If the Villainess and Villain Met and Fell in Love - Vol. 4 Ch. 17

[Louis2568]

What I've heard is that it doesn't always work too well, but it is one of the best treatments for various fears.

Idk much but from what I know I feel like “fears” Is different to “trauma” and should have different treatments

 

[yoshiii]

Rejection and abuse by family via fire. Ofc she's scared.

 

[Salfaro]

Something more for sure. That flashback didn't make it seem that fire, or fire magic, was the root cause of her trauma.

Nah, the flashback here is the same thing we've seen before, where her dad burned her, not a new trauma revelation. She was told her contracted spirit was "nameless", and her dad flipped out and stuck her hand in the fireplace, saying that if she was truly his daughter, she would've contracted with a higher rank spirit (even saying she must be a changeling, with how she "failed").

I don't think he ever grabbed her by the neck like in the last page here, but the last page also has her wearing gloves as her current age, so it's not a total flashback anyway and is more like she's just being tormented by memories of how it felt.

 

[zzetal]

“Even the servants of the house now have fire magic”

um girl…I think that’s because your family keeps knocking them up


also, yeah this fire train seems like a bit of a failure. Wonder if this is really just trauma or if it’s a curse

What's the difference?

 

[freedomseekr]

faintly remember exposure therapy being said as counter-productive, but also heard that it is how you treat it, so I have received mixed signals on that

As someone who has gone through exposure therapy for trauma-induced trypanophobia (a result of a horrifying medical procedure when I was 5), I can say it helped (route for me was watching medical dramas to eventual proper exposure to syringes), but patients need to take their time and find their own level of comfort one step at a time.

With trauma-induced phobias it's also important to decouple the root cause of the trauma from the object of the phobia itself - again, talking about my own experience here, it took me a long series of sessions to go from "this is terrifying" to "this makes me uncomfortable, but I can deal with it" and part of that was being as open as humanly possible for me about the experience that led to the phobia.

None of that has happened in this chapter of this manga. Which I'm not blaming the other characters for - my guess is that even the staff like Sienna are unaware of the abuse Brigitte has suffered at her father's hands - nor is it Brigitte's fault because she needs to be able to open up about her experiences and I'm assuming a daughter of a noble house accusing her father of harming her on purpose is either excused away as "tough love" or seen as a disregard of filial piety.

 

[chendu]

tanks for the food

 

[feha]

As someone who has gone through exposure therapy for trauma-induced trypanophobia (a result of a horrifying medical procedure when I was 5), I can say it helped (route for me was watching medical dramas to eventual proper exposure to syringes), but patients need to take their time and find their own level of comfort one step at a time.

With trauma-induced phobias it's also important to decouple the root cause of the trauma from the object of the phobia itself - again, talking about my own experience here, it took me a long series of sessions to go from "this is terrifying" to "this makes me uncomfortable, but I can deal with it" and part of that was being as open as humanly possible for me about the experience that led to the phobia.

None of that has happened in this chapter of this manga. Which I'm not blaming the other characters for - my guess is that even the staff like Sienna are unaware of the abuse Brigitte has suffered at her father's hands - nor is it Brigitte's fault because she needs to be able to open up about her experiences and I'm assuming a daughter of a noble house accusing her father of harming her on purpose is either excused away as "tough love" or seen as a disregard of filial piety.

Yeah. decoupling/disassociating triggers is very important.
I have had a mess-up in dentistry (they popped blood vessel in my mouth from the anesthesia) as a kid that made it so I for a while got to huff some gas (laughing-gas iirc) before any anesthetic was injected. Because it made me very nervous otherwise [without the relaxant]. Not actually phobia, but the adults decided it was better to nip any issues in the bud before the constant exposure to high-stress in such a specific setting devolved into an actual phobia.
But that was not exposure-therapy (both in that that said gas was used making it drug-assisted therapy if any, but also in that it was not any active therapy at all, too), and rather that for a year or 2 any time I needed to get injected [in my mouth] we went to a specialist with access to said gas, to ensure things didn't get worse (for a total of 2 times, iirc).

Which is part of why I at least learned enough that you don't go trying to trigger episodes. And that if you go the route of exposing people to their triggers, calming agents (be that gas, tea, mushrooms, hypnotism, or music) are usually used to try and disassociate any triggers with the associated stress. Meaning that the standard was to instead of exposure-therapy, instead use some kind of drug-therapy (that also exposes you, but unlike exposure therapy doesn't expect you to forcefully "get over it", instead using drugs).

