Tijs, an seven year old boy was treated for autism with LTA distance therapy. The treatment was interrupted because Linda Evans decided only to present filmed example treatments in the future. Only part of the patterns have been translated into English so far.
TIJS
Tijs is 7 years old. He is in the first grade in a school for normal education. He is one year older than the other children of his class. That is because he was in a Steiner school until now (infant education). In that type of education the first grade starts one year later. The first month of the first grade, Tijs went to a Steiner school too. But he was expelled from school due to his maladjusted and extremely annoying behaviour in the classroom. It was so bad that it became impossible for the teacher to teach. Therefore Tijs’s mother was forced to send him to a school for ordinary education. Now it is the middle of March, and Tijs has been in his current class for five months already.
Two and a half years ago, the diagnosis of autism with low normal intelligence was made for the first time. At that age (4.5 years) Tijs made few social contacts, and he lived in a world of his own. He almost never talked in class and he did things that were inappropriate. He displayed repetitive behaviour, he hardly made eye contact, he had concentration problems and a low frustration tolerance. His playing was characterized by limited variation and meaning. Mutuality in social contacts and sharing emotions with other people was restricted and not in accordance with his age. He was highly interested in music and in numbers.
When he was two years old, Tijs became less quiet and more boisterous. He had fits of anger sometimes. When this happened, he screamed loudly, waved his arms and hit things. He went to kindergarten at the age of three, where he was regarded as a special child. His language and speech development showed deficiencies, and his development of play was not in accordance with his age. He hardly reacted to social impulses such as reward or punishment. It was difficult to make social contact with him.
Since Tijs’s mother had difficulty accepting the diagnosis of autism, she had her son reobserved one year later (at the age of 5.5), at a different institution. But the diagnosis was the same. The above-mentioned behaviour was confirmed by some additional observations:
‘As far as communication is concerned, Tijs does not always seem to understand verbal messages correctly. He sometimes needs visual support. It is difficult to have a conversation with him. The adult conversation partner has to keep the conversation going. Echolalia (echoing of previously heard words or phrases) and echokinesis (exact imitation of movements) have been established. There are serious deficiencies in his social behaviour. There is limited eye contact, and this contact is rarely mutual. He is on his own track and cannot stand any contribution from outside. His skills to build relations with other children his age are very limited, and he needs to be taught social rules. Tijs has an extensive passive vocabulary, but he is unable to use it adequately in everyday situations. For instance, he clams up when he has to ask a simple question to another child.
He is very focused on details and is unable to disregard details. He repeats the same game several times, and it is impossible to make him play something new. Once he has opted for a certain solution method, it is hard for him to abandon it. He has a rigid way of thinking and acting. Everything has to go exactly as he has in mind. There are stereotypical behaviour patterns and he is very much tied to fixed routines, both in everyday situations and in his games. He is fascinated by figures and arrows, which he draws all the time. He doesn’t understand when this is relevant or not.’
When his IQ was tested, Tijs had a total score of 92. He had a score of 88 for his verbal IQ and of 99 for his performance IQ.
He is the first-born in a family with two children. His brother is one year younger. The children live with their mother. Their father died when the children were still babies.
Description of Tijs’s behaviour by his mother
• Tijs did not talk until he was three years old
• The teacher he had last school year made the following observations about his behaviour: ‘when Tijs enters the classroom, he always uses boards to build a camp and he does it exactly the same way every day. He lies down under these boards, and sometimes his brother lies next to him. He doesn’t come out of his camp anymore unless the teacher makes him come out. He often lies there talking to himself or singing songs. When other children are using the boards, he doesn’t know how to address them and ask for the boards. He just stands helplessly in the classroom then. Tijs is more inclined to ask something to his teacher than to the other children. Apart from his brother, he doesn’t seek contact with other children his age. When we’ve got drawing, Tijs always draws figures and numbers on his sheet of paper, and he does the same thing in the playground. Assignments have to be very clear and concrete. Otherwise he doesn’t understand what he is supposed to do. He displays behavioural problems (refusing to do what he is supposed to do, doing just the opposite, hiding under his desk, getting angry, making noises…) at every change (change of activity, going from the classroom to the playground). The teacher had to teach him step by step how to work with clay. In the beginning he simply refused to touch it. He needs a lot of individual guidance. If she has no extra help, the teacher cannot manage anymore with Tijs in the classroom.’
• This is what his current teacher says: ‘Tijs is often very boisterous; he does all kinds of things that are not allowed. For instance, he moves the small couch that is standing in the school corridor by pushing it along with his head whereas he is expected to clear up and to go outside. He uses his ruler to hit another child on the head. That makes the other child angry and the children start to fight. He keeps yelling ‘Fil – lo’ in class. When the teacher explains something, he hides under his desk or crawls around in the classroom. He deliberately makes annoying noises as the children listen to their teacher. He takes off his shoe for no reason. He is unable to keep his hands to himself when he is sitting next to a girl as the teacher reads a story. He lifts the girls’ skirts in the playground. He doesn’t listen when the swimming exercises are explained, and he refuses to obey when he has to come out of the swimming pool. He hits the wall as he enters the classroom and then he hides under the desks. He kicks the walls. He sometimes shuts the door of the classroom before the teacher or the other children have come in. He is very rude to the teacher. He is very noisy when the children do their writing exercises. He keeps putting the book with reading exercises upright. When the teacher gives a dictation, he takes out the arithmetic sheets. He suddenly stands up during the arithmetic lesson and starts to flutter like a bird, or he starts to crawl or runs about or he stands up on his chair. He makes strange noises all day long. He sits backwards on his chair and rocks it. He hits his chair against the desks. He shakes his desk. He turns around and tries to draw the other children’s attention by hitting on their desk. He stands on top of his desk. He throws other children’s things such as rulers or shoes about. He can concentrate and work well for a short time if he is interested in something, but then his attention is distracted and everything starts all over again. The slightest thing is enough to distract his attention. He needs a lot of individual guidance before he is able to work quietly or to concentrate. It is particularly during the arithmetic lesson (arithmetic problems) that he is very boisterous and that he is easily distracted because he has great difficulty with arithmetic problems.’
• The teacher makes him start his exercises earlier or she takes him by the hand or lets him sit on her lap so that the other children can work quietly.
• He doesn’t like to go outside. He prefers staying inside the classroom.
• He constantly needs attention in class. When the teacher looks at him and pays attention to him, everything is fine. But as soon as she looks away, he does anything to draw her attention.
• He makes a lot more noises and his behaviour is even more annoying when there is a new teacher.
• When the teacher gives the children an explanation prior to a test, he doesn’t listen and does something else in the meantime: for instance, he makes noises or runs about. He is unable to do the test then, and he draws figures and numbers on his sheet of paper. Every test sheet is always full of drawings
• Apart from what the children are supposed to draw when they have drawing-lesson, Tijs also draws figures and numbers. He only wants to make a limited number of drawings and refuses to make any more.
• When they have drawing-lesson, he cannot remember the order in which the materials have to be cleared away even though the children have done this many times before.
• He becomes very boisterous when he has to wait or if he doesn’t know what to do.
• He always hits the seats in the school bus.
• He often says: ‘I cannot do this, it is too difficult’ during the arithmetic lesson. When you point out a mistake to him, he cries out in a strange tone of voice: ‘I won’t do it’.
