Therapy @ Home
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Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 06/17/2010 - 10:03
Therapy @ HomeBy Cathy Gilson, 6/15/10Share | It’s a good thing I don’t have friends who are therapists, treating adolescents with serious problems in their home communities. I would irk them big-time. I have come to believe that weekly therapy sessions are fruitless, as opposed to residential treatment.
Why? Any teenager worth her salt can run circles around the brightest therapist.
Don’t get me wrong. I liked the men and women we worked with. I know they had my daughter’s best interest at heart. They met diligently with her. She always came out of the sessions feeling good. They would meet briefly with me to discuss the issues and challenges she faced.
For years, we sought the help of these professionals. As my teen showed more and more troubling behavior, I came to realize there was a problem that 40-minute therapy sessions could not solve.
Only once did a therapist recognize that my child needed more than she could deliver. She suggested we seek out an educational consultant and look into residential treatment. That was the last one we saw.
Before that, we spent thousands of dollars on weekly visits and complicated medicine regimes. The psychologists and psychiatrists we saw were respectful – maybe cutting the child a bit more slack than I would like, but the child was their client. They had to know that the kinds of problems that some kids present were beyond their skill set – problems such as raging tempers, substance abuse, self-mutilation, eating disorders, disorderly conduct, etc. But only one suggested that weekly get-togethers might not be enough.
I kept asking the doctors to tell me what was wrong with my daughter. I felt we could make some progress once we had a diagnosis. But that diagnosis was ephemeral – one thing today, another the next day.
In the wilderness program, her therapist identified her issues immediately. Why was it so difficult for the therapists at home? That clarity never seemed evident.
My daughter is now out of the woods, literally and metaphorically. She is a healthy grown-up herself. Recently, I asked her about the care she got before going to residential treatment. She said she never trusted that there was any true confidentiality with those professionals.
She was afraid they would pass the information along to me. And so she shared nothing of substance with them. Without real openness, there could be no hope of progress.
So, I guess this is a plea to adolescent psychologists and psychiatrists working with kids still at home. Please have the humility to recognize when a child’s needs exceed your reach. Know about treatment alternatives and advocate for them if it really is in the best interest of the child.
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