“19…20…21….22…23…24…yes! 25…26…27…”
Adam, a tall, athletic and fiercely, competitive, yet emotionally fragile 8 year-old and I have moved the Eames chairs to the side, clearing an open space of carpet next to a section of wall about 3 feet high under the window of my 8th floor office. Beyond, I have a view of West Los Angeles, the Santa Monica and LA airports, Palos Verdes in the distance and – to the right – Santa Monica Bay where on clear days you can see Santa Catalina.
We’re on our knees playing what is called “handball” on the schoolyards these days. Not the handball of my youth which consisted of hitting a small pink ball with the palm of your hand against the back wall of a specifically designed court, rallying with your opponent in game not unlike squash or racquet ball. This game is played by lines of children – with a ball of any size, but usually that of a four-square ball against any wall you can find. One player hits the ball which bounces the ball on the ground, hits the wall, bounces on the ground again, then the next player has to do the same: hit, ground, wall, ground. You hit it with your hands, and the standard strike is a hands-together, elbows-bent swing – somewhat like a two-handed forehand (or backhand). If it’s two player, you just take turns, but if there are more, you stand in a line, each player getting one hit and then stepping out of the way for the next player. You miss, you’re out. There are odds and ends of complex, arcane rules. For example, if you strike the ball and it hits the wall before bouncing the ground it is called, an “American”. Sometimes these are OK, but in our current game, they are not. There is also a term for a ball that hits the wall and ground simultaneously.
We’re using what used to be a nerf basketball that had a textured rubber cover over a foam ball. It was brought in by Oscar, a kid with developmental delay with whom I used to play volleyball or baseball with Kleenex boxes. We had one box specifically designated for the task – reinforced with scotch magic tape. We’d play until it disintegrated and make a new one. His mom, who came in once to join the game, blessedly bought him (and me) this actual ball, which served us quite well for a long time.
Oscar – a 6 year-old in an 8 year-old’s body – and I developed a curiously realistic baseball game. My office is quite small, so we could only stand about 3 or 4 feet away from each other, ottomans separating him and me. When at bat, he stood in front of the couch. A large pillow behind him served as the strike zone. I would pitch to him (for his half of the inning) and he, standing sideways in a right-handed batter position, would swing with his arms and fists. We developed a set of somewhat malleable rules regarding foul and fair, singles and doubles and home runs. The point of it, from the therapist perspective was to undertake some (any) activity that engaged him (and didn’t exhaust me). This engagement I consider to be about three-fourths the battle of working with a child or adolescent. Once achieved, the play gave us plenty of chance to address issues that he faced in his life: needing to win, dominate, cheat if necessary….
It doesn’t have to be a competitive game. With Oscar, before baseball, there was the “police game” which we played for months. Someone commits a crime, a bad guy. The police come and arrest him. He gets dragged up before the judge who, finding him guilty, sentences him, and he goes to jail. We took turns playing different roles. I knew that transgression, capture, punishment was a theme in Oscar’s life, and it was exciting and therapeutic to play it out. After a time, I worked in Penny, his younger sister, as the victim which allowed Oscar to explore murder, mayhem, judgment and punishment in varying roles. I was usually the prisoner, locked in jail (the couch) by two ottomans (which bruised my shins quite often). Repeatedly, he would allow me to escape and then capture me again, happily extending my sentence. This too, as in many things, got increasingly complex. But, emotionally, it allowed me/him to pound little Penny gleefully and at the same time rush to her defense and punish the perpetrator. It was, in its own way, quite wonderful and gave voice to a whole set of raging conflicts inside of him.
As he got older and resolved this set of issues (there was a family meeting or two, discussing the problems with wanting to push Penny down the stairs and pointing out that it could hurt or kill her and not to do it – I generally have a lot of faith in kids and people in general being able to process this stuff if you just say it and put in on the table. You can barely imagine the glee and relief in the eyes of some kids (and grownups) when you just say what they’ve been afraid to think…), we moved on to baseball, which was something that he became, in his developmentally unique way, quite obsessed with. I learned that he watched a recording of the 2004 Red Sox World Series victory countless times. It was so important that a major consequence for bad behavior at home was not being allowed to watch baseball on that afternoon or evening.
In the process, however, he absorbed a remarkable amount of baseball lore and lingo. So that as we stood facing off as pitcher and batter, ottomans between us (hitting or short of the ottomans was foul territory) and the backs of the Eames chairs delineating the first and third base foul lines, he was wont to narrate/broadcast his progress. “…And Oscar breaks off a wicked slider…swing and a miss!” or “…Ohhh. Just outside. What a pitch.” He would at times bring in relief pitchers and take them out of the game if they were ineffective.