• For the first contact with me (the therapist), he was accompanied by his mother. To kill time, he painted drawings in a colouring book (or he ran up and down the hall) while I was talking to his mother. At a certain moment I noticed that he appeared to be deep in thought, and I asked him: ‘Tijs, can you tell me what you are thinking of now’. It took a while before he managed to shake off his thoughts, and then he was unable to tell me what he had been thinking of. He couldn’t say a word. It was as if he hadn’t understood the question. And he immediately lost himself in thought again.
• When you talk to him, you sense that you do not get through to him. He seems to be listening to you from a distance. He doesn’t react at all or his only reaction is a strange smile and indifference.
• He is regularly deep in thought. He gets totally absorbed in himself or in his activity and then he doesn’t hear anything at all. He doesn’t hear it when somebody speaks to him. He just carries on doing what he was doing.
• He often talks to himself, especially in the evening.
• He doesn’t seem to belong to this world when he has his meals. He is completely lost in a world of his own. He and the food are the only things that matter. He enjoys his food immensely. He carefully arranges the food on a cloth in front of him. When you ask him a question while he is eating, he doesn’t even notice.
• He sometimes cries his heart out all of a sudden, both at home and at school. When you ask why he is crying, he doesn’t know or he is unable to tell.
• His behaviour is unnatural. His facial expressions are not spontaneous. He sometimes pretends to laugh heartily, but it is a forced laugh.
• He is unable to make contacts with other children apart from his brother. He doesn’t know how. Instead of just saying what he wants, he teases the other children. He pokes another child in the back with a pencil, he pulls another child’s T-shirt, he gives the child a push or hurts it, he keeps saying the child’s name, etc. That teasing usually ends in a row. Tijs does not show any feelings of guilt when the other child starts to cry. He doesn’t realize it when he hurts another child.
• He feels ill at ease in groups. When he enters a group of unfamiliar people, he agitatedly rubs over his head or his hair for a long time, or he hides in a corner or goes to the adjacent room. He stays there until somebody comes to get him, but he goes back to his corner or to the other room as soon as he gets the opportunity.
• In gym class, he distances himself from the other children when they get excited. When he joins the group again, he seeks attention by displaying annoying behaviour.
• When he needs toys or materials for playing a game with a group of unfamiliar children, he lets the other children take everything. He doesn’t dare to take anything. He just stands there watching and waiting, without doing anything at all.
• When another child takes something away from him, he doesn’t say anything. He just gets very angry and hits or bites the child.
• He doesn’t know that he can ask for help. When there is something he is unable to do, he doesn’t say that he doesn’t know how to do it and he doesn’t ask for help either. He just makes noises or he repeatedly hits the table with his pencil instead.
• He doesn’t say what he feels or wants. For instance, when he has finished eating and he would like some more food, he hits with his hands on the table or he starts making noises instead of asking for more food.
• He sometimes imitates the behaviour of other children. When a child writes in a certain way, he starts to write that way too. When there are boisterous children around, he becomes boisterous too. He imitates them while displaying remarkable behaviour, by pulling faces or by making noises.
• He doesn’t understand people’s emotions or facial expressions. A big smile appears on his face when his mother or his teacher is angry. It is as if he laughs in our face, but that is not true. It is just his way of dealing with anger. When his teacher asks him: ‘do you like pushing other children?’, he smiles
• He doesn’t know the difference between anger and sadness. He cannot tell whether his mother is angry or sad. He is unable to see or to sense that there are certain things that people don’t like. When he teases a child and when that child makes clear that it doesn’t like what he is doing, he just carries on. The more the other child protests, the more fun he has. He doesn’t understand that the other child does not like what he does, and he just carries on with a strange smile on his face. When he is reprimanded, he reacts with a smile of amazement.
• He often pulls a strange face when his mother is angry, (the corners of his mouth are turned down, his chin is tense, his eyes are bulging), and he imitates the sounds made by his mother. He produces sounds at a very high pace.
• He doesn’t react when another child cries or has hurt itself.
• He cannot remember the names of his classmates.
• He wants to have and keep everything for himself. He doesn’t want to share anything with his brother. He doesn’t want to share with anybody, but he expects other children to share with him.
• He quarrels a lot with his brother, especially when his brother wants something from him or when they both want the same thing at the same time. Tijs gives his brother quite a lot of instructions about how he has to do things when they are playing together. When his brother does not do as Tijs demands, they start another quarrel.
• He is very dominant towards his brother. His brother has to do what he wants him to do. Tijs says: ‘now you have to do this and you have to do it like this’. He uses his brother for things he doesn’t like to do himself. He tells his brother to do it for him.
• When they draw with chalk on the ground together, they constantly quarrel over the chalk. Tijs always wants the largest pieces and sometimes they both want to use the same colour. When that happens, Tijs hits his brother and takes the piece of chalk he wants. Then his brother runs to their mother, crying: ‘Tijs hits me’.
• He has no friends.
• He never tells anything. He is very introverted. He never tells anything about school.
• He doesn’t know how to express his thoughts. When you ask him a question, he just answers with ‘yes’ or ‘no’. He cannot explain things. He doesn’t know how to use the vocabulary he knows. He uses the words incorrectly, for instance he mixes up words such as ‘think’ and ‘mean’.
• Sometimes, when you ask him a question, he smiles at you but he doesn’t answer. (Is it because he doesn’t understand the question or because he doesn’t know what to say?)
• When he doesn’t like a certain teacher, he says: ‘I don’t want that teacher’. If you ask him why, he is unable to explain. He wants to draw sometimes because he says he cannot get it out of his head otherwise. He tries to draw the things he is unable to say.
• He often stands watching forlornly and doesn’t know what to do. For instance, when his mother tells him: ‘now you can put on your coat’, he just stands there without doing anything at all.
• He doesn’t learn from his mistakes. He keeps repeating the wrong things over and over again.
• He can only play a game in one way and he is unable to deviate from it. For instance, he cannot play with a train anywhere else because there is no barrier there like the one he has at home. When things have to be cleared away, everything must be in the right place first. For instance, all letters must be arranged in the right order on the board before he is able to start doing something else. When he plays a game in which a floor puzzle with letters is used and in which the letters can be arranged in various ways, he always arranges the letters in alphabetical order (abcd…). There is no other way for him. When he plays with cars that follow a certain route towards the garage, he always follows the same route. There is no room for variation.
• He always does the same thing in the playground. He only plays one game: he and a few other children chase one another in the playground. He always ends up in the grass, which is not allowed. He is supposed to stay on the stones. Then he is punished and has to stand against the wall. That scenario repeats itself day after day.
• He likes to run back and forth between two walls. He does that often. He runs around a lot in the house.
• He is very impatient. He gets very nervous when he has to wait.
• When he accompanies his mother to the supermarket, he races wildly through the corridors with the shopping cart. His mother has to keep an eye on him all the time to make sure that he doesn’t crash into anything. He keeps asking: ‘when will we be finished? When do we go to the cash desk? How much longer are we going to be?’ in a plaintive tone of voice.
• He sits on a chair to get dressed. There has to be a mat on the chair. If there isn’t, he cannot get dressed.
• He always wants to have his coffee first; only then does he eat his sandwiches. There is no other way.
• When he gets home from school, he immediately starts to watch TV. Only then is he willing to eat. The TV always comes first. After that it is time to eat. He cannot eat before having watched TV.
