Two Approaches to Psychological Problems in Children

When I come across an article like "How Quiet is Too Quiet? When Shyness is Actually a Disorder," I always recall the line from Robert Persig's classic book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:

Through multiplication upon multiplication of facts, information, theories and hypotheses, it is science itself that is leading mankind from single absolute truths to multiple, indeterminate, relative ones.

This article is exactly what Persig is talking about. In it, a mother, Kim O'Connell, recounts her experience with her son Declan's extended periods of complete silence, which she discovered has a name: Selective Mutism.

So science has added another category, that's what science is all about. It's a process that began with Aristotle. It's called classification. Selective Mutism is unique, requiring unique handling, unique treatment and possibly unique drugs--multiplication of facts, etc., leading from single absolute truths (root causes, if you will) to multiple, indeterminate, relative ones. The child's behavior, in other words, is meaningless. These are just symptoms of a disease that he's come by at random.

Compare this approach to that of spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle. In his book, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, Tolle writes in a section called "Faces of the Ego":

The ego . . . seeks . . . attention in some form, such as recognition, praise, admiration, or just to be noticed in some way, to have its existence acknowledged. A shy person who is afraid of the attention of others is not free of ego, but has an ambivalent ego that both wants and fears attention from others. . . The shy person's fear of attention is greater than his or her need of attention. Shyness often goes with a self-concept that is predominately negative, the belief of being inadequate. Any conceptual sense of self--seeing myself as this or that--is ego, whether predominately positive (I am the greatest) or negative (I am no good).

Tolle's approach is leading us back toward "single absolute truths." There is spiritual meaning behind a person's shyness. It's a function of the person's ego (and, yes, according to Tolle, children have egos), which is a conceptualization of self, one step removed from the reality of actual being, one of the main topics of Zen and the Art. This is a simpler approach, a unified approach.

To be fair, the psychologists treating the child who is the subject of the subject article and Tolle seem to be somewhat on the same page in terms of how to deal with the problem. Tolle's answer to all forms of ego is non-reaction.

Kim O'Connell, mother and author of this poignant article, outlines the approach she has taken:

Our pediatrician referred us to a wonderful psychologist who specializes in childhood anxiety and SM. Through therapy, and by changing our parenting style and removing all pressure on Declan to speak, things have improved.

"Removing all pressure on Declan to speak" is non-reaction. This removes the attention Declan's ego was garnering by his behavior. This appears to be doing the trick.

Photo credit: Unlocking the Mystery of Selective Mutism