The strike zone (which was his idea, by the way) was remarkably effective. If the ball hit any part of the pillow behind him on the couch, it was a strike. If it missed, it was a ball. The additional thing is that it allowed (again, he figured this out) for strikeouts on foul tips. If you tipped the ball and it didn’t hit the cushion, it was a foul ball; if you had two strikes on you and you tipped it and it hit the pillow, then it was as if the catcher caught the foul tip for a third strike.
The game quickly became quite challenging and competitive. I found that, being 6 foot 4, the strike zone cushion at the back of the couch was quite low (essentially from my upper thigh to my shins). If I stood upright, it was nearly impossible to hit the ball squarely and not top it, sending it foul into the ottomans. And given the proximity of the pitcher and the fact that Oscar could really wing it when he wanted to, making good contact in any position wasn’t a given. Getting hits (much less the three or four in an inning that would generate a run) was not easy at all. Striking out was more the rule than the exception. In addition, given how close we were, I pretty much had to commit to swinging before he released the ball. So, he could easily throw a pitch far enough outside that I could not possibly reach it, and, if I had decided to swing, there was nothing to do. Conversely, if I decided to take and he threw one in the strike zone…well, that was it. I took to trying to read his eyes for where the pitch was going. Worked sometimes, but not always.
Oh, and did I say this was therapy? Hmmm. We’ll get back to that, after I cover some more of the really important stuff.
The mean thing he did was that he wouldn’t let me kneel or sit down. To have been able to would have put the strike zone approximately in my wheelhouse without having to stand in a half crouch. If I didn’t do a semi-squat, I had no chance of getting a hit. But doing so was exhausting and if I was tired and sat back on the arm of the couch, he would make me stand. Then, to be at all competitive, I had to squat, and with no quads or glutes plus a sore back it was torture. Some days I could have killed that kid.
But I have digressed from my digression, which were the pitcher-batter duels that ensued. I’ve covered some of it from my batter perspective, but where I got really lost in this game was as the pitcher. I found that it was remarkably like baseball. I could set him up with a couple of low inside fastballs, which he would foul off or miss, and then come back with an outside pitch, which he would miss. I mean we got into that whole pitcher-batter territory duel for control of the plate. Because he instinctively figured this out and would crowd the plate, taking away my outside strike. So, I’d have to pitch him inside to get him to back off the plate, before I could come back and hit the outside corner. (Sometimes I’d get frustrated, because he could just stand there and get hit by the inside pitches or just foul them off indefinitely, so I’d just say he had to back off). But, like a regular baseball game, I had the whole strike zone to work with. I could get him to go after a couple of high pitches and then come in for a low strike – or vice versa. And I could make a terrible mistake and come in with a high fastball when he was waiting for it and Bam! Home Run.
For what it’s worth, there was some therapy; I worked it in around the normal things that came up in such games. Arguing over balls and strikes, foul balls, etc. It was so important to him to win and be the super guy Oscar Home Team that he was not incapable of saying that a strike, which hit the edge of the pillow, had not hit the pillow at all. Which of course he could not really see. And in the absence of the first base umpire, check swing calls were a problem.
At first, it was just helpful and therapeutic for him to beat me time after time. Sometimes in a close game, sometimes by a lot. I could gauge his level of frustration and emotion and work with that. And when he would cheat or change the rules, at first I would let it go. Then gradually I began to challenge him about it – both for him to be able to understand and tolerate the disappointment – finding out, hopefully, that though it felt like the end of the world that it was OK. But, I have to say, the sadness and fear that a kid like this has around losing is so huge. Which makes sense because so much of life has been so difficult, so not normal, so constantly less than or behind. (God he loved his days in the sun on the ball field in the office). So it could be complex.
And intense. Because there were just some days when I hated losing and being humiliated out there. And he could rub it in. On those days, I had to be careful. I would try to take my reaction as one that undoubtedly happened with would-be friends and playmates – this bossy, controlling guy who not only arranged it so he would win but annoyingly celebrated in my face about it. So I could use this well – but boy it was important not to go all the way back to the anger and frustration I could feel – as the actual player in the game – wanting to get mad or cry in frustration at losing to this cheater.
And why didn’t I beat him? Well, after a number of months, I did. For a long time, when I saw him starting to come unraveled if he was challenged too deeply, I would ease off, let him have a few hits. And he would leave triumphant. This is easy for me because, neurotically, I have done this in competitive situations throughout my entire life. But as I challenged him further, he got better and better at standing up to the adversity.