• The various food items on his plate have to be arranged next to one another. They may not be mixed. There may be no sauce or grated cheese on any of the other food items. They have to be arranged next to the other food items on his plate.
• He is very perfectionist. When they have calligraphy at school, everything has to be perfect. In calligraphy class, the children have to write one line in which they write the same letter 10 times. When one letter is not as beautifully written as the other ones, he starts to cry and he shouts in a plaintive tone of voice and with great emphasis: ‘It is not beautiful. It is worthless!’. When he makes a mistake while reading and his mother point out his mistake, he gets in a panic and shouts in a plaintive tone of voice and with great emphasis: ‘I cannot do it, it is too difficult!’.
• The sheets and blankets have to be smoothed out. If they are not, he doesn’t want to climb into his bed. When somebody has sat on his bed, he doesn’t want to go to bed anymore.
• There are certain clothes which he refuses to wear: certain briefs and trousers, or shoes with laces.
• He almost constantly makes noises. Sometimes those noises are very loud, to the great annoyance of his mother and of other people. Those noises are the repetition of certain sounds such as ‘oy, oy, oy…’, ‘waw, waw, waw …’ etc., growling, grunting or screeching like an animal, or the endless repetition of a name or a word.
• He pulls all kinds of faces. For instance, he looks wide-eyed and curls his lip down, which annoys his mother.
• He needs ten minutes to wash his hands. He keeps turning the tap on and off. He just stands there and leaves the tap running, but he doesn’t do anything at all.
• He gets very angry about insignificant things several times a day. He starts to shout, stamp his feet, hit and cry loudly when he gets angry.
• It makes him frustrated when the tip of a coloured pencil breaks off. Instead of sharpening the pencil, he cries out: ‘stupid pencil, why does it have to break again!’ and he frowns and puckers up his brows.
• Everything he eats must be whole. For instance, when a piece of crust breaks off his slice of bread, he cries out: ‘the bread has broken, I don’t want to eat it anymore!’. When a small piece breaks off his piece of cake, he gets enormously frustrated and doesn’t want to eat it anymore. When a biscuit breaks while he is eating it, he makes a drama of it and doesn’t want to eat it anymore.
• He is very sensitive to criticism. If you tell him: ‘look, this is wrong’ or ‘that is not beautiful, you have to start all over again’, he replies (shouting): ‘I won’t do it then!’
• Things have to be done the way he wants. He gets angry when that is not possible. When he has something in mind that is not feasible, he becomes very frustrated. When there is something that needs to be done and Tijs has other plans, he cries out with great emphasis: ‘I won’t do it!’ and he imposes his will.
• He cannot stand any deviation from his daily routine. It makes him very frustrated. For instance, when he cannot play at the normal hour because he has to accompany his mother to the shop, he cries out (in a violent tone of voice): ‘no, not now, why do you have to do this now?’
• When he has to stop what he is doing, for example because it is time to leave, he stamps his feet and shouts: ‘not now, do we have to go again, I don’t want to!’. This happens every day.
• He often speaks and shouts in a plaintive tone of voice: for instance ‘it is cold!’. He uses a plaintive tone of voice for about everything he has to do.
• When someone plays a party game with him, he always wants to win. When he is playing cards and he has a bad hand, he doesn’t want to play anymore and he starts to cry. When he is playing dice and he gets an unlucky throw, he immediately cries (loudly and in a violent tone of voice): I’m not playing anymore, it’s just a stupid game!
• He wants to be the first to arrive at school and he wants to leave earlier because he wants to be the first.
• When the children have to walk in line, he wants to walk up front. He cries and gets angry when that is not possible.
• When other children walk on the path, he wants to walk in front of them. He pushes the others out of the way to be able to walk up front.
• He can make drawings with chalk on the ground for hours. Everything is fine when he can do that. At home he makes drawings on the drive all day long. He draws roads with traffic signs, and he particularly draws traffic signs depicting arrows. When he is making drawings on the ground, it is very hard to make him stop. He often does this during playtime at school too, and he gets very angry when he has to stop because the next lesson is going to start.
• He is highly interested in figures. He wants to have a clock in his room to be able to watch the figures. He always wants to know the time. He wouldn’t take it if there were no clock in his room.
• He is very good at arithmetic.
• His favourite toy is a calculator. He always has to have his calculator with him in the car.
• He is particularly interested in elevators. When he sees an elevator, he has to take it. Even when he only needs to climb one flight of stairs, he won’t take the stairs. He pushes all the buttons in the elevator.
• He has something with time. When he has to be ready in time for something, he is told several times but he doesn’t react. For instance, when he has to be ready to leave by 8 in the morning, he is told at 7.30 that he has to be ready by 8. He is told once again at five minutes to eight, and then he always reacts in exactly the same way: he gets very angry and cries loudly and with great emphasis: ‘always that time! The time is wrong, the time goes too fast, I don’t want it, now I don’t have enough time, now it is too late, now I have to do everything myself! (getting dressed)’, and he cries terribly, he shouts, stamps his feet, gasps for breath and gets terribly upset. This happens day after day. He keeps wasting time until it is almost too late and then he gets very angry. It drives his mother crazy.
• He doesn’t listen and then he forgets to do as he was asked. The teacher and his mother have to repeat themselves over and over again before he finally does as he was asked.
• When his mother asks him: ‘will you set the table?’, he is distracted by something else and he immediately forgets that his mother asked to set the table. That is why his brother sets the table, and then Tijs gets very angry because he wanted to do it. This scenario repeats itself every day.
• He refuses to obey, both at home and at school. He accepts no authority; he doesn’t observe the rules; he is very impolite. When he is asked to do something, he immediately starts to argue and he replies (loudly and with great emphasis): ‘I won’t do it, I just won’t!’ and he gets very angry. When there is something he doesn’t like to do, he simply doesn’t do it or he makes very plaintive noises if he does what he was asked to do.
• He doesn’t like clearing away his toys. He himself sits down in the couch and tells his brother to clear away the toys. His mother doesn’t want this and when she tells him that he has to do it himself, he starts to cry terribly and he shouts: ‘I won’t do it!’. This scenario repeats itself over and over again.
• About once a month he wakes up shouting at night and he keeps shouting even when his mother comes to see what’s wrong. It takes a quarter of an hour before he calms down and he doesn’t even notice that his mother is there with him. He keeps crying: ‘mama, mama’. He cannot say anything else anymore and afterwards he stands on his bed for some time.
• He is not good at sports.
• He has a sense of rhythm and dance.
• He suffers from eczema on his stomach and forearms. There are times when the eczema disappears to a certain degree and then it gets worse again.
• A couple of times a year, he gets boils somewhere on his body, especially on his legs.
DISTANCE TREATMENT
I (the therapist) work two hours a day and five days a week on the distance treatment. I focus my energies particularly on patterns that cause poor social contact. Meanwhile I touch lots of other patterns too.
Results after the first series of 50 hours (5 weeks)
• The teacher mentioned a few items in which an improvement is noticeable: Tijs sometimes behaves like a good boy in class. There are moments when he is much quieter. He displays his annoying behaviour less frequently, he makes less annoying noises, he doesn’t yell ‘Fil – lo’ as often as he used to.
• There are fewer quarrels between Tijs and his brother. It doesn’t happen often anymore that his brother runs to their mother crying and saying that Tijs has hit him. Tijs gives fewer instructions to his brother. He displays less dominant behaviour.
