Jim Hopper

Intake Information: Client is a 42 year old man seeking therapy for support regarding his teenage daughter, who he describes as “rebellious” and “out of control.” He reports that a recent fight with daughter was particularly traumatic, and seeks support processing this event and figuring out how to proceed. Client is divorced, and reports no previous therapy experience.

Jim Hopper sits on the couch across from me. He’s a physically large man wearing a khaki police officer uniform, and holds his trooper hat in his lap, turning it nervously as he speaks.

“I just don’t know what to do with her anymore,” Jim says, eager to unburden himself. “Sure, things weren’t great between us, I can acknowledge that. And yes, it’s partly my fault, but this most recent fight, it was scary.”

“I can understand that,” I nod along in sympathy. “I have a teenage daughter myself. The anger they’re capable of showing, it can definitely be scary.”

“Yeah, but El, she’s…” Jim’s brow furrows as he thinks about how to say this. “Let’s just say she’s different.”

“How is she different?”

Jim shifts in his seat, now uncomfortable. “She’s not like the other kids. She had a rough childhood. She doesn’t really talk much. She’s sort of a stranger in the world we’re living in. I’m trying to manage it, to help her, to be a father to her, and it’s just not working. It’s like a round peg in a square hole type situation.”

“I see,” I say as I jot this down in my notes. “What is El short for?”

“Eleven—” Jim says, but then catches himself. “She’s, uh, the eleventh woman in her family to be named Elizabeth. So yeah, El is short for Elizabeth.”

“Eleven women in her family named Elizabeth? That’s interesting,” I remark, sensing that Jim is not being completely truthful, but not wanting to push him on it.

“Yeah, it’s a whole thing. She’s adopted, I don’t want to get into all that,” Jim says, dismissing the topic.

“That’s fine,” I say, and choose to move on to another subject. “Tell me more about what led you and El to have this latest blowout fight.”

“Well, to set up the situation a little more, I took her in recently. She’s an orphan, I’m a single dad— I mean, a single guy. I used to be dad…”

Jim starts to get emotional. I sit in the silence with him, letting him experience the sadness. When the tears come, I push the box of Kleenex on the coffee table towards him.

“Thanks,” Jim sniffles, taking a Kleenex and wiping his eyes. “I was married before I got divorced. Duh, right?” He chuckles to himself. “We had a daughter who passed away when she was seven. Cancer. It really screwed me up. I felt so helpless. I couldn’t do anything to save her.”

“I’m sorry for your loss. It sounds like you’re still experiencing feelings of grief.”

“Oh, I am. And I don’t know if they’ll ever go away.”

“I hear that a lot,” I say. “Grief is often something that doesn’t go away. People can spend their whole lives waiting for it to go away, and it never does. For most people, it’s something we carry with us forever, just like we carry the memory of the loved ones who passed.”

“Yeah. That’s how it feels.” Jim sits for a moment, thinking about this.

“And, does that experience inform what you’re going through with El?”

Jim’s brow furrows as he considers this. “I think so. It’s making me feel the same way. Like I want to save her, with every bone in my body. I want to protect her. I really don’t want to fail again. I mean, I guess I shouldn’t feel so bad about failing with my daughter because you can’t just make cancer go away, but with this, with El and her situation, I think I can really do something to help. But I’m terrified I’ll fail.”

“That makes sense,” I say. “You’re taking on the role of her father, and you want to protect her from pain, you want to keep her safe. But it sounds like the irony is that this is exactly what she doesn’t want. Here you are trying your hardest to protect her, and this person you’re trying to protect, she rolls her eyes and dismisses you.”

Jim sits up, activated now. “Exactly! It’s like, what I’m trying to do for her, what I know is best for her, is the exact opposite of what she wants from me, whatever that is. I’m trying to protect her from the danger out there, but she acts like I’m the danger.”

“Tell me about this danger out there.”

Jim sits back now, a bit more cautious. “Let’s just say her past is catching up to her. She’s got a dark and dangerous, uh… immigration status. With some shady characters trying to track her down who wouldn’t mind seeing bad things happen to her. And until we can figure out what to do about it, she’s got to stay hidden. She can’t go to school, or hang out with friends at the mall, all the things she wants to do. There are a lot of rules, which we all know teenagers love, right? But it’s for her own good.”

“Right, it’s a ‘for her own good’ situation,” I say. “Which teenagers never seem to agree with. Especially when the rules prevent them from doing the things most teenagers want to do, so now it’s up to you to enforce the rules, which she is moved to rebel against with every bone in her body.”

