Oh, do I ever relate to her difficulty there. For ordinary children, there may be little or no difficulty about picking out discrete memories to categorize as either 'happy' or 'sad', and little or no concern about whether or not it's RIGHT, but to the highly sensitive and introspective child, things are not so cut-and-dried. Where does one even start, to categorize one's own personal memories according to someone else's either-or pigeonholes? Suppose the memories of the times you were happiest are so bittersweet in retrospect that thinking of them makes you cry?

"We will simply lie, and your teacher will neither know nor care."

YES. *wild applause* Very likely it was that statement that freed her from the hopeless downward spiral of trying to sort out all her feelings about all her memories into the designated categories, and made her realize that all that was called for was five little sentences, that didn't have to be Ultimately True.

Trying to tell anybody anything when they're in the midst of a tirade is generally futile. But - without knowing the child at all - I surmise that it wasn't really "talking about it" that made the big difference at all, but rather the 'permission' to not tell the Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing But The Truth about her feelings regarding her memories. Consider what an impossible task that would be for even the most introspective and philosophical adults - if that's what she thought was being required of her, no wonder she freaked out.