The real challenge for me became actually beating him. As the adult, most of the time with smaller kids, even bigger ones, you can win if you just try or set your mind to it. True in card games, in chess (though I’ve had my share of kids who were much better at it), checkers, or office baseball. But this particular game wasn’t like that. If I wanted to stay even with him or beat him, I really had not only to bear down, but to be having a really good day – and for him to be a bit ‘off’. If he was at the top of his game and I was only so-so, I really couldn’t beat him. There were times when I knew I could strike him out at will – but not that often. It was that baseball thing. I still had to come back and put a pitch over the plate. And that gave him a chance to swing at the ball and to hit it. And the smallest mistake would be exploited. Two or three of those and a little luck and a 0-0 tie would become a 1-0 or 2-0 loss. And at the plate, I could be at his mercy. I would really have to concentrate, be in good enough shape to half-squat for a half hour or so, focus on the ball, make good guesses as to the pitch that was coming and make a good swing. More than once, after fouling off a ball that he had mistakenly thrown right down the middle, I was left muttering, “That was my pitch….” Or being the broadcaster saying, “Oh My! That was his chance. He may not see another one of those today.”
There was also the matter of the change-up. Properly set up, it could be deadly. Even at that distance, the difference between a fastball and a change is enough to make at least for a foul ball down the third base Eames chair line if not a BIIIIIIIG swingandamiss for steerike threeee. This was not lost on Oscar, who did have an array of pitches, the nastiest of which he called his “wicked slider.” It was a fast pitch, released with about three-quarter delivery that came diagonally down and across the pate from inside to outside. Properly thrown, it would just catch the lower outside corner of the pillow strike zone and was really unhittable.
So to get three or four singles in an inning, meant real concentration at the plate, paying attention to the count, reading his eyes and his motion, knowing his patterns and habits, and…..well, you get the picture. Where oh where has the therapy gone as this 53 year-old 6’ 4” bald, skinny shrink is hunched over, trembling at the knees, thinking “OK, it’s 3 and 1, should I take or is this coming down the middle? There are two out and I’ve got a man on third. One hit will tie the game. C’mon, focus. You can do this.” And I decide he’s coming in with a strike and he throws one outside that I miss completely. “Oh, folks! What a pitch by Oscar!” Says this cheerful round 5 year-old in an 8 year-old body. And I’m agreeing (being both a good sport and sometimes a good therapist) But I’m still thinking, “OK, 3 and 2, 2 out. He’s likely to nibble the corner…”
OK. And back to the original story – ballgames with Adam.
We are playing with this same ball, which lost its cover some time ago, following violent games of Dodge Ball with Adam. There are several games. We stand at opposite ends of my small office, separated by a couch, Eames ottomans, and probably 7 feet of space. The game can be catch. This can be throw the ball so he has to jump for it. But for a long time, he preferred dodge ball. Which was pretty standard. Throw it as hard as he can (which is pretty hard for this kid) and if it hits me and I don’t catch it, it’s a point for him. If I catch it, it’s a point for me. If it misses all together, no point at all. Same when I’m throwing at him. When the ball had the cover, he could really wing it and it would sting a bit if it made contact. But worse, it was really hard to catch. So, he always won – because I could not bring myself to throw as hard as I possibly could at him and he didn’t feel the same constraint. When the cover of the ball came off – it became considerably softer and slower. Making the game not entirely even, but a little more possible for me to score from time to time.
The game also allows for considerable disputes and arguments and bending of rules and on-the-fly changes as well as inventions of rules. “Point for me,” I say, as the ball tips off his hip and into the door behind. “That didn’t touch me!” he argues, motioning with his hand the supposed flight of the ball not hitting him. Objectively, (that is with the use of instant replay) some of these claims are ridiculous and are clearly related to the score and his mood and his ability to tolerate any adversity. This is the therapy, big time, with Adam. And it can be quite painful and difficult. It can be quite maddening and infuriating if I feel like he really is cheating and is denying it. It’s a whole emotional world in itself – one that he lives 24 hours a day, recreated in my office.
While dodge ball comes back often, some weeks ago he suggested handball, and I was more than happy to comply. Here was a game that we could play evenly that lent itself to fewer arguments and rule changes. It was a standard game with preset rules. He could still argue that it was or wasn’t an American, and we got into big discussions about whether such and such was interference or not. But it was less physical (I could be on my knees) and it was easier to stay even with him, win a point when I wanted, and ease up when I wanted. I’m not sure I could win a head-to-head dodge ball match with him – unless he was having a bad day. But with some concentration, coordination and a bit of strategy, I knew I could bring off a handball victory at will.
So, for several weeks, we had our games. But at some point, I introduced, and he readily took to, let’s work together and see how many times we can rally without missing. One of us would serve – floor bounce, wall bounce, floor bounce – and other would return – floor, wall, floor. The pattern would repeat. We got better and better at it, getting up to 11 or 12 exchanges.
