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Dear listfriends, I had an experience I like to share with you. Introduction. I have a lovely daughter, who is studying at the high school in the middle of our tiny country "Nederland". She is 18 years old and started with the subjects psychology and social communication and many others. Her name is Natasja. To be a good social worker one has to have selfconfidence and the ability to listen interested to ppl who want to tell their story. In order to find the selfconfidence the students are trained in giving presentations and handling conflict situations. One of those trainings is giving a personal presentation about a subject, free of choice. The Metaphore. My daughter choose for the explanation of her thoughts, how SHE tought, that I protect myself against the world, including my family. She built with big wooden blocks a wall between me (played by herself) and the outside world and by each line she explained, she pushed a block from the wall, this way tearing down the wall. In the text she put a ==> as a mark for pushing away a block. My daughter wrote as if she is me. The Wall. Natasja: This wall I built against the community, to keep my disease behind and to protect me and my surrounding. Block 1 : This wall I use to keep up appearances against my relatives and specially my family ==> But this is not necessary because they want me as I am. Block 2 : This wall is necessary for my concentration. As a symptom of my disease it is hard for me to concentrate and because of this I am soon chagrinic. ==> When I have to concentrate I can say so and don't need the wall. Block 3 : By this wall I prevent that my feelings are being hurt. ==> By being "open" I can prevent being hurt. Block 4 : This wall is built by disappointments because of the frustations that I can't do certain things any more, such as writng and playing the trumpet. ==> but many other things I can do, like playing volleybal. Block 5 : This wall is as a symbol of my medicin, which prevent me of a good sleep ==> But on the other hand : I can fill this time by doing things I want to do for the Society. Block 6 : This wall is also for the disappointment that I can't do my job ==> I did have the opportunity to loose myself in computers. Block 7 : This wall is built from the many accumulating activities I want to do for the society ==> Many positive things are part of this, such as beautiful journeys. Block 8 : This wall stands for the difficulties I had to accept my disease. ==> but fortunately I had much help. This has been a very important argument to me, to choose to study social work. Comments by Kees. At first I wanted to fight this wall Natasja built. But she let me built this wall, so I cannot fight it. So I tell what I felt after reading and re-re-re reading it : The wall exists, but I will not take it down, because I need it to protect myself. I will make it less high so we can hang on it and talk over it. Some things she assumed are correct others are not, but that is not important. The main issue she showed me clearly is that not the wall is the problem, but the way the wall is built, is the problem. I built it alone (that's how Natasja sees it), but I think we built a wall from both sides. Did you built such a wall? How do your children think about this? Any other comments? Kees and Natasja Paap fidence, the students