HIROKU’S CASE

No matter how angry his father became in response to his son’s veiled accusations, the father could not retaliate with the threat of abandonment when his son was in such dire straits.

In this latest incident, Abner was indeed painfully aware of how angry he felt toward his mother and father for their reckless behavior, which had plunged the entire family into a crisis.

As Abner understood that angry feelings toward loved ones do not represent an absence of love, he was better able to tolerate the feelings and reflect on them. Once he was able to maintain his self-esteem while experiencing anger, his pain decreased significantly. Abner eventually became completely asymptomatic with respect to his pain for a period

feelings are unbidden experiences. We have no control over what we feel, but we can and must exercise control over how we respond to our feelings.

Severe pain served as a powerful distraction from intolerable and terrifying feelings of destructive wrath.

Abner failed to support his parents’ narcissism, he would be punished for being selfish and self-centered. The cruel irony of this warped family dynamic infuriated Abner. He railed against the injustice of a child’s having to sacrifice himself in order to protect his parents.

essentially conveying to Abner that he was unimportant and unworthy of consideration. On his own, Abner realized quickly that these feelings were painfully familiar to him. His own mother was so preoccupied with her mother’s ill health and needs for caretaking that she often neglected Abner’s emotional needs, frequently delegating his care to

develop insight into his disproportionately intense reactions to what even he agreed were generally trivial provocations. He became curious about why he felt impelled to