Rethinking Intervention II

If a young person you care about becomes involved in a behavior that will ultimately lead to destruction, it would be wise to conduct an intervention. You have the very important opportunity to intercede for the adolescents in your sphere of influence, just as Odysseus stepped into the lives of his crew. What is an intervention? When a person is addicted to their lotus of choice, the other people in her life—siblings, parents, and friends—may be experiencing a wide range of feelings, including anger, guilt, betrayal, fear, or frustration. Maybe things have been tried in the past and have failed. The situation can be chaotic. The goal of an intervention is to focus the siblings, friends, and family into a cohesive group that can introduce change into the destructive cycle of dependence. Most of us can remember when something said or done by someone who was important to us changed our way of thinking and perhaps saved us from a ruinous situation.

The group must have a leader—an Odysseus, so to speak. The leader must make sure that the group has been familiarized with the dysfunction at hand. If the problem is an addiction, treatment options should be investigated. The intervention group should meet prior to the actual intervention for purposes of preparation. What is going to be said to the individual? Who should be involved? Treatment should be arranged ahead of time.

When the time comes for the actual intervention, the leader’s job is to establish a sense of order in the process. Each person in the group gets an opportunity to speak to the person involved and let her know how much she means and how much she is loved. The individual needs to know that her behavior affects everyone in the room and that the problem is no longer hidden. Since treatment has already been arranged, there is no room for debate. Keep the tone loving and full of respect, but be resolute. The person may break down and cry. Perhaps she will become angry. Whatever the reaction, be firm. For the individual and for the group, the problem must be resolved and not allowed to continue.

Interventions of this kind may vary and don’t necessarily hold to a strict set of rules. Sometimes a simple intervention is best, maybe addressing a situation that hasn’t been previously acknowledged or asking a person to stop a behavior that is doing them harm or draining their life energy away. A simple intervention in an addiction to busyness can include requiring a student who is overextended to reduce the number of activities in which they are involved. For a teen that is lost in a fog of video games, television, or the Internet, it may mean taking away the game system, disconnecting the Internet, or removing the television from the bedroom. Regardless of the situation, it is highly recommended that you seek out the advice of a counselor or intervention professional for your particular situation.

Rethinking Intervention

How did Odysseus save his crew from the intoxicating effects of the lotus fruit? What were his options? Did he try to reason with them? Maybe if he had tried to discuss their perilous situation, they would have listened to reason and returned to their ships on their own. What if he attempted to console them? Possibly if he had had pity on his crew and empathized with their situation, they would have been overcome by his understanding and compassion and given up the addictive high of the lotus. Perhaps he might have chosen to feel sorry for them and for the pain that they had endured from their years of battle at Troy and their hazardous journey at sea. The fog of Morpheus could be viewed as merciful, numbing painful memories of the past. If Odysseus had decided to travel any of these roads, he would have ended up enabling the sailors in their own act of self-destruction and ruining any hope he had of ever seeing Ithaca again.

The heroic Odysseus chose a much more intimidating path, a way that would place him in a position of appearing to be the very evil from which he was trying to rescue his men. One by one, the good king dragged his sailors back to the ship against their will. The ship represents a way to freedom, the very thing for which the men were longing. The crew, dizzy from the effects of the lotus, spat and fought against the very person that was carrying them to freedom.

When someone is using a crutch—whether video games, busyness, the Internet, television, chemicals, or anything else—to anesthetize the wounds of their heart, they will resist (sometimes violently) any attempts at distancing them from their particular lotus fruit. Once the lotus fruit is removed, they will find the particular pain they were anesthetizing will usually rise to the surface. But this allows both adult and adolescent to better comprehend the source of the wound and to explore the possibility of healing. If you are a teacher, counselor, or youth worker, you should attempt to work hand in hand with the parents of the adolescent who is self-medicating, whether literally or figuratively. If you are a parent, you will need the support of other adults in your child’s life.

Rethinking Jordan

A few years earlier, a youth worker named Siofra had had the opportunity to come in contact with a young lady who was going into her junior year of high school. She was attending a camp known as the Gateway Teen Institute, where Siofra was working as a summer counselor. The girl’s name was Jordan, and Siofra could tell from her actions that she would rather have been invisible. She was quiet, the sort of kid that tends to fly under the radar, the kind that adult leaders often overlook.

After some time had passed, the counselors met to discuss the students that were participating in the summer camp. When Jordan’s name came up, no one could say anything about her. That immediately sent up a red flag. It was troubling that there seemed to be a nonentity at the camp. The counselors put their heads together and came up with a plan to engage her. What did Jordan’s actions reveal concerning her beliefs about herself? She may have been clinging to the misconception that she had nothing valuable to offer the group. Perhaps she believed that no one would want to listen to her ideas. That was where they as adult leaders needed to intercede.

The counselors arranged to meet with Jordan not long after this discussion. Siofra shared the positive attributes of her character and personality. The other counselors discussed how they observed her caring for others in a soft, quiet manner. Then they had the opportunity to challenge her to rise up. One by one, they each related how they believed that she carried within her the ability to be a gifted leader. It is very important to note that, when we affirm young people, we must be honest about what we see in them. Adolescents have an uncanny ability to spot a phony!

Following the mythical pattern, Siofra next needed to present Jordan with a gift. While winged sandals, a personal army, or a helmet of invisibility would have been really neat gifts, she thought that something else might be just as potent. Siofra instead declared her to be the new team captain for her camping team! From this point on, Jordan had to approve all decisions made by the team, and everyone else was obligated to discuss their ideas with Jordan.

Now, Jordan didn’t discover a cure for cancer or bring about world peace during her tenure as captain, but she did make some valuable contributions to the team. She began to open up to other students, made some friends, and explored the possibility that she had something important to offer.