• He is more inclined to share things with his brother.
• At a certain moment Tijs wanted to watch TV, but his mother wanted to watch too. Until now Tijs’s reaction would have been to complain bitterly and to insist by saying: ‘it is my turn now’. But he did not cause trouble about the fact that his mother watched the programme she wanted to see; Tijs went outside and started to play with his brother.
• When he asks something to his mother, it is in a less insisting, in a less demanding tone of voice. He asks things more calmly. Now he says something like: ‘can I?’ instead of ‘I want!’
• Generally speaking, he is better able to adapt. Things no longer have to be done exactly the way he wants. He is better able to abandon the plan he had in mind and to participate in the new activity, even if it was not planned.
• Even when he is doing something and he is deep in thought, he hears his mother when she says something to him. He reacts to what she says, but he is unable yet to stop what he is doing. He continues his activity, but he does not get angry for having been interrupted.
• He is more inclined to do as he is told. His mother does not have to repeat herself as often as she used to before he does as he is told. He is slightly more obedient, he observes the rules more, he is less easily distracted, he sets the table when he is asked to, and he clears up when he is asked to.
• He makes fewer objections. He is more willing to do things he doesn’t like to do, and he no longer protests saying things like: ‘no, I won’t!’.
• The plaintive tone of voice has disappeared when he says something.
• There is more eye contact.
• He can express himself a bit better. Sometimes he no longer replies with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ when his mother asks something. When you ask him a question, he no longer smiles without saying anything. He always answers the question.
• He knows the difference between the words ‘think’ and ‘mean’. He no longer mixes them up.
• He has become a better loser when playing cards. It is obvious that he feels less frustrated when he plays cards.
• He is less aggressive, he doesn’t get upset as easily as he used to, and he no longer shouts, hits, stamps his feet, or cries. He doesn’t have fits of anger anymore.
• He is less frustrated about all kinds of things. When he does get frustrated, his reactions are less violent than they used to be.
• He no longer displays the rough, impatient behaviour in the supermarket. He is calm and he behaves like a good boy while his mother does her shopping.
• He is a bit more patient and he is better able to wait.
• He makes almost no noises anymore at home. He has stopped repeating names or words and he no longer pulls strange faces.
• He no longer talks to himself in the evening, but he still does during the day.
• He no longer displays affected behaviour.
• He has stopped smiling when somebody is angry.
• He no longer stands there ‘looking forlornly’.
• The problem of ‘time’, which repeated itself day after day, has gone.
• When he plays with the floor puzzle, he doesn’t mind anymore when the letters of the alphabet are placed in a different order. There would have been no question of that before.
• He is able to play a game in a different way. He follows different routes now with his toy cars.
• He has stopped making drawings with chalk on the ground for hours. He also plays other games now and he engages in different activities.
• He has stopped running around in the house. He no longer runs back and forth between two walls.
• He no longer insists on having his coffee first, followed by his sandwiches.
• The sheets on the bed no longer have to be perfect. Tijs doesn’t mind anymore when somebody sits on the bed.
• The ritual he performed when washing his hands has disappeared.
• He no longer insists on being the first to arrive at school or on walking in front of the line of children or on the path.
• He accepts that there is no clock in his room.
• The nightmares have gone and Tijs no longer wakes up screaming.
• At this moment he only has small spots of eczema, but that is nothing new.
• A boil just above his right knee has disappeared spontaneously. It is the first time that this has happened.
Those are very good results after a series of 50 hours. However, these results are not stable yet. Some of the improvements we have obtained could still become undone. That is because we have not yet peeled off all the layers of the patterns. Deeper layers surface at a later point in time and cause problem behaviour again. But since we keep working continuously, it doesn’t matter that certain things reappear because the next layers are peeled off anyway. That will make the negative behaviour disappear again.
Results after another series of 50 hours (5 weeks)
Tijs is very docile at home. There has only been one day that he had a serious row with his brother and that he bit and kicked his brother, but things were a lot better already the next day. In the classroom he is quiet and works quietly half of the time, but the other half he still displays to a large extent the annoying behaviour from before the start of the treatment. Nevertheless there are several negative points that have been remedied completely or that have improved considerably. There is also a slight improvement in his contacts with adults and other children.
We have six weeks to go before the end of the school year. In the hope of obtaining a considerable improvement in the annoying behaviour in this time span, the distance treatment will be intensified for the time being, i.e. six hours per day instead of two hours per day. Patterns concerning contacts with people will not be treated specifically this time; the patterns that cause the annoying behaviour will be. Like, for instance, a pattern in image form in which the following type of behaviour is programmed in order to get attention: crawling around in the classroom, standing up on a chair. Or : ‘wanting to be noticed and do things that are not allowed in order to get noticed’, ‘a compulsion to walk around’, ‘a compulsion to attract attention and therefore walk around in order to get attention’, ‘disobedience, a compulsion to do precisely those things that are not allowed’, etc.
Other changes are :
• Tijs was invited to the birthday party of another boy. This boy’s mother knew how Tijs used to behave until now. She was surprised to see that he participated in the games without making problems. Until now he was never involved. He always sat apart from the group. It also surprised her that he dared to ask an adult to push him on the swings. He would never have done anything like that before.
• Tijs’s mother had the chance to observe him in a group of 10 children. First he still tended to separate himself from the group, but when she insisted he was willing to participate in all the games without making problems. If anyone had managed to talk him round in the past, it would only have been for a very short while. If he had had the chance, he would have tried to separate himself from the group again.
• There is a slight improvement in his contacts with other children. So far he never took the initiative to make contacts with other children. The only contact he had was when he replied ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the question of another child (apart from his teasing). In this group he walked over to a girl and they sat whispering together. Then the two of them went to play on the swings. That is new too. Normally he would not play on the swings with a child of his choice.
• In other groups with children, the group leaders said that Tijs had played along all the time and that he had done nothing to attract attention. He had participated very well and he hadn’t tried to get especially noticed. In the past the group leaders sometimes took Tijs’s mother apart after a day of play to discuss his behaviour, his silly behaviour or his attempts to attract attention, his introvertedness and the fact that he separated himself from the rest of the group.
• He is still very introverted. He still doesn’t say anything of his own accord, and when adults ask him a question he often replies ‘yes’ or ‘no’. But it is obvious that he is better at making contacts with other children. He speaks to other children in the classroom, he asks them things of his own accord, and he seeks more contacts with other children his age.
• He dares to stand up for himself in a group of children: he dares to take the things he wants to play with. He doesn’t get angry anymore when another child takes something from him.
• He has stopped filling sheets of paper with drawings of figures and arrows. He no longer makes drawings with chalk in the playground.
• He understands better what he is supposed to do in class and he carries out orders correctly.
• He is less inclined to bother the girls, he is better able to keep his hands to himself.
• There are moments when he is no longer impolite to his teacher. On the contrary, he can be very sweet and polite.
• He is quiet when the children do their writing exercises, he does what he is asked to do.
• He no longer waves his arms. He makes noises less often, but he still makes sudden and strange noises sometimes while he is working quietly.
• He no longer sits backwards on his chair or hits his chair against the desks. He no longer hits the desks or stands on top of the desks.
• He has stopped throwing other children’s things about.
