support. Thus biology is considered to supplant psychology regardless of its harmful impact on the individual. Consider: would a grown woman accept being forced to live with a man to whom she was once married, years after he deserted her? Yet children are regularly forced into this equivalent situation despite state mandate that judicial decisions be made in the best interests of the child.

Contrary to popular belief, autism is relatively rare and often mis-diagnosed. One such four-year-old, when introduced to our stuffed baby dinosaur friend during the child's play psychotherapy session, stated, "He can't be alive. My brother told me dinosaurs are extinct." The reasons for these mis-diagnoses reflect several factors:  the widespread ignorance of child psychological development; the growth of a lucrative "autism industry;" a downplaying of the critical role of experiencing a "good enough" parenting in mature functioning; and a lessened belief in the power of the unconscious.
That a child exhibits some autistic symptoms does not make them autistic since these may be outgrown or disappear after brief play psychotherapy. True autism, since it develops during the earliest period of development, is perhaps the most devastating and difficult to treat of all mental health conditions. My successful treatment of a severely autistic teenager involved daily psychotherapy sessions in an inpatient treatment center over four years and is described in my first book, "Troubled Children/Troubled Parents: The Way Out." Having said this, autism is of a wide range and the sight of children possessing its severe symptoms is deeply troubling. But, as I said, these children are relatively rare.
Some years ago I read of an epidemic of symptoms among teenagers in upper New York State including stomach distress, feeling faint, and more. This caused great distress for parents and the community behaved responsibly, testing the water supply and school facilities. Then, several months later, the "epidemic" vanished, it being recognized as reflecting hysteria fostered by online media. Living as we do in troubled times, should the same be said of autism?

Parental responsibility has become a charged topic despite the old-time proverb that "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree." Why is a mystery though it may relate to diminished belief in the power of the unconscious and the lack of public knowledge of the importance of early life experiences on adult functioning, the time when basic ego capacities governing control of thinking and behavior are formed.

It might also be that people believe a perfect parenting experience, which no one experiences, is required rather than that which is "good enough."

Apart from the influence of rare genetic anomalies, which seem to hold public belief, criminal and self-defeating behaviors have nothing to do with genes and all to do with childhood experiences. As New York City's mayor asked several years ago: Where were the parents when their armed teenager was nightly wandering the streets?

I once treated a man who had worked at a perilous government job for a long time. Before suddenly becoming unable to, having become terrified of being in an enclosed space. I explained PTSD to him, provided him with a self-hypnotic relaxation audio, and suggested that he had been repressing awareness of the great stress he had been experiencing for years. Until now, having reached its limit of tolerance, his mind had rebelled and created the PTSD symptom which drove him into treatment to recover psychological equilibrium. Several months later he was back at work, with greater personal security having learned that he must monitor his feelings.

There is no mystery to the origin of PTSD: the mind has limits and, when exceeded, produces a symptom(s) (fears, nightmares, over-sensitivity to noise) to warn of the need for change lest psychological harm occur. Or bodily harm too, a tenet of psychosomatic medicine being that what cannot be spoken of will be expressed through the body. It can develop with soldiers or civilians, adults or youth.

Pete Hegseth's story-filled book, Modern Warriors, is both supportive and reassuring.

The alleged "mystery" of substance abuse is well-known: that, after using an illicit drug or alcohol, one feels better though these are habits which are best left unacquired.

The etiology of substance abuse is not to be found in genes but in early life experience. Substance abuse usually begins during adolescence though, rarely, it begins earlier or later.The basic ego capacities, those governing control of thinking and behavior, are created beginning in infancy and, for their successful development, require a "good enough"  though not perfect parenting. When lacking, the child will have difficulty surmounting the critical adolescent tasks of separating from parents, developing a sturdy sense of who they are ("sense of self"), dating, and making sound education and career decisions. If unsuccessful at these and seeking relief from stress, some turn to alcohol or drug use for relief. Which does work though at great cost to health and emotional stability. Psychological treatment is required to heal the personality deficiencies but this, unlike the substance, requires time and why many fail substance abuse treatment.

Better and more widespread parenting education is one solution to this problem, to stop childhood based problems from developing early and provide earlier mental health treatment when needed. Another is more substance abuse education beginning in the early years. One six-year-old girl said, apropos of nothing as we played a board game, "Don't use drugs. They're bad!" Her mother later told me she had a DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) class that day.

That most children should be able to read when beginning kindergarten is well known by psychologists though this depends on their earlier experience. Parents should begin reading to their toddlers about the age of 2 1/2, having them sit beside them and running the parent's finger along the lines as they read. If done, most children will be able to read simple books by the time they start school.

They do this by using the same inborn cognitive mechanism that they used to learn the grammatical structure of the language of the country into which they were born. Thus a child born in Spain naturally learns to speak Spanish and a child born in France naturally learns to speak French, not by memorizing the placement of one word after the other which would be impossible, but by inducting the grammatical structure of the language. Similarly, a young child, if provided a helpful experience with reading, will induct its nature and learn to read.

No expensive gadgets are necessary for this critical childhood achievement, just simple books and willing parents. Try it.

"You don't live forever" is a well-worn phrase though one which isn't thought by the emotionally ill for whom daily survival is priority. The unconscious is powerful and prioritizes pain reduction above all else, reality and self-awareness being secondary. Its powerful weapons of anxiety and fear hone and direct behavior at the ignoring of the reality which is obvious to others.

An organized sense of self, sense of who one is, which originates with the childhood experience of a "good-enough" parenting, is needed to experience time passing and wasted years. Like the addict whose world has become reduced to gaining their next "fix" or those surviving a mortal illness, the sensing of time has become absent. Only with greater health can they rejoin the universal human quest for individual fulfillment.

The destructive power of loneliness has long been recognized. Lengthy solitary confinement, even when needed to insure the safety of others, has been condemned as torture, and it is not unknown for a spouse to die soon after the death of their beloved. Humans are social beings and suffer when isolated. While a newborn could not survive on their own an adult can for they have other capacities: imagination can transform a solitary existence into a happier time and productive work can grant life meaning.

Coping with the memory of past mistakes is painful too. Forgiveness may be divine but is not easy, and more so when one is socially isolated. A recent article in The Wall Street Journal described the murder suicide of a Connecticut technology executive who, after a lengthy marriage which ended in divorce, lived with his mother. Suffering from substance abuse and mental health problems he found a friend in his Artificial Intelligence companion who exuded sympathetic and reassured his views, feeling less isolated as he became more delusional. While suicide has complex roots and, as has been said, is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, murder/suicide reflects both anger and unconsciously forcing the suicide that is believed deserved because of feelings of worthless, of being unworthy of life.

Relationships are not easy and their absence can devastate but allowing oneself to hope can reduce suffering since memories of survived pains and earlier joys do persist in the recesses of one's mind.

The greatest danger of poor psychotherapy is not its waste of time and money but rather that the process becomes distrusted by the patient. Conducting psychotherapy may be one of the most complex of jobs since it involves interaction between the conscious and unconscious minds of two people, this causing inevitable errors. The antidote for this is self-awareness by the therapist, their good training, and honesty. But no therapy is perfect, an eminent British psychoanalyst, Michael Balint, wrote long ago in a paper posthumously published by his wife, that having been treated by the most eminent British analysts he gained a little understanding of his life from each.
If a therapist is excessively narcissistic and the patient feels inadequate they may become tied to their therapist, unable to leave and gain more competent treatment. This is the greatest danger of inadequate treatment: that the patient henceforth avoids it, no longer trusting the process because of their earlier destructive experience.