4. The Teenager with Brain Damage

The mechanism behind the humanistic approach can be summed up as “the power of belief. The main idea is that you give yourself psychic energy. You do not need any positive confirmations from the outside. It is a general personal approach that everyone can use in stressful life situations. The belief gives hope that, even though there is nothing in real life that can prove this, there are positive alternatives. Here is an example from real life. It is a true story about the experience of one of my neighbors (see Motivational Work, Part 1: Values and Theory, pages 26 -27).

Case Study: The Power of Belief

A 16-year-old girl, Daga, is knocked over and seriously injured by a car while cycling home from school. Passers-by come to her aid and call for an ambulance. Once at the hospital, the doctors confirm that she has sustained a severe skull fracture.

Daga eventually completes her course of treatment, after which she has a deficient functional level: she has, for instance, total amnesia about her life before the accident, finds it hard to express herself in words, and cannot tend to her own personal hygiene. To put it bluntly, she has become a long-term case in constant need of help from others.

The doctors inform Daga’s mother that her daughter’s condition is chronic and will not improve as they have had to remove certain parts of her brain. This is a severe shock to the mother, who nevertheless clings to the conviction that her daughter’s condition can be improved. The mother is critical of the efforts of the healthcare services and thinks that the staff is not doing enough to stimulate and activate her daughter. She decides to trust the power of her belief.

She, therefore, decides to bring Daga back into her family, where she can be looked after properly. Daga becomes activated in various ways and is taught by her mother to tend to herself. To deal with her amnesia and help her recover her memory, Daga’s mother invites people from her past life around to meet her, and they tell Daga what they once did together before the accident.

Daga slowly makes progress and is slowly but surely able to recover her old self. Ten years later, she has a job, is married with children, and lives everyday life. The outcome is the direct opposite of that which the doctors had predicted.

Conclusion

Here we see the power of belief in action. Initially, all the mother has to go on is her own convictions, deprived of any physical or mental support from the outside world; indeed, all she hears from the doctors is discouragement since they believe that Daga is beyond help. The mother’s decision to take her daughter home and activate her is based solely on her inner conviction, and it is from this that she draws the energy she needs to try to rehabilitate her daughter against all the odds.

Once Daga starts to progress, life becomes easier for the mother, who obtains tangible confirmation of her beliefs. Her faith gives her the strength to emotionally engage with her daughter and have positive expectations for them. Up to this point, all she had to cling to was her belief in the absence of evidence.

Reflection

On reflection, we can say that when this happened, physicians were unaware of the plasticity of the brain. In other words, the neural system can change even into adulthood.