MONSTERS AND MAGICAL STICKS

When my son was about three or four, he decided that his baseball
and football became monsters at night when the lights were turned off.
He "saw" them coming to life; they looked evil and they were trying to
get him. Now, rationally, that makes no sense at all. Our consensual
reality knows that it's not real. My wife and I attempted to explain to him
what was real and what was not. He listened very intently and when we
finished, he said, "But they're coming to get me." For whatever the
reasons, his unconscious mind had created this inner reality, and it had
suddenly leaped out to become his outer reality. Logical, factual, linear,
left-hemispheric explanations accomplished the sum total of nothing.
We then decided to become illogical (some might call it creative) to
solve the problem. We went to a local building supply store and obtained
a piece of wood doweling, two feet long and one-half inch in diameter.
We wrapped the dowel in purple velvet and put a little gold tassel at one
end. Next we purchased the kind of box one would put roses into and
placed the soon to be "magic stick" inside. We brought the box home and
explained to our son that we had been to see a special doctor called the
magic doctor. We told him that the magic doctor had made a magic stick
that would scare away all monster balls. We then told him the "magic"
words that the magic doctor had given us. We explained to him that for
two or three nights he was to point the magic stick at the monster and say
the magic words.
That night we all went into his bedroom and went through a solemn
ceremony of opening the box and presenting him with the magic stick.
He took the stick and, with great determination, went around the room.
At each corner of the room he stopped, pointed the magic stick and said
the magic words. That night he slept without his previous nightmares and
sudden awakenings. The second night, he went into his room alone and
repeated the magic ritual. After the third or fourth night, he put the magic
stick in a corner and stopped using it. He slept without problems and no
longer talked about monsters.
About two weeks later he gave us the stick and said he no longer
needed it. The moral of this story is: Since his unconscious processes,
based on his belief systems, created his inner reality of monster balls, it
a cure more powerful than the monster balls to solve the problem. Traditional
approaches would have entailed reasoning it out and proving that
the monster balls did not exist, or "plumbed" the depth of his feelings; or
helped (?) him to act out his (pick one) fears/angers/hostilities/insecurities.
Then, in several months (or years), he would have been able to
cope with "The Problem." Instead, within a matter of a few days, he not
only learned how to solve the problem.. .he had solved it.

Steven Heller- From the Book Monsters and Magical sticks p.121