TREATMENT

The essence of the DOLIF treatment method lies with deciphering the invisible flow or DISTRIBUTION OF LOVE IN the FAMILY. This is not done by following the common logic of our Adult Mind, but by following the style of perception that children naturally possess in their Mind of a Child. In other words, the DOLIF diagnosis of a family is extracted from the child’s point of view. The task is admittedly challenging for adults because children are acutely sensitive to the undercurrents of LOVE in their family, while parents have almost no familiarity with this Emotion-based undercurrent, and many strenuously deny that any such dimension even exists. DOLIF Theory is backed by the author’s near half-century of intensive observation, analysis and empirical research with families, children and adults. 

Though it may sound unpleasant, since DOLIF is concerned with an imbalance in the Distribution Of Love, we refer to this as parental Favoritism. Yet parents are very reluctant to confront the idea that there may actually be a difference in the LOVE they hold in their hearts for their children. Most parents insist that there is no difference in the way they treat or feel about their children. Nevertheless, a diagnosis can always be made because of the absolute predictability of Favoritism, since its origins are derived from pure human instincts inherent in all children. But the ultimate telling feature that exposes parental Favoritism is the predictable outcome in the personalities and behavioral styles of the first two siblings. That is, there is always an substantial difference in the personal characteristics, social adjustment and behavior patterns of the first two children. Regardless of the differences between them such as age, sex or mental or physical ability, or whether they are the older or younger sibling. These first two always divide into one who is jovial, compliant and easy-going, while the other is more sad, hardened or otherwise difficult to manage. 

Once a diagnosis is made about the Distribution Of Love or Favoritism issue in the family, parents are advised to make their best efforts to shift their feelings of LOVE in order to remedy the problems they face with their Disfavored child. In essence, their task is to alter, balance, or even reverse the LOVE they feel toward their negatively behaved child. That is, DOLIF instructs parents to adjust their innermost feelings by increasing their LOVING feelings toward their LESS LOVED, poorly behaved child, and at the same time, decreasing their emphasis on the LOVE and intimacy they naturally feel toward their well-behaved child. They are advised, as much as they possibly can, to try to LOVE their misbehaving child in a similar way to, and as fervently as, they LOVE their well-behaved one – admittedly a challenging task! 

Like the positive and negative roles it predicts in the first two siblings in every family, another essential part of the DOLIF diagnosis distinguishes between every set of parents. Going by the inborn preferences in the Mind of a Child that is guided by immutable Emotions and instincts, the DOLIF method seeks to diagnose the parent whom the children sense and respond to as MORE LOVING, compared with the one whom they sense and respond to as LESS LOVING. The parent who is most responsible for changing their feelings is the parent whom the children perceive as the attachable, easy-going and MORE LOVING one. DOLIF designates this parent as the Prime Love Giver (PLG), while the second parent, or Additional Love Giver (ALG), is also an invaluable resource who supplies Support, Security, Stability and a sense of Belonging to the entire family group. This parent carries the burden of providing all the family members with the elusive feeling of “belonging” to a group. It is a vital, life-affirming feeling that bolsters the children’s sense of pride, personal identity and feeling of “fitting into” their larger social environment. It is also of great importance in holding the family together during the process of treatment when, much to the children’s surprise, the flow of precious LOVE in the family may become significantly altered.

Even though children continually annoy us, DOLIF prescribes that, in order to manage the behavior of a child who persistently behaves negatively, parents should bite their tongue, contain their Anger and resist their natural urge to use standard disciplinary measures such as traditional behavior-based, reward-and-punishment methods. DOLIF instructs parents to recognize instead that their difficult child is behaving unpleasantly or wildly because all children, of which the first two are the best example, are always embroiled in a continuous, bitter SIBLING RIVALRY with their immediately next-born sibling. Due to human instincts that drive the siblings to be repelled from each other with reverse magnetic force, using their Mind of a Child, siblings behave in opposite ways in order to attract their own pool or quantity of attention and LOVE. Parents should understand that, just like their positively behaved Favored child, their negatively behaved Disfavored child is merely acting up in a misguided attempt to procure more of the same kind of LOVE,  approval and affection as their rival sibling.

instead of punishing the negatively behaved child, feeling Angry, comparing them with their well-behaved next born  sibling, or becoming resentful of her/him, parents are advised to respond with positive LOVING feelings to this disguised plea for LOVE from their difficult child, 

