There's No Such Thing as a Dragon

“Little Billy Bixbee wakes up to a dragon in his house one morning but his mom insists that there is no such thing as a dragon. Her denial of the dragon’s existence only makes him grow bigger and bigger over time until things finally come to a head. This is a seemingly silly little story from the 1970s that has a lot of insight into the function of denial within a family system. As the reader, we get to witness the creation of self-doubt and a pattern of sacrificing needs in order to keep the peace, the erosion of boundaries or rules, and the vast amounts of energy consumed by the family system in order to feed the dragon. It encourages the reader to acknowledge or name the problem in order to begin talking about it and finding a solution (“name it to tame it”-Dan Siegel).”