The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog: Chapter 1 Reflection

Chapter 1 of Perry's book tells the story of his first child client, Tina, who endured sexual abuse during crucial developmental years, resulting in delayed development and trauma responses.  When reading this chapter, there are a few instances where I find that I relate to Perry's experiences.  First, I find it puzzling that the new therapists, the ones who are in training, are the clinicians that are working with arguably the most vulnerable clients.  When looking at Tina's case, Perry was new to providing therapy to children in general, and he was given a case in which there were multiple systemic vulnerabilities at play.  Specifically, Tina and her family presumably (as I only know the information given in the book, these factors are being assumed) encountered stressors such as socioeconomic status, racism, sexism, sexual abuse, potentially domestic violence and more.  I empathize with Perry as carrying the weight of a client this vulnerable as a new clinician feels daunting and sometimes even too much to hold. 

Luckily, Perry was able to garner important lessons from his experiences working with Tina, specifically around supervision.  Perry was able to recognize the value of his supervision and thankfully had supervision that was guiding and supportive.  I also admired that he challenged the ideas and supervision he received and didn’t necessarily take the first information that was given to him.  He sought out help from multiple perspectives and adapted in order to provide the best care to his client. 

Towards the end to the chapter, Perry reflects on progress (or lack thereof) with Tina, specifically related to her sexual behavior.  He states that two weeks before he left the clinic, Tina was caught engaging in sexual behavior at school.  He then goes on to discuss what he did wrong, or even feeling duped by her progress.  He expressed himself almost as if he felt tricked by Tina and even states that she had just learned to “hide” these behaviors.  Though this ending for Tina was troubling, I found it interesting that Perry almost seems to put blame on himself.  He carried the weight of Tina’s success or failure and felt strong counter-transference towards the end of their work together. I am wondering if Perry was aware of this? 

My response to Perry’s reaction is this: We do what we can to support our clients and also, our client’s actions are not in our control.  Additionally, I am curious if he thought about how his termination with Tina affected her behavior.  It seemed to me that Perry took Tina’s behaviors as a reflection upon himself as a clinician and assumed that she had been hiding these behaviors all along.  However, could this have possibly been a one-time occurrence potentially brought on by the stress of knowing that the only safe adult male figure in her life was leaving?  Perry is correct in thinking that Tina still had much more work to do around her stress responses and behaviors (the outcome of this chapter highlights this), but I would not discount all of the work that Tina did in her weekly sessions with Perry.  She went into a room week after week with a male stranger and learned what safety can look and feel like.  She progressed quickly in her treatment and her actions at the end of the therapeutic relationship are not a reflection of Perry but rather, they are a reflection of the abuse and trauma that she endured by the hands of another individual.