It is admittedly a daunting task and a strategy that tests the limits of patience and tolerance in parents. A remedy such as this, that goes against the natural intuitions of the Adult Mind, can even cause serious discord among parents, as well as between parents and their treatment advisors, and even parents and their religious beliefs. The question they will face is whether to use conventional methods of discipline, or subscribe to the DOLIF method where discipline is avoided or minimized. In making the decision about which course of action to follow, parents should bear in mind that disciplinary methods first originated with ancient religious beliefs, and were later incorporated into mental health theories where it was found that animals could be trained or their behavior “shaped” by using simple reward and punishment. These methods follow the natural Intelligence-based thinking of the Adult Mind, and take no account of the Emotional basis of the Mind of a Child. DOLIF Theory maintains that this common advice about child-rearing is inappropriate for use with humans due to the supremacy of the uniquely human WILL, that distinguishes humans from animals. 

There are many advantages to using the DOLIF method. One is that if parents both cooperate, they can usually figure out how to correct the situation with their difficult child on their own. Since most parents are fully capable of changing their attitudes and responses to their children’s behavior through private parent-to-parent discussions at home, it means that there would be no need to ask for the help of a therapist or other type of intervention. However, to this there is one very important caveat. It should be absolutely clear that NO CHILD should have anything to do with this process of improving, adjusting or altering the parents’ feelings of LOVE, and that NO CHILD should ever, in any way be involved in these discussions. This is true about the negative child who should NEVER have to confront their parents’ opinions about the comparative distribution of LOVE in their family. And the same is true about this child’s well-behaved, positive, adjacent Favored sibling. This sibling often shows themselves to be more than eager to offer their opinion about how to manage their naughty next-door sibling’s behavior. However, parents should know that the positive sibling (whom they likely believe was endowed with perfect genes) carries the same Emotion-filled agenda as the poorly-behaved one, and the same hostile, Anger-generated SIBLING RIVARLY intentions of “stealing the show” for themselves. This is due to both the children’s fundamental wish to eject their next born sibling from the desirable turf that engages their mutual PLG in a LOVING relationship. Parents should remember that both siblings are driven by raw instincts and Emotions, and that they both seek to protect their claim to the elusive POT OF LOVE they perceive as emanating from  their PLG parent. It is important as well for parents to recognize that children are NOT aware of their rivalrous motivations, and that any amount of determination to convince the children of their jealousies are futile. Parents are forewarned that any such discussions with either sibling may cause the children serious emotional harm. 

Another advantage of the DOLIF system is that, because of its accuracy in reading and understanding the Mind of a Child, children often respond instantly to the prescribed remedy. It means that significant changes in negative behavior and in the children’s personalities can occur immediately, or in very short order as soon as the parents change their attitudes. It means that parents may reap the rewards of their efforts very quickly, sometimes almost immediately. Their new attitudes could instantly improve the quality of their family life as well as their own personal circumstances. Finally, by using DOLIF, parents have nothing to lose. With little effort and by simply adopting a positive attitude to their negative child, they stand the best chance of sparing themselves the long-term agony and grief of facing an emotionally alienated adult child who may eventually express their defiance by rejecting the family and becoming alienated. Alternatively, they may become socially rebellious, turn to substance abuse, crime, mental illness or even suicide. For society at large, the use of DOLIF gives us the best chance of raising socially compliant, upstanding individuals, and avoiding the horrors associated with long-term social/emotional problems. 

In order to accomplish the monumental task of trying to LOVE their negatively-behaved child as much as they LOVE their well-behaved sibling, parents should first and foremost put aside any prejudice about genetic factors being responsible for the often glaring differences among their children. In DOLIF the disparity in children’s character and behavior is NEVER assumed to be due to inborn ‘good’ or ‘bad’ genes and there are many sources of proof offered in the blogs. One proof relates to the enormous disparities among identical twins, who share the same DNA. But the most powerful practical proof is that opposite personalities occur in the first two siblings with 100% certainty in every family. Not only is it statistically impossible to be such a fixed pattern without some reasonable explanation, but this same factor leads to the predictability of the personalities of the first two children as reliably “opposite”. Unfortunately this phenomenon and its remedies are unheard of as yet in any psychological literature, and only for the first time elaborated by the author in the blogs on this website. Finally, over and over again, the successful application of DOLIF in treatment situations provides continual empirical proof of its validity.

For further explanation visit the blogs that present case studies of treatment using DOLIF.