Today, we talked and played for 20-25 minutes. Then he started demanding to leave. I insisted he stay another 20 minutes until the end of the session. He suggested the-seeing-how-long-we-can=rally game, and we spent the next 15 minutes completely absorbed in beating our record. Me and him, on our knees, focused on this dilapidated grey ball that leaves flecks of foam on the carpet.
This task has its own athletic subtleties. I have to make sure that I hit it the proper distance from the wall, with the right amount of force, for it to bounce where it is easy for him to make a good return, allowing me to continue the sequence. A mishit by either of us can easily lead, in a few exchanges, to a ball so low or so close to the wall, it’s impossible to get. I have to do this, and he, on his side, has to instinctively concentrate and do the same. On this day, we quickly got to 11 and then 12. Then there were many misses due to various factors. He got a little distracted and silly, but pulled it back together. He rarely blamed me for a miss, though he might occasionally say, “C’mon!” And then we fell into that rhythm that any of us who have tried to set such records (bouncing a ball of the wall, hitting a ball up into the air with a tennis racquet, hopping on one foot – does everyone do these? I certainly did my share….) knows well. And we got to 23. Smashing our previous record. Celebrating, we set about it again. Many misses. And then several times getting to 21, 22 and not making it. That tension set in. I could feel it in myself, and I knew it was there in him. It was a psychological barrier. You get to thinking you’re almost there and how great it will be to beat that record and you break concentration and rhythm and you miss. On his side, he would start thinking and saying, “We have the record!” a few hits before the record. That would inevitably result in some error as the cherished record squibbled away.
Then, one time, we got into a rhythm, tensed up in the early twenties and…made it past! What ensued what one of those “zones”. Each hit was good enough. Each return was just right. If one of us got the ball out of its usual position, the other was able to bring it back. Working together and helping. Fully focused on the gray ball bouncing each time in the right place, hitting the wall then hitting the ground, bouncing up for the next hit. Reaching out and getting out of the way. We got to thirty. We got into the forties. I began to have my familiar distractions of can I keep this up? This is boring. Maybe I’ll let up. And then catching myself. He’s totally focused, and we get to 50. There’s a little laugh on both our parts and we go 53…54… things get a little off 55…. A heroic effort just gets the ball to the wall for 56 and that’s it! A new record! Twice the old one I say. We both look at each other knowing something is slightly off about the math. Then, it’s time to go and he happily runs out to his mom or nanny.
I pack up to go home, thinking, now that was a good day at work. Adam and I just focused and cooperated on a joint goal for 15 minutes. We set a world record. Playing and cooperating that long never happened before in my office. Not that long. And there was no need or hint on his part to be better or win or be right or anything. He was OK when we missed and was honest about it. No cheating either. Pretty great.
It just feels like he has never had that. Just that fifteen minutes of working on it together. Without who is bigger or brighter or better or going to win or being on the verge of decompensation if it doesn’t go his way.
Does this mean the progress and growth I think it does? I don’t know. Does this represent a growing capacity for contentment, to be in a social world? To feel secure with another person?
Any therapist would say, “of course!” and talk from whatever theoretical basis they have – cognitive, ego, relational, intersubjective, self, object relations, self-regulation. And, I confess, I think so too, or I wouldn’t be doing this.
But I always wonder. Does this represent anything at all, other than a random occurrence in an unstable kid’s chaotic world. Is it just the weather, or the stars, or the harmonious concordance of a day at school, his meds, his chemistry, a Friday afternoon? Receptors and cells and chemicals and intracellular messengers? And how much of the hatred, annoyance, arrogance, chaos, murder, violence and mayhem remain? And though I think something has happened over time – trust, integration, regulation – I don’t know. I’ll see. Will he walk out and start bugging his sister and pushing her around and poking his nanny and be saying “You can’t make me…” and wheedling for sugar or a toy? Or will he walk out and say, “Hey we set a record!” and be happy?. And not bug anybody?
And if he does, will anybody notice? Or will they just go on until he does something wrong again, and then jump all over him? And how much is that the problem? And those are other long and complex chapters.
For now, I’ll be happy with 56 returns and 15 minutes of focus and cooperation. The two of us thinking only of this ratty, grey ball, and bouncing it against the wall. He living his childhood and me re-experiencing mine. And maybe the belief that those moments of concentration and harmony and goodwill and success are another kind of medicine that in some ways have their own lasting effects on a kid’s conflicted, passionate and troubled brain. Maybe those are mini-drugs that do change things, that do have their effect. Maybe there is some mechanism in him, in all of us, that turns and seeks health and harmony if the door is only carefully opened, if sunlight is allowed in, if there is room for growth. Even in the face of chaos, discord and fragility. I don’t know. But I wonder.