Are you a teen-ager contemplating suicide or the parent of one? The following case study may help you solve your problem.

When I met Jill, she was sixteen years old and in counseling for four years. When she was twelve years old when she tried to commit suicide by taking an overdose of pills. The teen-ager was taking medication for depression and mood swings, and attending a small private school to help her cope more easily with life. Besides all these helpful measures, Jill was still getting upset easily and over-reacting to situations. She was also often missing school for psychosomatic illnesses (caused by emotions).

Jill was living with her mother, step-father and step brother. She had an older sister and brother who lived outside of the home. Her mother, Kate, a forty-four year old woman, was unhappy in her second marriage. When she called me for counseling, she was very concerned about her daughter because she was talking about suicide again.

During our first session, I asked Jill to complete the sentence, I want to commit suicide because... Jill responded, I want to commit suicide because I feel trapped. I cant be myself. I have to take care of my mother. Then I continued, Jill if you could be free to live your own life, would you want to live? Yes, she replied.

In the course of counseling numerous teen-agers, I had noticed this as a common feeling for the last child in the house with parents who are in pain. It is interesting that no one tells the child directly to rescue their parent but they unconsciously feel obligated. I have also found that the mother gives unconscious messages to the child not to grow up because then she will have to face her personal unhappiness and marital relationship, and let go of her role of Mother which has been her identity for most of her adult life.

To assist Jill, I helped her visualize and cut the obsolete umbilical cords that were unconsciously connecting her to her mother. I also used some therapeutic processes to help her raise her self-esteem. At the end of the session, I asked Kate to come back into the office and encouraged Jill to share her new awareness with her mother.

In other sessions, I worked with Kate alone to help her cut the umbilical cords that she had unconsciously connected to her youngest daughter, face her unhappy relationship and build her own self-esteem. *

Getting to the core of the problem quickly resulted in immediate changes. With higher self-esteem, both Jill and Kate started to dress nicer and looked more attractive and happier. They also encouraged each other to be separate, independent people, and responsible for their own lives.

Jill soon had less psychosomatic illnesses and upsets and was able to quickly calm down if she did overact. She was no longer talking about suicide and proudly told me, I dont need my medication anymore. Two factors that helped Jill improve so quickly were that Kate was attending a church that taught positive thinking and she was willing to work on her own growth.

If you are the teen-ager contemplating suicide, you can show this article to your parents and ask them to help you to solve the problems. Or if you are the parent of a child thinking about suicide, it could be very helpful to explore the above issues and resolve them with a professional counselor.

Helene Rothschild

Helene Rothschild, MS, MA, MFT, Marriage, Family Therapist, is happy to announce that her newest book is now available. "ALL YOU NEED IS H A R T, Create Joy, Love and Abundance -- NOW!" A unique guide to Holistic And Rapid Transformation, is a "Manual For Life"!

Helene's mission is to help as many people as she can to?love themselves to peace? which she believes is the key to health, happiness and success, and the greatest contribution to world peace. She has touched millions of people internationally with her phone sessions, teleclasses, independent studies, classes, inspirational and self-help articles, books, e-books, MP3 audios, tapes, cards and posters.

Helene has also shared her unique ideas with hundreds of audiences and facilitated many self-help workshops. She hosted her own local radio and television shows and appeared numerous times in the media, including on the international Cable News Network (CNN).

In 2003, Helene moved to California. Since January 2005, she has been traveling internationally. She is grateful for the opportunities to serve many more people. "It is a joy to make a difference in peoples' lives -- to assist them to live in love and be healthy, happy, and successful", says Rothschild.

Helene was born in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She received a Bachelor and Masters Degree in Science in Health and Physical Education at Brooklyn College and taught at Lafayette High School for six years.

In 1976, she moved to California and earned a Master?s degree in Marriage, Family & Child Counseling at the University of Santa Clara, in Santa Clara, California. After Helene became licensed, she founded and directed the Institute for Creative Therapy, a non-profit educational counseling center. In addition to counseling clients, she trained and supervised other therapists in a process she developed, called Creative Therapy (now called HART: Holistic And Rapid Transformation).

Helene has committed her life to service. She has the courage to listen to and follow her intuition. In 1993, her inner wisdom motivated her to move to Sedona, Arizona. In 1997, she was the founder and CEO of Joyful Living, a non-profit educational organization. The mission is also to assist people to experience love and peace. Through Joyful Living, she has donated thousands of her educational materials to other non-profit organizations.