52 The Explosive Childther remorseful (“I’m sorry I ran out of the classroom...
I know I shouldn’t do that”) or had difficulty remember-
ing the episode altogether.
Casey’s teacher reported that she could often tell
from the moment Casey walked through the door in the
morning that he was going to have a tough day. But she
also observed that Casey was capable of falling apart
even when his day seemed to be going smoothly. The
teacher was becoming increasingly concerned about
Casey’s relationships with other children; Casey seemed
to lack an appreciation for the impact of his actions on
others and seemed unable to use the feedback he re-
ceived from others to adjust his behavior.
In Casey’s first session with a new therapist, he was
very hyperactive and seemed unwilling or unable to talk
about the important problems that he might need help
with. He bounced from one toy to another in the thera-
pist’s office. When his parents were brought into the ses-
sion, he settled down just long enough to hear that the
reason he had been brought to another psychologist was
that he sometimes became upset when things didn’t go
exactly the way he thought they would. He agreed that
this was sometimes a problem. When the parents tried to
get Casey to talk about this issue, he buried his face in
his mother’s shoulder; when the parents persisted, he
warned, “I can’t talk about this right now!” When they
persisted further, he became red-faced and agitated and
ran out of the office.