The resurrection of a magical reality: treatment of functional migraine in a child.
A magical world view and logic were used in the treatment of a 10-year-old girl who was referred because of suicidal threats due to migrainous pain. The treatment consisted of a one-session intervention with three-week, six-month, and one-year follow-up indicating elimination of migraine. Within a strategic family therapy, a magical ritual was prescribed that derived from the preoperational logic explicated by Piaget and from the healing practices described in anthropological studies. Such a ritual casts the symptom in a different context, alters the meaning of migraine to the family system, and leads to different interactional patterns. Piaget's theory and anthropological data are discussed as sources of a magical world view to help families and children disengage from a symptomatic system of interactions.
D002648:Child; D004532:Ego; D005196:Family Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008273:Magic; D008881:Migraine Disorders / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D011936:Reality Testing