ABSTRACT
The Taylor family had been traumatized two weeks before they contacted the crisis/brief therapy team. Late one night the Taylors awoke to find a shadowy figure in their bedroom going through their drawers. When Mr. Taylor asked who it was, the man showed his gun. Demanding that the couple lie on their stomachs, the intruder asked where their money and jewelry were. He told them not to cry out if they didn't want their son in the next room to be hurt. They both heard the phone being yanked out of the wall, and the phone cords being pulled off, apparently to be used to tie them up. Mrs. Taylor was unaware of the intruder's gun until it went off. Not knowing that the shot had been an accident, and sure that her husband had just been killed, a strange, detached sense of calm overtook her as she thought, “So this is how it ends … executive style … first him and now me.” This thought was broken by the reassuring movement of her husband, and then by the sinking realization that their 17-year-old son, Dan, awakened by the shot, had entered the room. When the burglar demanded that their son lie face down between them, the couple's terror peaked again. Then, suddenly, the voice again told them not to call for help. They heard footsteps on the stairs and the front door slam. He was gone.
When Mrs. Taylor called us two weeks later, she hadn't been able to sleep more than a few hours a night since the break-in. She was constantly fearful, especially of the dark, and she was unable to concentrate at 123work. Her husband had been taking care of both police reports and insurance details while he stayed up most nights with her. He was throwing himself into home and work projects, yet he was becoming scattered and diffused in his attention as his exhaustion increased. Their son, aggravated by his parents’ response, and frustrated by newly locked doors and windows and by a new burglar alarm, was engaging in escalating arguments with his parents.