“Of course. That’s how it works, I make the rules and she breaks them. But it’s not just like, finish your homework, or eat your vegetables. This is a special circumstance. She can’t go out alone, she’s got to keep the curtains drawn, we have to have a secret knock. I keep telling her that soon this will all change. Soon things will calm down and she can spend time with her friends and her so-called boyfriend, and do all the teenager-y things she wants to do. But she just can’t hear me on this. For El, soon is not soon enough. It’s like when I say “soon,” she hears “never.”

“And was there a particular event that led up this most recent blowout?” I ask.

“Yeah, she snuck out!” Jim says this as if surprised but also not surprised. “Which is exactly what I told her not to do!”

“Where did she go?”

“She went to school to see her friends. And sure, it’s not like she did anything that bad. She didn’t wreck the car or get caught shoplifting. But just being outside, taking the chance of being seen, that’s really dangerous for her. I can’t tell you how panicked I was.”

“And I’m assuming this panic was something she felt when you confronted her?”

“My panic?” Jim seems confused.

“I mean, I’ll assume here, but I want to hear from you, that this panic you felt, which seems to be pretty powerful as we talk about it, came across in the eventual conversation with her as anger.”

“Oh, hell yeah!” Jim agrees, glad to be heard. “Damn right I was angry, and I had every right to be. So, as punishment, I took away her TV privileges. Seems like pretty simple parenting 101, actions and consequences, crime and punishment, you know? And that’s when she had her tantrum. And it was a big one.”

Jim shakes his head in disbelief. “Why can’t she see that what I’m doing is for her own good? All I get from her is anger, eye rolling, sneering at me. I feel like a punching bag.”

I lean forward when I hear this metaphor. “Right. I hear that a lot from parents. Especially fathers of teenage girls. It can be frustrating to love a person so much, to want the best for them, to want to protect them from pain, and to have them react like you’re the problem, you’re the cause of all their unhappiness.”

“Right? That’s it in a nutshell.” Jim sighs and sits back, thinking.

I let the moment linger for a bit, then continue. “The idea of being a punching bag has a negative connotation. Like, if you’re a punching bag, it means you’re weak, you don’t stand up for yourself, you’re a pushover. But here’s the thing: a punching bag is an important training aid. It’s something that’s supposed to help. I mean, imagine if El was training to be a boxer. A punching bag would be a big part of her training. The punching bag’s role would be allow her to practice her punches. It doesn’t dodge or bob or weave. It just takes the punishment.”

Jim nods. “I can relate to that.”

“Right. Now image if the punching bad punched back. If the punches El threw were returned with equal or even great force. She’d probably get sick of it real fast. She might even grow to resent the punching bag. Instead of something that’s helping her, she might start to view it as the enemy. See, your version of being the punching bag involves trying to make her understand you’re protecting her from the danger out there. But in the process, she’s seeing you as the danger.”

“So what am I supposed to do? Just let her do whatever she wants and not care if something terrible happens to her?”

“No, what I’m saying is, when she hits you, when she punches you, metaphorically or not, it’s going to be natural for you to get angry in return and want to express it. The challenge here is to just take the punches. To let her hit you. To let her know that you can be a safe person for her to be angry at, because unlike other people in her life, you won’t punch back. Let her hit you until she tires out. By not fighting back, you deny her the response that would make her angry all over again. It’s like you’re playing tennis, and every time she hits the ball to you you just let it bounce past you. You don’t return her serve. And pretty soon the game becomes pointless, and that’s when things change. Now, it might feel like you’re giving up, but I think as El grows and matures she’ll appreciate that you approached it this way.”

Jim sits and process all this. “That’s an interesting take. Sort of passive, but I can see how maybe since it’s basically the opposite of what I’m doing now, it might help.”

“Show her you can make some kind of comprise. Something that’s small, that you can live with, but that also shows her you’re making a change. It sounds like El feels like you’re slamming the door shut on the rest of her life, so show her you can open the door a crack.”

“Open the door a crack. I like that.”

Just then the lights in my office flicker, which is odd, because that’s never happened before. I notice it with curiosity, but Jim reacts with more concern.

“Oh crap, I gotta go! Thanks Phil, this has been really helpful, I’ll probably be back next week but I’ll have to let you know.”

Before I can open the office door for Jim he’s already there and rushing out.

I close the door behind him, then sit down to write up my notes.

Clinical Notes: Client presented with a tense affect, feeling strong emotions after a blowout fight with adopted daughter. Client described fight and events that led up to it, which involve him trying to protect her from outside forces that he declined to describe in greater detail, while daughter rebels against this protection. Client and Therapist discussed the struggles of raising a teenage daughter, and Therapist normalized the feelings of frustration Client described feeling. The Punching Bag metaphor was discussed, in an effort to change Client’s feelings about the negative aspects of holding space for daughter’s anger, and the challenge of not reacting to her anger with anger of his own.

Diagnosis:

Z62.821: Parent-Adopted Child Conflict