During a typical day as a behavioral therapist and day habilitation administrator, I encounter myriad prob-lems, or rather, challenges. The young, challenged adults I work with often have difficulties adjusting their moods and needs to the outside reality of our scheduled activities. It was during one of those encounters that a neurologically impaired young man was experiencing an off-balance day. I mean, he was very much out of equilibrium and his behavior was simply exploding in every direction. He was physically and verbally ag-gressive, socially inappropriate, and abusive to his peers, the staff, and anyone else in the vicinity. Other-wise, he was just great.

At the end of the day, I met with everyone involved, heard the reactions of some of his victims, and realized that there were those who took his abuse personally. They viewed the comments and actions of this perturbed individual as directed personally and insultingly to them. The truth of the matter was that there were a thousand possible reasons for the young man's behavior, for instance, a change in medication, a diffi-culty with transition, or a dislike of the planned activity. None of the reasons, however, had anything to do with those who received the brunt of his outbursts.

I tried to explain to one of the victims that he was really not the target, but happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The person with the problem had an internal issue, independent of the imme-diate environment; it could have been anywhere or with anyone.

This is a general rule for living, articulated by Laura Huxley in the book,You Are Not The Target: "When your husband complains - when your wife nags - when your boss is irritating - when your friends are neglectful - when your business partner is difficult - when your child is unmanageable - STOP! Stop a mo-ment. Stop and realize that their irritability, irrationality, lack of consideration, coolness in their words, their disagreeable and wounding behavior is not really aimed at you. You may feel as though it were, but in the majority of cases, it is not. You are NOT the target. You just happen to be there."

The "terrible twos" are a normal stage in a child's development. The behavior changes this phase brings are based on an internal clock, and the child will strike out at whatever or whoever happens to be there. Certain types of people have certain types of moods based on certain things independent of their cho-sen victims. These moods can be seasonal or can be based on something that triggers a memory or reaction. Either way, none of these stimuli has anything to do with the one who is the victim of the frontal assault.

Adolescent rebelliousness is an understandable norm. It will occur--to a certain extent--in disabled, gifted, and mainstream individuals. The object of the quest for independence and the need to rebel is arbi-trary; it directs itself to whatever happens to be there.

"For some adolescents, the quest for independence can be pursued only through overthrowing and rejecting parental norms and standards. Religion, in such cases, may become the symbolic repository for parental au-thority and corresponding conflicts or continuing dependence. The adolescent who needs to reject authority may find this need penetrating his religious experience and his relation to G-d as well," writes W.W. Meiss-ner, in Psychoanalysis and the Religious Experience.

We think our teenager has a problem with religion and is out of the mainstream, but it is mainstream for an adolescent to rebel, and if Yiddishkeit surrounds him, it's the easiest thing to pick at. It is mainstream for an adolescent to seek independence, and if his parents value Yiddishkeit, then the means to prove one's inde-pendence is to exhibit an aversion to that which his parents hold so dear.

We all react to the attack. We feel insulted, abused, and taken advantage of. We all need, however, to focus on the source of our client's, child's, spouse's, or partner's behavior. It may be normal. It may just require some space and time. When we react to the attack and don't examine the ultimate source, we cannot effect a change.

When a master gets mad at his dog and hits the dog with a stick, the dog will bite the stick instead of addressing the master. This gives us another general rule for living. Our Master is throwing behaviors and situations our way. If we bite the stick and just respond to the immediate and visible target, we're missing the point. Better we should talk to the Master - at least a couple of times a day.

When we judge a situation or a person, we are only seeing an image. It's like a movie set - there's a lot more going on behind the scenes. We catch people at split seconds, often unaware of what just transpired a moment ago, much less a week ago, or in their formative years. The Lubavitcher Rebbe, in discussing the doubts and questions people have about Yiddishkeit following the Holocaust, compares the situation to that of a medically ignorant person observing surgery. When a person walks into a room and sees an individual bound to a table and another person standing over him with a knife, the obvious response is, "Murderer!"

But things are not what they appear to be; there's a lot more going on behind the scenes.

The outer world can conceal completely what's going on in the inner one. Comatose patients look like they are completely unaware, yet we see that certain comments made in their presence can cause a nega-tive or positive effect on their physiological functions. My clients who have traumatic brain injuries or au-tism may display a withdrawal or obliviousness to the world as we know it, but their responses and intuitive-ness are often startling.

The controversial area of facilitated communication clearly elucidates the disparity between an ap-parent outer handicap and an inner working mind. All disabilities are mysterious, because we see the disabil-ity but miss the person. The individual person and his or her personality and reason for existence go beyond a labeled disability, beyond the perceivable outer world.

I recently met a “disabled” gentleman who was confined to a wheelchair and who could barely speak, a person whom, unfortunately, most people would write off in every way. The man was accompanied by his caretaker, an immigrant doing the one thing he was qualified to do here in this country despite the cre-dentials he acquired in Haiti. They were both studying chemistry. The guide, who had been an expert teacher back in his home country, and the wheelchair-bound gentleman were both involved and active in the field of advanced chemistry.

Acting out is only acting out; it's not necessarily a mirror of what's acting in. Behaviors are not simply good or bad based upon their impact on the immediate victim. The behaviors are coming from and because of something. A baby's crying out might be because of the temperature. An abled or disabled per-son's tantrum could be because of a shoe that doesn't fit.

The bottom line is, we mustn't assume and we mustn't react. All of what's down here in the outer world is a learning pad and an expression of that which lies behind the curtain. Our mitzvos are our training ground and our glimpse into our relationship with the Master. When it becomes revealed, everything will be clear. May it happen soon.

Bibliography
Laura Huxley, You Are Not The Target, N.Y.
Farrar, Straus, and Company, 1970. P. 37

W.W. Meissner, Psychoanalysis and the Religious Experience,
New Haven and London:
Yale University press, 1984. P. 145

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