But interesting to learn that exposure therapy works too. I had heard that it risks to reinforce the negative association (which was why other sorts of therapy uses calming agents to assist), even if no episode is triggered.

 

[orangerain7734]

Did half of you forget that her father held her hands in the fireplace and burned her? That's why she's always wearing gloves, her hands are covered in burns. That's why she's afraid of fire

To be fair, with how slow this series updates and how long it's been since then, it would make sense that we'd forget such a plot point. I had to go back to the first chapter just now because I forgot it.

Now, from what I could see, her (scumbag) father burned her hand because he learned her spirit was revealed to be a 'nameless' one. We've just learned in this chapter that that spirit was not only a fire elemental, but it doesn't appear before her because of her fear of fire. What I want to know is did her fear of fire (or the trauma induced by the fire) come before or after that burn her father inflicted? If she was afraid of fire back then, then that would explain why that 'nameless' fire spirit didn't appear to protect her from her father burning her. That spirit could have done something far worse to her than what the father had done, even if it meant out of protection, and I think the last thing a guardian needs is having the one they're protecting be scared of them.

I uh ... still don't get how this makes our MC a 'slut' by 'Blue's' standards (maybe because she's interested in other spirits other than her own?), but at least she has some direction as to how to solve her spirit problem.

 

[Justking14]

What's the difference?

One means we just have to kill her idiot dad. The other means we have to kill Someone else, alongside her idiot dad

 

[OSAITUS]

Kind of want the obvious spirit to know why she has this phobia and then straight up, together with her own spirit, to just break the contract of the dad´s spirit, cancelling his magic in the process

 

[faulty450]

I uh ... still don't get how this makes our MC a 'slut' by 'Blue's' standards (maybe because she's interested in other spirits other than her own?), but at least she has some direction as to how to solve her spirit problem.

It's quite possible that she has affinity for all magic types, ergo 'slut' as per a young and conservatively minded spirit. All the spirits like her so far. I would not be surprised if she turns out to be the Saitama of spirit handlers.

 

[Awilda]

I uh ... still don't get how this makes our MC a 'slut' by 'Blue's' standards (maybe because she's interested in other spirits other than her own?), but at least she has some direction as to how to solve her spirit problem.

I think the slut part is because the spirits thinks she was there to try and seduce his master. Since he can sense that both of them feel some attraction to each other and he might dislike that someone like her is approaching his master.

 

[Fushiginiku]

Idk much but from what I know I feel like “fears” Is different to “trauma” and should have different treatments

I agree. I suffer PTSD due to a two-story fall I experienced as a pre-teen. There doesn't seem to be an exposure therapy to cure the fear of heights I suffer as a result.

 

[KingCarna]

I feel like I need to re-read what’s been uploaded because of how long it’s been since the start

 

[MagnaDrake]

I know he's a kid and kids are honest to a fault but god damn i really dont like how he frames it as "its not fair for the spirit", as if she doesnt have her own burdens. It's not her fault that she's deathly scared of fire, if I got pulled to the fireplace just for my own blood father to be given a third degree burn I'd be scared for more than just fire.

 

[asdman]

Hate to be that guy, but didn't her fear of fire started after she contracted the fire spirit?
So if the spirit could not manifest due to her fear, why did it not show it self anytime before her father burned her hands or you know made her immune to fire?

I sure hope that there is something more to this, not just her phobia.

 

[frankieMuniez]

The arm chair psychiatrists are inside this manga/chapter too.
"She has a trauma with/phobia of fire? Let's start exposing her to it and trigger her episodes as much as we can until she 'overcomes' it!"

Personally I don't know enough to say what is the right way to do it (faintly remember exposure therapy being said as counter-productive, but also heard that it is how you treat it, so I have received mixed signals on that), but I do know enough to know that rushing into triggering episodes is the wrong way to go about it.

I mean exposure therapy is a real thing and given how this is still in the Victorian times there is a case to be made that this is the only therapy they figured out. We didn’t even realize that ptsd was a thing until the 1950s.

 

[whermit]

Trauma runs deep

 

[GambierBay]

I can recognize that trauma in an instant. And I hope the treatment of the trauma is given the respect and dignity It deserves

 

[Umbrecola]

the relief on her face after discovering her spirit was a fire elemental......

It was pretty obvious to me her that spirit is Phoenix, being a fire bird that returns to a baby bird form when it dies. Her psycho-dad is just a mentally challenged a-hole