Thread by @suzannezeedyk

THREAD. This is crucial for us to understand. This is what James Robertson wrote about in the 1970s. This is what I wrote about in 2014. This is what @childinmind wrote about last week. CHILDREN’S PAIN BECOMES TOO MUCH FOR US ADULTS TO BEAR. So we leave them alone with it.

https://twitter.com/martinbarrow/status/1466832285345492993

2. Here is James Robertson in 1970 on Professional Anxiety. "The worker’s defence agnst pain may cause him unwittingly to avert from the child whose extreme distress is painful to see. Young childrn tend to be seen en masse, only fleetingly as people." robertsonfilms.info

3. Here is me in 2014: "Children’s distress is too sharp for us, as adults, to risk feeling ourselves. So we tell ourselves, consciously and unconsciously, that it’s not ‘that bad’, that a child will get over it."
suzannezeedyk.com/why-profession…

4. Here is @childinmind speakng of the same thing last week: "He described a sense of helplessness as he listened to t child's cries of despair in the grip of complete disorganization....Persian poet Rumi wisely said, 'The cure for the pain is the pain.'"
claudiamgoldmd.com/2021/11/30/lis…

5. Here is Isabel Menzies-Lyth in the 1960s, talking of how the bureaucracy of professional systems refuses to acknowledge or contain or HELP WITH the underbearable anxiety that their staff feel. Thus: "The real nature of the problem remains untouched." psycnet.apa.org/record/1989-97…

6. And here is @Harr_Ferguson yesterday in @guardian : It’s a very painful truth that when faced with the helplessness of children, social workers and other professionals can become helpless because they find the children’s suffering unbearable." theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

7. Until WE get FiercelyCurious abt how our own psyches work, t professional neglect of children will never end. Until WE work in a self-reflective, trauma-informed way, t professionl harming of children will never end. It can't. Because t real nature of t problem remains denied.

8. Start with the adults in the room. EACH & EVERY ROOM. Unless WE can sit with discomfort - terrible aching discomfort - we cannot prevent and heal pain. We have to be able to SEE it, to TOLERATE it. Or else our biology compels us to turn away to the safety of denial.

9. Here is Helen Bamber, teaching us what we need to be able to do. "There was nothing at times I cd do for t survivors, other than to listen & to bear witness to the rasping out of their story." She ensured she ws STRONG ENOUGH TO BEAR WITNESS TO PAIN. theguardian.com/law/2014/aug/2…

10. When we are not STRONG ENOUGH to BEAR WITNESS to PAIN, we abandon the person, the child, the BABY who is suffering. We leave them alone with the pain - without comfort. This makes everything worse. Of course it does. There is no healing & no prevention. There is only denial.

11. You don't have to force yourself to revel in all the graphic details of ths terrible story. That's not t point. You just have to force yourself NOT TO TURN AWAY into the safety of denial. WE DAMAGE CHILDREN. Acknowledge it. Without pinning blame. Then get #Brave. Take Action.

12. Right now all sorts of harm is being done. @Ofstednews is operating "with a lack of humanity" toward schools. That's how @MichaelRosenYes described it this morning. Their use of power is *damaging children*. FIX THAT PROBLEM. theguardian.com/education/2021…

13. Midwifery services are overwhelmed, so mothers-to-be (yes, 'mothers', not 'pregnant people') are being left feeling uncertain as they get ready to give birth. That anxiety risks *harm to children*. FIX THAT PROBLEM. theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2…

14. Not powerful enough to fix those systems? Fine. No problem. Then just find ways to BE KIND. @eliistender10 talks abt this all the time. Kindness isn't frivolous. It's not sweet or a luxury. The simple KINDNESS of listening to pain takes great strength.

https://twitter.com/eliistender10/status/1467094905419878400?s=20

15. One way to describe a 'trauma-informed approach' is that it brings t KINDNESS OF LISTENING TO PAIN into our ordinary practice. You begin to realise how poor our society is at this basic complex kindness. We don't listen to childrn's stress, to feelings. We focus on behaviour.

16. We do that because that's what we are taught to do by our culture. 'Managing children's behaviour' is just normal. Here's @Prev_Justice talking today about how his behaviour was managed by adults through a battering.

https://twitter.com/Prev_Justice/status/1467124163961929733?s=20

17. START WITH FEELINGS. Start with the ability to TOLERATE our own emotional overwhelm, so that we can help children w/ theirs. Then build systems that support professionals in managing their own overwhelming anxiety. Menzies-Lyth shows us how to do that. melanie-klein-trust.org.uk/resources/cont…

18/end. UNTIL WE DO THIS, childrn will always be harmed (yes, and die!) at t hands of our system. Until we embrace human anxiety processes, we block our ability to see the source of the problem. Let's help each other foster #FierceCuriosity. No one has to do this alone.