LuLu’s trauma therapists have been using a variety of interventions and techniques with her. She is very open to all these “tools”. We have done some heavy-hitting things like EMDR and neurofeedback. We have also done psychodrama and visualization.

When LuLu was younger, less verbal, and because her trauma was pre-verbal, we had to use lots of experiential therapies. These days, LuLu is drawn to the visualization techniques. Last week we worked squarely on re-framing.

Very simply, re-framing something is putting it in a different context, looking at it from a different point of view. A good example in LuLu’s case (and perhaps other post-institutionalized children) is that she views babies as weak, helpless, and even has a certain amount of distain for that weakness. “Babies are stupid,” is often a thought she verbalizes.

Reframing this thought, the therapists explained to LuLu that not only was she not “stupid” as a baby, but she was smart enough to realize she was not getting what she needed and brave enough to survive the ordeal. They point blank told her that if she was indeed weak, she would have died. But, in fact, she was strong and she was smart (which is why she was so angry at the maltreatment). The words seemed to resonate within her.

They also reframed her feelings that “babies are bad” into the fact that babies are sweet, innocent and supposed to be loved and cared for. Hence, when LuLu is working hard to keep the negative thoughts and emotions in check, she refers to herself as “sweet, brave LuLu”.

Chances are reframing is something you’ve done for yourself, or others. It can be viewed as simply as a “glass half-full” optimistic mentality. But I think it’s as critical of a thought process for those parenting special kids as it is for the special kids themselves. How we view our kids, their disabilities and our own lives can be improved by reframing.

Here’s the definition of reframing.

Reframing is a neuro-linguistic programming technique. Here’s more on NLP.

Reframing
What is NLP?

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