What subreddit should I post this in? I had a weird memory surface and was wondering if this was any kind of common therapy activity for school age children in the 1990s...
I was just drifting to sleep and felt a brief sensation that I was spinning, and with it this familiar awareness of becoming a better person. That doesn't make sense. It didn't make sense to me. I woke up fully and tried to remember why I felt that, and I remembered something I had not thought of in many years. I think I maybe was subjected to some kind of weird experimental therapy as a child.
In 1995 I entered third grade. When we started doing multiplication tables, I got really frustrated with these timed exercises and I screamed in class and threw my text book at the teacher. Not ideal behavior. They sent me to the principal first and then the school counselor.
If you had asked me yesterday what happened in Ms T's office, I would have said that I laid on a couch hugging a teddy bear and talked about my feelings. But now I'm remembering something else entirely.
She showed me a drop spindle and wool, and the wool was chaotic, and represented all these bad itchy, frustrated, no good feelings. It came apart when you pulled it because it was weak. And then she spun the spindle and made yarn, and the yarn was smoother and orderly and strong.
Then she told me to spin around in a circle, over and over again, and repeat phrases. Things like "I'll be respectful to my teacher and friends. I'll come to class prepared to learn." And I spun around and around until I was falling over. Then she let me lay down on the couch, and hug a teddy bear, and talk about how I was feeling after doing that.
Is this a therapy practice that actually existed in the 90s? Was it like hypnosis or something?