Who is Bill?

This is another child patient. Bill's real trouble was that he needed to attend to a remedial difficulty related to his schooling, and he needed his parents help. They kept overlooking the problem, and he was avoiding taking care of it himself but it had caused him to develop a sore and then to pick at it for over a year. The parents were so concerned by this symptom that they brought him to Erickson. The psychiatrist figured out what it was. Erickson also conferred with the parents and gave them a few directives. He had the father take over the boy's other chores, and the boy spent the time doing his remedial work for school. The therapist took on the role of teacher in that he inspected the boy's school work. Meanwhile, the parents worked on some issue that really was between the two of them that had been showing through what was going on with their child.