• Sometimes he doesn’t mind leaving the classroom. He doesn’t always want to stay inside the classroom anymore.
• When they have drawing-lesson, Tijs does his very best to draw and to knock things together.
• He is calmer in the school bus.
• He can listen very attentively sometimes. When somebody speaks to him, he is more attentive than before. He does his very best sometimes to participate.
• He can remember all the children’s names.
• He is able to share things with other children.
• He can remember the order in which materials have to be cleared away when they have had drawing-lesson.
• When they have calligraphy and when one letter is not written as beautifully as the other letters, he doesn’t react anymore. When his mother points out a mistake to him, he accepts it without panicking or without fear of failure.
• He has stopped talking to himself.
• He is no longer lost in a world of his own when he is eating. He talks to his brother while he is eating. He notices when somebody speaks to him. He no longer arranges the food in front of him in exactly the same way all the time.
• He notices when his mother is feeling sad. He asks her: ‘What’s the matter, mum?’. He never noticed things like that before and he didn’t care.
• He has stopped saying that he has to make drawings because it is the only way he can get things out of his head. He has stopped making drawings.
• He no longer has to sit on his chair to get dressed. He is now able to get dressed elsewhere. He is able to sit on his chair even when there is no mat on it.
• The order of eating and watching TV is not important anymore when he comes home from school. He is able to adapt to the situation.
• He paints less often than he used to. He makes no drama of it when the tip of a coloured pencil breaks off.
• He no longer minds when something that he is eating breaks. He continues to eat without making problems.
• He no longer closes the door before his mother has had a chance to come in.
Results after another series of 150 hours (5 weeks)
There are moments when Tijs’s behaviour in the classroom has considerably improved but, at other moments, his behaviour is still annoying (for one third of the time). Particularly the patterns such as: ‘a compulsion to get noticed’, ‘a compulsion to draw attention’, ‘a compulsion to walk around’ have only been destroyed to a certain degree, and they are still strong enough to manifest themselves clearly. As a rule, patterns of compulsion are more difficult to destroy than many other patterns of behaviour. A couple of other issues have been remedied partly or completely.
• He has stopped making annoying noises.
• There are moments when he is noticeably calmer in the classroom.
• He can move up to third grade next year, which is why he is now given exercises and subject matter for pupils of the second grade (the pupils of the first and second grade are in the same class). There are moments when he really concentrates on his exercises; at other moments he is still easily distracted.
• On Monday and Thursday mornings, he can go to the teacher giving extra coaching to pupils with learning difficulties (to do exercises) and he really does his best.
• There are no problems anymore at moments of transition. He willingly does what he is supposed to do.
• He no longer hangs around by the couch in the school corridor. He goes outside willingly.
• He no longer teases other children as often as he used to. There are fewer fights with other children. He is a bit more inclined to say something to other children. When he wants something, he asks for it.
• He is more attentive to what other people say and disobeys less often than before. The teacher does not have to repeat herself as often as she used to before he reacts and does what he is supposed to do. He protests less often.
• He is less impolite. He is even polite most of the time.
• He stays calm when he has a new teacher.
• He does not ‘cry anymore for no apparent reason’.
• He no longer distances himself from the other children in gym class.
• He has stopped imitating other children’s behaviour.
• He does not chase other children in the playground as often as he used to, and he no longer ends up in the grass. He participates in other games with the children.
• At home, when his mother says or asks something, she does not have to repeat herself as often as she used to. Tijs hears her. First he says ‘no’, but then he does as he is told. He notices more often when somebody says something.
• At home, he quietly plays with other children without teasing them. Sometimes he is able to tell them what he wants, for instance, when he wants to play a certain game. When he does not get what he wants right away he tries to have his way, but he accepts the situation when the others insist.
• It seems as if he understands people’s emotions a bit better. When his mother was angry, he asked: ‘why don’t you say anything anymore, are you angry?’. In the past he pulled a strange face when his mother was angry or he imitated her by making noises.
• He seems to be more observant where people and his environment are concerned.
• He can express himself a bit better. When his mother asked him at a certain moment: ‘what did that person say?’, he replied: ‘it is difficult’. That means that he was able to say that he found it hard to answer the question. Before he would have said: ‘I don’t know’. What’s more, he was able to repeat what this person had said. That means that there are more things which he notices or that he listens more carefully.
• He no longer makes a drama of it when his food items are not arranged next to one another in his plate or when there is some sauce or cheese on any of his other food items.
• He accepts it when he cannot take his calculator with him in the car or when he has forgotten it.
• He no longer cries without apparent reason. If he does cry, he is able to say why he is crying when somebody asks him this question.
• He is able to take criticism, both at home and in class. When somebody makes a remark, he gives it another try and he tries to do it correctly.
• He does not suffer from eczema anymore.
• No new boils appeared on his body since the start of the treatment.
From now on the treatment is continued at a rate of two hours per day. A great number of negative patterns of behaviour have improved in whole or in part. But Tijs is still very introverted. He doesn’t say anything yet of his own accord. Sometimes he is able to concentrate better, but it still happens very often that he is distracted by things in his environment. These two issues will be treated first now. One hour a day he will receive treatment for his introvertedness, and the other hour he will receive treatment for his concentration.
Results after another series of 100 hours (10 weeks)
The summer holidays are over. Tijs participated in a number of play camps, where everything went fine. The group leaders had no special remarks, except that Tijs participated well and that he behaved normally in the group and in contacts with other children.
The first two weeks of the new school year have passed. For the time being there are no problems at school. Tijs behaves appropriately. He has adapted smoothly to the new teacher and he likes going to school. When the teacher is standing with his back to the class, Tijs still displays a slightly teasing behaviour towards the other children.
• Tijs’s mother has had a short talk with the teacher. She was told that Tijs participates well, that he is quiet, that he listens attentively, that his behaviour towards other children is normal, that he still displays a slightly teasing behaviour, but that he does not seek attention anymore.
• At home Tijs’s mother notices that some of the issues for which there was a certain improvement, have cropped up again: Tijs gets frustrated again when a piece breaks off his biscuit. He becomes frustrated and angry when he is unable to do something (e.g. cut something out). Now and then he makes noises again for a short while, and the last couple of weeks the plaintive tone of voice returned when he didn’t like the food. There have been a few quarrels with his brother (it is normal that certain issues for which an improvement was noticeable crop up again because deeper layers surface. That doesn’t matter, those issues will improve again as the treatment continues).
• The contacts with adults are clearly different. When Tijs met somebody new, he would either have ignored this person completely or he would have become extremely boisterous (making noises, pulling faces, getting into mischief…) until now. Tijs went to a playground with his mother, his brother and an unfamiliar man. Tijs spoke to the man. He involved the man in his game. At a particular moment, his mother and brother went to one side of the playground and Tijs went along with the man to the other side and talked to him. Before he would have refused to go along with that person and leave his mother.
• Tijs’s mother has a new friend. Tijs has reacted very well. He spontaneously shook the man’s hand (instead of withdrawing into himself like he would have done in the past), and he spontaneously started to talk to the man. He spontaneously asked him questions (instead of not saying a word and of ignoring this person, like he would have done before).
• He is better able to express himself. Before, when he picked up the receiver, he didn’t say a word and apart from a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ he didn’t reply to what the other person said. Now he says his name when he picks up the receiver and he spontaneously gives an explanation. When the caller asks if his mother is there, Tijs spontaneously replies: ‘My mother is on a trip. She won’t be back until next Tuesday. My grandmother is looking after us now.’
