Denise is a 26-year-old Black female who works as a travel agent.  She comes to therapy saying, “I’m afraid something is wrong with my body.”  She reports nausea and vomiting when she eats the “wrong foods,” shooting pains in her back, and chronic headaches.  She does not trust doctors.  She is taking vitamins and homeopathic medicine.

Denise recently broke up with her boyfriend.  She says, “It was a relief.  I can’t talk about the reasons.”  She reports that part of her childhood is “blanked out” and that her family has “lots of problems.”

The Bellis family seeks family therapy to cope with multiple problems:

Sandra, age 5, toilet-trained for over two years, has been having “lots of accidents” since the birth of her new sister three months ago.

Mrs. Bellis’s parents have both died suddenly within the past year. Mrs. Bellis feels intense grief and says that she can “barely” care for her children.

Mr. Bellis was laid off from his job four months ago.  He has not been able to find work.  He says, “Sometimes I just feel like I’m going to explode.”

The family has had to move to a smaller house in an unsafe neighborhood.

Mr. and Mrs. Bellis reveal that they both had traumatic childhoods.