The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com.

What happens if your son comes home? A 15-year-old son comes home and says, "Mom, can I see a shrink?" So here's a question from Jeanette:

"Hi, Dr. Kenner, my 15-year-old son, Brian, asked me if he could see a psychologist for his anger. He said, 'I get so angry so quick. I think I have a mood problem.' Mom, he's an excellent, well-rounded child who's been in the gifted program since first grade. He plays football, basketball, and track, and he seems happy 95% of the time. He had almost no problems with this kid, but he does get agitated easily. And when I asked him, he never talks with me about his feelings or about anything. So I told him, you know, if you see a psychologist, they will want you to talk about your feelings. And he tells me, 'Mom, I don't have feelings.' And I responded, 'What do you think anger is, Brian?'

So my questions are: will bringing him to a psychologist make him think he's crazy? And the second question: why does he not want to talk to me or express feelings?"

Jeanette, it is so impressive that your very bright, well-rounded 15-year-old is aware that he has a problem and is asking for help. Usually, it's the parents that drag the kids into therapy. So I think it's phenomenal that he's asking for help, and it sounds like he might be studying something in school or maybe Googling things because for him to come up with the idea that he has a mood problem when he says he doesn't have any feelings, just anger, is great.

It's great that he's seeking advice, and it sounds like he does have some initial knowledge. You don't want him to have wrong knowledge. I think if he went to a cognitive therapist, it would never hurt him. He might find that he's absolutely normal, and that it's wonderful, and he might learn some great skills to express feelings. You know, that meaning normal, that he just doesn't have the knowledge about feelings. He might find that he does feel quite repressed. That's what we call it when we bottle up feelings. You know, your head is about to explode, but you know, I'm a good person. I don't say anything; I don't tell her what I'm thinking. I don't let people know how sad I'm feeling. I just put on that frozen smile that I have practiced for so long. We call that repression, and repression has a funny effect on any of us. When we repress the negative feelings, and understandably, for many of us, we've been through trauma, we've been hurt, we've been abused, or maybe we went through a huge betrayal by a friend or a partner. We just mentioned affairs, and we say to ourselves, "I don't ever want to feel that depth of pain again."

Please, I don't want to feel it. And our subconscious listens to us and says, "Okay, honey, you won't feel again." But that's not what I said. I said I don't want to feel that. Pay the negatives. Well, when you lop off your feelings, you lop off your feelings. Your mind isn't able to just cordon off negative feelings. That lops off your response to all your values.

So if your son can learn to do the detective work when he gets angry, he can ask himself questions with a therapist: When do I get angry? Who is around me? What type of a situation provokes it? When don't I get angry? What are my strengths? Any good therapist will help him focus on his strengths that he already has, too. And anger is the emotion that says, "Things are not fair." And of course, as a parent, you're wondering, "What's not fair with my kid? Is he being teased at school?" You just go into the guesswork. He knows what's not fair, but he doesn't know how to express it.

Now, let's go to the other part of this. Why doesn't he talk to you? Kids can clam up for many reasons, and one of the big questions that I would ask is, in your family atmosphere, can you have your feelings? Is it safe or not for a kid to get angry, for a kid to feel sad? Sometimes a parent might say, "Oh, don't say you're angry with your sister; she's a good kid." So they can deny our feelings. Sometimes a parent can say, "Make fun of us. Oh, what a crybaby you are when you're feeling sad," rather than saying, "You look real sad, hon, what's up?" Sometimes a parent can yell at us for having feelings: "Shut up, you brat! You don't know what you're talking about!" Or "No son of mine will ever cry!" So it makes us afraid to have our feelings.

And sometimes a parent can be smothering, overly involved, and so we don't want to share our feelings. If we say, "I'm sad," a parent may say to you, "Oh, you poor, poor, poor thing. I know you weren't invited to the movie with your friends. Here, dear, dear, let me call them." And man, I'm not going to share my feelings with her anymore.

So you need to know the wonderful, liberating effect of understanding feelings, how to express them, and how to deal with people who are feeling crushers in your family. You can look at your whole family: Is it safe to have feelings or not? And maybe a piece of your son's therapy might involve family therapy. There are many times when I've brought parents in to learn the same skills that I'm teaching the kids. Why not? It's wonderful to feel liberated in the area of feelings.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com, and please listen to this.

Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner and co-author Dr. Edwin Locke. Some seemingly innocuous habits can be a real source of annoyance to a partner, such as leaving the toilet seat up, ignoring crumbs on the floor, throwing dirty clothes about, or driving recklessly. Both partners have to decide how dangerous or important negative habits are, and they should make a serious effort to change those that are a real source of friction. Bad habits can be changed more easily than bad personality traits such as impoliteness or tactlessness because, although habits function automatically, they are more limited in scope than traits. Changing habits, however, still requires a deliberate, conscious focus.

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com, and you can buy The Selfish Path to Romance at Amazon.com.