• When he wants something, e.g. some more food, he still hits the table first but then he says that he would like some more food.
• When you ask him a question, he gives a bit more explanation than he did in the past.
• He is much calmer.
• He is able to concentrate on something for a longer time. For instance, he sets the table without getting distracted several times and without starting to do something else in the meantime. He is better able to concentrate on his homework than before, but further improvement will be necessary. He still gets distracted sometimes.
• He still doesn’t say much of his own accord. He is still very introverted, but it did happen a few times that he said something spontaneously about a pleasant event.
• There is an improvement in his contacts with adults and with children, but Tijs is still often in his own little world. He still has difficulty understanding other people’s feelings.
The treatment is continued at a rate of two hours per day. Tijs gets treatment for his introvertedness for one hour, and gets another hour for his concentration.
Results after another series of 100 hours (10 weeks)
So far we had achieved good progress with Tijs. Very many issues had improved or had been remedied completely. It looked as if Tijs belonged to the ‘fast group’. But now it turns out more and more clearly that Tijs makes a slow progress for certain issues and that he has regularly relapsed into old patterns lately, which had already disappeared. That is because deeper layers surface. Tijs does belong to the ‘middle group’. There is a slow improvement for introvertedness and concentration and for being locked in his own little world (as a rule this latter issue changes very slowly, even in people that are not autistic but that have a strong tendency to withdraw into their own little world).
Tijs’s mother has received some more information in the meantime about Tijs’s school results: Tijs is good at doing sums, but he has difficulty with arithmetic problems and language. Compared to other children, he is behind in language. Tijs also indicates that he doesn’t like language and dictations.
• Things went quite well in the month of September. Particularly at school it was remarkable how Tijs’s behaviour had improved compared to last year. The teacher and the headmaster had been expecting the worst, but they were surprised by Tijs’s positive behaviour. However, things started to go downhill from the month of October. Particularly during the last weeks of October, Tijs was difficult again at school.
• A few behavioural issues that had improved at home became highly apparent again the first two weeks of October: when Tijs could not have his way, he showed a highly frustrated reaction: he cried terribly, he got angry, and he violently protested in a plaintive tone of voice; he started to pull faces again to show his displeasure (corners of his mouth turned up or down, violent movements with his hands). Tijs did not listen to his mother anymore so that he did not hear what was being said about the things to be done. Tijs had become disobedient again towards his mother. At school the teacher wrote down remarks in his diary about his teasing (Tijs had been writing in other children’s notebooks, and he had pushed a paintbrush in other children’s hair); the teacher also made a remark about the fact that Tijs did not listen to the explanation when they were having a listening comprehension test so that he did not know what he was supposed to do afterwards.
• The last weeks of October there was an improvement again in the display of frustrated reactions and pulling faces, but there were other issues that had become worse: disobedience towards his mother, protesting and ignoring, not hearing what his mother said, making noises now and then. At school he displayed the following behaviour: teasing other children, walking around in the classroom, making annoying noises. It was difficult to make him do his work. He did not listen when things were explained, certainly not when the explanation was given in group. The teacher had to take Tijs apart to explain things to him. Then he did listen. Apart from that he was disobedient, he did not always want to do what he was supposed to do, or there were things which he simply refused to do. He bothered other children so that the teacher had to leave an empty desk between Tijs and the rest of the children. He was very absent-minded. He did not take the right books home. He displayed dominant behaviour towards his brother in the playground (his brother had to play what Tijs wanted to play).
• In the course of the month of November his behaviour gradually improved again, both at home and at school. All the negative points that had cropped up again disappeared. The third week of November, the teacher said during a contact at the school gates (during which Tijs was present) that Tijs participated very well, that he did everything he was asked to do, that he (the teacher) was very proud of Tijs, that things went perfectly, and that Tijs would be top of the class if he continued like that.
• Now and then he is less inclined to withdraw into his own world. He sometimes makes a remark, which shows that he is very attentive and that he listens to what is being said.
• There have been a few occasions when he spontaneously told something to his mother, for instance about what he had knocked together in class.
• As he was taking a walk in the woods with his mother, he saw a group of children from the youth movement and he wanted to go over to them. That is something he would never have done before. Even if he had noticed the other children (which is something that was not obvious for him in the past), he would certainly not have wanted to make contact with them.
Results after another series of 130 hours (13 weeks)
The treatment has been going on for about a year now. Tijs has made a lot of progress in many respects. However, as for the issue of ‘being withdrawn into himself’, we have achieved only a slight improvement. This is a very difficult pattern. It consists of large amounts of matter and it is rooted in very deep layers of the subconscious mind. It may still take some time before Tijs is able to leave his own little world. Thanks to the fact that the patterns are automatically and continuously peeled off night and day, we will be able to remedy this issue completely in the longer term. Without the automatic peeling off, it would be as good as impossible to correct this issue to an important extent.
A few other character traits have to be corrected as well. It still happens too often that Tijs wants to do as he wishes in class. When they have a dictation of words, Tijs now gets the maximum score. But when they have a dictation of sentences, he does not feel like writing and he does not make a lot of effort. He does not always want to make an effort when they are doing sums or when they have to solve arithmetic problems either, although he is able to do things like that. His concentration has improved, but he still gets distracted and absent-minded sometimes. When there is something he has to do, he is still inclined sometimes not to do it or to do something else – just to challenge. He still gets a little angry sometimes. But generally speaking, there is a very positive evolution in Tijs’s behaviour in class in comparison with the start of the school year (now it is the beginning of March).
• Tijs is very quiet in class. Only when a photographer came to school towards the end of November, he was rather boisterous. But apart from that his behaviour is almost exemplary.
• He pays attention in class. Hence his school results have improved considerably.
• His dictations have improved significantly. He is better at language in general. Now he even prefers language to doing sums, and he is doing fine when they have to solve arithmetic problems.
• He has stopped teasing other children.
• He is perfectly able now to work with other children in a group if it is a small group. He is now also able to work together with the girls. He no longer teases them. His collaboration in large groups still has to improve.
• Until now he could not accompany his classmates to the library because he was difficult and because he displayed remarkable behaviour (e.g. walking apart from the group). Now he can accompany his classmates without problems because he behaves perfectly.
• When he accompanied his mother to the library in the past, he could not make a choice from the various books. Now he chooses the books he wants to read without problems.
• His mother has the impression that he understands things better. She can tell by his facial expressions. He has a look of recognition or of understanding on his face as if he wants to say ‘ah, that is how it works’ or ‘I understand what it is all about’.
• He absorbs more of the spoken language. He still doesn’t hear everything that is being said, but there is definitely an improvement.
• Now and then he spontaneously talks about things that have happened. For instance, he spontaneously told his mother that the teacher had chided him. He was able to explain what had happened and he was able to explain that another child had urged him to do something naughty and that that was why he had done it.
• When he is punished, he understands why he is being punished. When his mother asks him to explain why he was punished, he is able to. In the past he didn’t even know.
• He is a bit less selfish. He sometimes does something for his brother spontaneously, e.g. bring in his brother’s school bag from the garage to the kitchen without having been asked. He would never have done something like that of his own accord before, and he would have refused to do it if anybody has asked him. He was never interested in somebody else. The only thing that mattered was what he wanted.
