Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy When seeking a therapist

I so appreciate everyone's insights and advice; it's appreciated more than I can say.

The PTSD seems to be easing a bit, but DD is still struggling to actually admit to herself some of the weirder things that went on early on in this relationship-- and this worries me since I know from experience (and from reading over my lifetime) that what you don't examine you often repeat.

So until she is willing to examine what went "wrong" here in her perceptions and reactions, she may not be able to learn from this.

We fear that the school counselor's inability to take her seriously enough initially also was a huge setback. I don't think (and neither does my DH) that she WILL open up to a therapist about how awful some of this felt to her. She's deep into rationalize and compartmentalize mode at this point.

While it is certainly good that we're not spending so much mental energy thinking about this kid and his behavior, and that feels (on the surface) like a "win" from an emotional standpoint, I am worried that she is just papering over things, and not truly working THROUGH them adequately.

But she may not trust anyone but me sufficiently to do that work. I don't know what to do about that.

I love how in touch with her emotional state and how connected to the importance of this you are. That is such a huge asset for her. You really get it.

Trust in a therapist relationship is earned. A good therapist builds the relationship and will be adept at hearing threads of what she is avoiding. Many people feel huge relief at finally being heard and seen for the first time by someone else in a way they never have.

This is such a wonderful opportunity to build self-protection skills for relationships at 13! So many serious life mistakes could be avoided by what she learns here. I hope you find what you need and update us when you know more.

Have you looked at cognitive-behavior therapy? They do the best job of any of the branches of therapy at having people really look closely at their thoughts, see how those thoughts are tied to behavior and outcomes, and then change the thoughts that need changing to affect outcomes. Plus it's the the way to go for PTSD.

DeeDee

That's probably the ONLY approach that is likely to be successful with my DD. We're an entire family of people who look at post-modernist thinking and go... "HUH?? What a load... of...delusional... crapola." Mostly internally, of course. Well, DD and I do it internally; DH not always so much. :snicker: {No offense to any post-modernists intended-- it's just not a worldview that makes any sense whatsoever to us}

So anything play-based or 'touchy-feely' is likely to be an abject failure because it won't feel "real" to my DD, and she'll reject it as fantasy-based groping-around-in-the-dark nonsense.

We've been examining our options re: counselors/therapists quite carefully. Most of those that we're adding to our short-list are mindful-CBT or CBT specialists who work a lot with PTSD and trauma.

Err... I think classifying psychotherapy as either CBT or postmodern is as false a dichotomy as I've ever heard! Where did that come from?!

The funny thing is that that's how I grew up.

Then I realized, uh, oh, um, er, I so, so have the wrong worldview because this, uh, empirical-experiential data is completely inconsistent with my assumptions.

Crud. I am so in trouble.

Really, though it has more to do with the subject matter of these books more than anything else:

http://www.amazon.com/My-Stroke-Ins...208&sr=8-1&keywords=My+Stroke+of+Insight

http://www.amazon.com/Master-His-Em...1-1&keywords=The+Master+and+his+Emissary

Anyhow, the *reason* that the "touchy feely" both works and really is "groping around in the darkness" is that the problem is somehow embedded in the non-rational/emotional part of the brain.

Which means that you can't use cognition to use it because the cognition can't *see* it. It's not that it's "dark" it's that the part you use to think is literally blind to it.

I look at it as a mental-emotional blind spot. You can't
it because you *can't* see it. It's a lacuna as far as normal cognition is concerned.

However, I think that's *why* it works. I could be wrong. It's not my area.

In your case, I would hope that CBT works.

Maybe so, maybe not. For a non-violent abuse situation, I'd guess downside risk is minimal.

Good points-- I'm just making an observation about the fact that my entire family is inherently, in a knee-jerk kind of way, highly dismissive of anything that doesn't seem to be rationally- or evidence-based; we just tend to view spiritually- and belief-based rhetoric as strange, bizarre, or alien when applied to us personally. I need to make it clear that I don't think that OTHERS are strange/bizarre/foolish for considering things in that light.

Sorry that it wasn't clear that I sincerely DO NOT mean any offense to people at the other end of the spectrum from us. And I am aware that there is a spectrum, and that my immediate family is pretty much at one end of it.

Not that such things are valueless-- they clearly are of value or they wouldn't be so meaningful to so many people. Obviously that is a therapeutic approach which works for a great many people. It just doesn't work for us because it isn't that we're UNWILLING to go along, so much as that we can't feel as though we're doing anything but pretending to go along... if that makes sense.

My DH and I have both had difficulty with therapists who doggedly wanted to "explore" things in a way that made no sense to us. In my case, I lasted nearly a dozen sessions of what felt like completely inane nonsense that had no relationship to anything in my life past present or future before I just plain quit out of frustration over the wasted time and effort. This was someone that I had seen somewhat helpfully for nearly six months prior to that. DH had a similar difficulty with someone he saw for a completely different problem almost two decades later. It can easily lead to a breakdown the patient-therapist relationship if the therapist keeps, er... well, you know the old saw about how every problem looks like a nail when your favorite tool is a hammer? Yeah, that.


I mean, I get that some therapists' areas of expertise and treatment preferences may not really lend themselves to some patients' needs/styles. But there is also an aspect of this which is about whether or not a patient and therapist have enough perspective in common to communicate with one another effectively. That's all. My aforementioned therapist would have been better off sending me off to someone else with a different treatment philosophy.

We're mostly at one end of that spectrum-- again, my apologies if it wasn't clear that "post-modernist" thinking is pretty much at the OTHER end of the spectrum of how human beings assign meaning and interpret their lives. I'm well aware that people from that other end of the spectrum view us as being spiritually tone-deaf in some important respects, and they may well have a point.

It's a concern when searching for a therapist, because relatively few of them are at this end of things, and that means that building a patient-therapist relationship can be quite challenging.

The nice thing about CBT is that it's good for rational-type people. It can feel like debugging the brain. Even when dealing with nasty, emotional topics, there is an element of trying to figure out where the brain went wrong and how not to do that again.

DeeDee

Except...

on what basis? He "yelled" at her in a way that felt threatening to her? He manhandled her three months ago and tried to frame that rough treatment as "play?"

In any event, if we HAVE to use a formal means of enforcement, we certainly will. But pragmatically, we are probably better off using slow escalation and careful documentation of non-compliance with 'no contact' requests. IMO. My DH has also been nonplussed by my 'alerting' of mandatory reporters without naming names, but there is definitely a method to my madness. With ambient/emotional abuse situations, it's CRITICAL to look: a) rational and b) non-vindictive, particularly when you do finally need to take action. So we're telling people in reporting positions about a concerning pattern, and we're telling them that IF there is any additional escalation, we'll be escalating immediately and we'll expect their help since they'll have been aware of the earlier pattern.

Of note; the phone calls seem to have stopped as of last week sometime.