Phuc

Phuc is a seven year old boy, born to parents from Vietnam. He has an older brother with serious medical problems requiring ongoing treatments and hospitalizations. When Phuc was still an infant, his parents separated and he has had no contact with his father.

At that time, his mother, Woo, needed to establish herself and find work, and she sent her sons back to Vietnam to live with her parents. They remained with their grandparents for three years until Phuc’s older brother required intensive medical attention which was only accessible to him in Toronto.

Phuc is in grade two and, although he is very bright, he struggles both academically and socially. He refuses to participate in group activities because others “cheat” and he abandons his assignments whenever he encounters any difficulty, often exploding in anger and fleeing the classroom. Despite this, the teacher and principal find him engaging and likeable and have sought help for him through our Foundation.

For the past several months one of our psychotherapists, Farah, has been seeing Phuc in his school twice a week and she describes him as “smart and competitive”, with a “killer smile.” Phuc makes all the rules, organizes all the activities and… wins all the games! He rails against the children in his class who don’t let him enjoy success and “steal” his winnings. He complains about his brother who takes up all of his mother’s attention, leaving none for him.  He says he thinks his brother is “faking” most of the time and goes to the hospital because he’s “too lazy to make his bed.” Farah described Phuc’s increasing tendency to sit very close to her and touch her whenever possible.

Farah has met with Phuc’s mother, Woo, on several occasions and she is impressed with her drive and determination to look after her sons and to be an independent woman in her new community. She works long hours as a waitress whenever she can, but she has to take time off work to attend to her older son and during the past year, has had to pick up Phuc from school and daycare when he misbehaved. Her primary concern is that Phuc succeed academically and she hopes Farah will help with that. When Farah asked Woo whether she thought Phuc might have some emotional problems, Woo said she didn’t know about that because she wasn’t “good with feelings” and didn’t know how to talk about them.

Farah’s challenge over the coming months will be to help Phuc articulate his sense of neglect and deprivation vis a vis his older brother, his jealousy with respect to his classmates and most importantly, his hunger for attention and recognition. Additionally, she will need to support Phuc’s mother to recognize her own feelings so that she can recognize and accept those of her son. Finally, she will need to assist Phuc’s teacher to find ways to support Phuc’s aspirations for success and need for affirmation so that he can tolerate frustration and disappointment when he fails.

Although Phuc has not experienced abuse, he has experienced significant emotional deprivation due to his early losses and moves, his mother’s preoccupation with her work and older son, and most importantly his mother’s own emotional deprivation such that she can’t express or respond to “feelings.”