• He can adapt smoothly to new people.
• He has not suffered from eczema and boils anymore.
The treatment is continued at a rate of two hours per month. The issue that is worked on is his withdrawal into himself.
Results after another series of 150 hours (15 weeks)
It is the end of the school year. We have not achieved a lot of progress during this series. Once certain character traits that are susceptible to fast change have improved, it is normal that the next improvements are achieved more slowly. That is because the things that have not changed so far are the result of large patterns that are rooted very deeply. It may take many hours of therapy to remedy persistent issues.
Tijs went on a 5-day camp with the rest of the class at the end of the school year. These five days that he was away from home and that he was in a group all the time have turned out unbelievably well. That would have been absolutely unthinkable last year. Tijs was able to adapt to everything, he was able to play with the other children, and he participated well. He didn’t tease or hurt anybody. The teacher even said that Tijs was well liked by the other kids.
His school results were good. When they have to knock something together, he is quiet and he does his best. He is not distracted anymore. His concentration has improved when he has to perform tasks, but it is still difficult for him to concentrate when he has to listen.
His mother says that there are still certain behavioural issues at home that have to improve: he is still too much inclined to impose his own will to other children or to his brother when they are playing together. He still protests too much when he has to do something that he doesn’t like to do. When his mother asks him to go and get something from the garage, he does so willingly. But when he arrives at the garage he doesn’t remember anymore what he was supposed to get there.
As she was observing his behaviour in a group of new children, his mother noticed that he was feeling a bit ill at ease and that he kept himself apart from the others at first. But that did not last long and after a little while he participated with the rest of the group and he was able to adapt. He spontaneously helped the group with the clearing away, which is something he would never have done in the past.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PATTERNS
The patterns are described in exactly the same way as they are stored in the subconscious mind. Sometimes this is in the way of: ‘you may not adapt’ or in the way of ‘he (Tijs) may not adapt’. Sometimes the content of the patterns has been stored in concept form (‘you shall withdraw, you are safe on your own’) or in a narrative form, with images and feelings. The behaviour has been established in the form of a scene. In that case, the content of the scene is also described in the form of: ‘he wants to withdraw, he is safe on his own’.
Patterns may be in conflict with one another sometimes. A certain pattern may be active in one particular situation and an opposite pattern may be active in another situation.
Patterns for poor social contact
• You are tied to yourself
• There is no one but yourself, you are just yourself.
• You do not hear, you do not feel (this pattern is the cause of it that he doesn’t notice other people or that he doesn’t notice when they talk to him).
• You don’t like other people.
• You want to get away from the others.
• Cut yourself off, turn away (when somebody speaks to him).
• Don’t listen (when somebody speaks to him).
• Don’t hear (when somebody speaks to him).
• You should not listen.
• Is completely withdrawn in his own world and withdraws from the world and from other people. It is pleasant and safe there. It is very good in that world where there are no contacts with other people. He doesn’t want to have anything to do with people, he doesn’t want contacts with them. He loves to be on his own, he likes it that way, without the bother and the nagging of other people, away from all those annoying people. He feels very happy and peaceful when he is cut off from the world and when he can retire into that world of his own.
• Contacts are perceived as something unpleasant. Wanting to avoid contacts, wanting to be cut off from the rest.
• You don’t want to have anything to do with anybody, you cut yourself off, you withdraw into yourself, you feel so good and safe in yourself. Everything is just right that way. There is no danger then.
• Feeling uncomfortable and anxious in contacts with people, not knowing what to do in contacts with people. Withdrawing into himself is the only solution because then he feels safe.
• You feel lost with other people. The solution is to withdraw into yourself, to cut yourself off from the world and to be absorbed into yourself. Then you are safe, then there is no danger.
• Fear of people.
• He will never approach someone,. that thought doesn’t occur to him. He just stands there waiting. It doesn’t occur to him to make contact. Quite the contrary, he has a strong inclination to withdraw. He doesn’t like it when people seek contact with him. He prefers to just stand there. That is when he feels best.
• Being very focused on oneself, being very focused on one’s own interests, being highly self-oriented, showing little interest in other people, not being interested in anyone except oneself (= selfishness).
• ‘You cannot hear’ (what other people say). He sees that people are talking but he cannot understand what they are saying. It is as if there is a wall between himself and the other person, a wall that makes the words impenetrable. He feels an enormous abyss between himself and the other person when somebody speaks to him. It makes him feel terribly lost and frightened. The solution is to cut himself off from the world and to withdraw into himself. That gives the other person the impression that he is not listening and the other person gets the feeling that he is unapproachable.
• Having the feeling that there is something he would like to say and that he would like to make contact, but not knowing what to say. He cannot think of anything to say, and that makes him feel lost and wanting to withdraw into himself.
• Fear of contacts with people. Shame because he doesn’t know what to say. That makes him feel lost with people and that is why he avoids people, especially when he doesn’t know them.
• ‘You don’t understand what other people say, it is all so unclear’. That results in a fear of contact with people, which makes him want to cut himself off from them. He makes himself unapproachable to protect himself, he goes in a trance so that he is no longer approachable when people speak to him.
• You have to get attention. If you don’t, you just don’t exist.
• Having the feeling of being unable to make contact, which results in a feeling of great helplessness. The solution is to display rough behaviour, for instance pushing someone, as a way of making contact, in order not to be cut off completely from the others.
• A feeling of terrible loneliness because he is unable to make contact. That is why he does all kinds of silly things to draw attention for fear of not getting any attention at all. The fear of not being noticed by other people results in an obsession to get attention. Getting attention is the only way to escape the fact of being cut off from the rest. If he does silly things, he is punished. The others get angry and he gets attention. That makes him feel less alone. When somebody is angry, that person’s attention is fixed on him and he feels less alone. He feels a contact with other people that is not there otherwise. He has escaped the fact of being cut off from the others. The silly things he does, e.g. crawling underneath the table, throwing other children’s things about, etc. have been fixed in the pattern.
• You are unable to make contact, you don’t know how.
• There is no contact with other people, you are cut off, you are unable to express yourself, you are unable to say what you want to say, you are unable to understand what other people say, you are unable to communicate.
• There are no thoughts.
• You cannot find the right words.
• You are unable to express yourself, you are unable to say what you feel and think.
• He would like to express himself but the words do not cross his lips.
• You are unable to hear words, you are unable to understand language, it doesn’t register with you.
• There is no language, there are no words, you are not allowed to say anything, you cannot speak
• There is no communication, there is distance, everybody lives on his own, there is no mental connection with other people, the thread of contact has been cut through.
• He passes into a sort of trance when somebody speaks to him. He moves into a world where he cannot hear what is being said, where he is locked in himself. He cannot listen, he cannot pay attention when somebody speaks. He moves into a state of absence from the world.
• You can understand only yourself, you are unable to understand the feelings of somebody else.
• You are unable to understand facial expressions (this pattern is the cause of it that he reacts in an unexpected manner, for instance that he smiles when somebody is angry)
• You are unable to understand what other people think.
• You are unable to understand the world of other people.
• You feel no contact with other people, you are in your own world, you are tied up to yourself.
• What other people say is incomprehensible, it doesn’t register with you, you are unable to reply.
• You are unable to defend yourself, you don’t know how, + image of standing there forlornly
• Feeling alone, feeling a great distance with other people, staying there, not being able to make contact.
