Our DS5 had some troubling anxiety this time last year when he fell and scraped his hand in our garden. The resulting scratch was very minimal but he was unable to cope with it. He wouldn't open his hand for several days and wouldn't even let us open it to clean it. We took him to a psychologist for the first time several weeks afterwards. He only went for a couple of sessions but I think it was somewhat helpful. The psychologist talked to him about the relationship between thinking, feeling and body (i.e. when you are scared of something, you feel sick to your stomach, you think the thing that is scaring you might kill you and your body reacts with an elevated heartbeat and shaky hands). He also taught him about "thinking traps" such as the "worst case" trap or the "magnify bad" trap and when to recognize when he has fallen into a trap.
As far as effectiveness is concerned, we haven't had any more injuries to deal with, but we think he is better at dealing with minor scrapes and bloody noses etc. We have continued to talk to him about "thinking traps" with respect to other things, though, like his fear of skating (because the ice is too slippery, which means that he will fall and then be unable to get up) and his fear of slides etc.
We also had the psychologist talk to him a little bit about perfectionism as well although that wasn't really the focus. The psychologist told him that everyone makes mistakes etc.
To be perfectly honest with you, I don't think the psychologist said anything that we hadn't already kind of said to our son but I do think it helped to have it spelled out in a very practical way. I also think it really helped to have someone other than parents talking to him about stuff like this.
Good luck!
Last edited by HJA; 05/24/16 10:56 AM.