• When there is something he wants to ask, he is unable to. He is overwhelmed by fear, by a feeling of helplessness and by the feeling that he doesn’t know how to do it (ask for something). Just standing there as if paralyzed.
• He is completely lost in his own world, he is lost in himself, he is cut off from the world and from other people, the others don’t interest him, he is not interested in what happens to other people, in what other people feel. The only thing he knows and feels is himself, he has been glued to himself.
• He withdraws into his own world. The things other people say don’t register with him. It just passes over his head, he doesn’t hear and he doesn’t understand it. Only his own thoughts and activities interest him. Apart from that there is nothing that concerns him.
• Fear of eyes. He is unable to look people in the eye. Fear of people. He feels ill at ease with people. That is why he avoids eye contact. Eye contact makes him uncomfortable, it is as if people see the truth in him when they make eye contact. He wants to hide.
• A large group is very confusing, he gets lost in the group, it is as if the group becomes one whole and he ceases to exist. He doesn’t know anymore how to behave, he starts to rub over his head or his hair. He stands there as if paralyzed or he starts to crawl on the floor like an animal.
• you are locked up (meaning: in yourself).
Patterns for the low frustration threshold
• You must have your way, things have to be the way you want them to be. If not, you get frustrated + stamping your feet, hitting, anger.
• He is in his own little world, doing his own things. He is totally absorbed by them, he becomes one with them. For him it is the only thing that exists. The rest of the world has ceased to exist. An interruption is totally unexpected and creates a strong feeling of imbalance and frustration.
• An image of a chosen path that he follows precisely, in which he gets absorbed. When he is doing something, he gets absorbed by that activity. He cannot stand it when he has to stop what he is doing. That is why he reacts violently and starts to cry and becomes upset and furious.
• You are totally absorbed in your game, you become one with it, you become the game. An interruption feels as if you are broken yourself, it is an attack on yourself. You cannot understand that, you cannot just stop doing what you are doing + feeling of terrible fury.
• ‘You are interrupted’ + an overwhelming feeling of anger and powerlessness.
• Everything affects you, everything is frustrating.
• Every irregularity is frustration. When something is called off, when something is stopped unexpectedly, you feel an enormous frustration + the feeling of frustration.
• You cannot stand it when something is stopped, things have to follow each other (an action). An action may not stop prematurely, an action has to have a beginning and a normal end. When an action is stopped or interrupted, it creates such a terrible feeling of frustration that only shouting and hitting and stamping your feet can relieve that highly unpleasant feeling. Shouting, hitting and stamping your feet makes the highly unpleasant feeling go away little by little.
• Showing a feeling of frustration by speaking in a plaintive tone of voice or by protesting, an intense feeling of self-pity and of sadness.
• ‘Things may be done only this way and not any other way’. Due to this pattern, Tijs always has a certain expectation of how things are going to be and he doesn’t take into account any other possibility. In his mind there is only one way and that way is self-evident. When something happens in a different way, it is so unexpected and unbearable that he feels a terrible frustration and that he expresses this frustration by getting furious.
• You are unable to let something pass (meaning: you are unable to adapt). When something cannot take place the way he had in mind, it makes him feel terrible.
• Nothing may change. Everything has to stay the way it is. There may be no variation. Everything has to stay exactly the same. If not, it leads to frustration.
• Not being able to bear that things change. A change of a particular line or a chosen path is incomprehensible and very traumatic and frustrating. It is self-evident that everything stays the way it is. It is unnatural when something changes + the sentence ‘why does it have to be like that?’ (which is literally what he says when something has to be done in a way that differs from the way he had in mind).
• You feel terrible when something goes wrong, you feel terribly frustrated.
Patterns for annoying behaviour in class
• A pattern with an image of: an ostrich running around agitatedly and making noises, a snake crawling over the ground and hissing, an owl flapping its wings and making noises, a frolicking hare, an animal stealing food from another animal’s hole and fighting when the other animal wants the food back, a crowing cock, etc. When this pattern is active, Tijs adopts the personality of one of the afore-mentioned animals and he displays a behaviour that looks or sounds like that of the animals.
• A compulsion to walk around.
• A compulsion to get attention.
• A compulsion to get noticed.
• A compulsion to be the centre of attention.
• A compulsion to tease others + images of how the teasing takes place, in what way he has to bother other children, for instance by pushing, hitting, kicking them, putting something in somebody’s hair, etc.
• In a situation in which the teacher’s attention is not fixed on him, he has to do something to draw attention. He teases children because then he is chided and he draws the teacher’s attention.
• In a situation in which he has to sit still in a group and listen to someone that stands in front of the classroom, he feels himself disappear into nothingness. It is as if he ceases to exist. It makes him feel uncomfortable, he is overwhelmed by a ‘fear of disappearing’ (ceasing to exist). He wants to escape it, he doesn’t want to feel it, and the only way to escape is to make sure that he constantly distances himself from the group by displaying a behaviour other than sitting still in the group and listening to someone standing in front of the classroom. The various types of behaviour such as walking around, standing on top of his desk, pulling someone’s hair, shouting, hitting with his ruler or throwing things about, etc. are programmed in the pattern.
• He needs to move, he cannot and may not sit still, he needs to be in action.
• When something changes (a transition to a different activity), it is frustrating and surprising for him because in his way of thinking an action that has started has to continue. Even though he has seen the transition before, to him it is as if it has never taken place before. He wants to continue the action, so he displays a difficult behaviour and he protests in order to have his way.
• You cannot understand the world around you. You don’t know how things have to be done, you are in your own little world and you do what comes into your mind (e.g. standing on top of the desk, pushing another child, hitting a child with a ruler, standing up and walking around …).
POSITIVE QUALITIES
• Sense of music
Energy: an energy that is responsible for very fine aural perception, for hearing very fine tones, an energy thanks to which he is extremely sensitive to the smallest difference in tone, an energy that gives an impulse to the brain so that refined sensory neurons are created to improve aural perception.
Energy: an energy of serenity, of absolute peace and calm, a feeling of happiness when perceiving certain sound waves.
Energy: the energy of ‘music’, the whole of tones, the creation of tones, tones that blend into a harmonious whole.
Subsoul: that can create music, that is and has the quality ‘music’ is, that creates a harmonious combination of tones.
• Sense of rhythm and dance
Energy: an energy that leads the body of Tijs as he dances, that creates flowing movements that are in harmony with the music.
Energy: that catches the tones of the music and makes the body move in harmony with it.
Subsoul: that has control over the body and that makes the body move in harmony with the tones of the music.
Subsoul: that has a repertoire of dances and that leads Tijs as he dances.
• Special intelligence for numbers and an aptitude for arithmetic
Energy: intelligence for that type of knowledge
Energy: an energy that contains the whole spectrum of arithmetical calculations and their results. Tijs only needs to draw on the supplies. He doesn’t even have to reason for it. The knowledge comes to him, he just knows the answer.
Subsoul: that supports the brain when doing arithmetical calculations: that adds an energy to the brain, as a result of which the brain tissue is fed and chemical processes in the brain go faster.
Subsoul: that has knowledge and control over the chemical processes in the brain and that controls chemical processes
Subsoul: that does sums and calculations, that has mathematical knowledge. The answer comes to Tijs, he just knows the answer, he doesn’t even have to reason to know the answer.
