When child's counseling hits a plateau.

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

Hi,

This isn't so much a co-parenting question. though there is a co-parenting component to it.

What do you all think of changing counselors for a child when counseling seems to have hit a plateau?

When SS11 came to live with us over a year and a half ago he was a complete mess. He had spent hia life as the scapegoat and fully believed in his worthlessnesd and that everything wrong in his mom's life was his fault. (Between military service and BPDm keeping the kids from him, DH was not an active presence in their lives so much as a very occassional vacation from the insanity.) Since he's lived here there have been many ups and downs. Between counseling, extra support at school, medication, and changing the way things are handled at home we've managed to get him stabilized.

He still has huge issues with black and white thinking, is still not even remotely dealing with anything that happened to him, believes his BPDm is just fine and wants to go live with her again because she treats him nicely the few days a year she has him. And it just seems like while he is no longer in crises he isn't really growing. His current counselor's response to his no longer being in crises was to move his appointments to once every three weeks. She also has basically shrugged and said that SS11 is probably going to just grow up to be a very black and white thinker. I really don't think I'm all that comfortable with giving up on an 11 year old in that respect. Thoughts?

[Nope]

Hi,

This isn't so much a co-parenting question. though there is a co-parenting component to it.

What do you all think of changing counselors for a child when counseling seems to have hit a plateau?

When SS11 came to live with us over a year and a half ago he was a complete mess. He had spent hia life as the scapegoat and fully believed in his worthlessnesd and that everything wrong in his mom's life was his fault. (Between military service and BPDm keeping the kids from him, DH was not an active presence in their lives so much as a very occassional vacation from the insanity.) Since he's lived here there have been many ups and downs. Between counseling, extra support at school, medication, and changing the way things are handled at home we've managed to get him stabilized.

He still has huge issues with black and white thinking, is still not even remotely dealing with anything that happened to him, believes his BPDm is just fine and wants to go live with her again because she treats him nicely the few days a year she has him. And it just seems like while he is no longer in crises he isn't really growing. His current counselor's response to his no longer being in crises was to move his appointments to once every three weeks. She also has basically shrugged and said that SS11 is probably going to just grow up to be a very black and white thinker. I really don't think I'm all that comfortable with giving up on an 11 year old in that respect. Thoughts?

[livednlearned]

You've done a lot to get him stabilized, nope.

My son hit a plateau with his first therapist. We took a break (not a good idea), then S14 came home one day after health class and said he had all the criteria for depression, and did I think he was depressed. He said he didn't think the therapist really helped him, so we got a referral to a great psychiatrist/therapist (male) and that made me realize what a good therapist is really like. They connected immediately, and though it took a while to finally get regular appointments, just the thought of seeing his T made S14 seem calmer.

Even when things seem to mellow out, S14 still wants to see him. They have a regular standing appointment once a week which hits my bank account hard, but I am seeing a year's worth of solid therapy slowly paying off. One thing I notice, too, is that S14 talks to me a lot on our way home from the appointment.

The therapist told me that S14 is pretty defended, and has been very hard to get him to open up, to connect with his feelings. That can be a long process that takes years, and we're in it for the long haul.

You have good instincts, Nope. If you feel like the current therapist is not clued in, you're probably right. And at age 11, gender in the therapist might make a difference, though that can be hard to gauge.

[bravhart1]

There are many types of therapists for children out there and we are just going through the phase of figuring this out too.

I'm looking at behaviorists, psychiatrists, and even horse therapy, called equine assisted therapy. It's going to take a large chunk of money and time  :'(

But it's SD's only real shot at a normal life. She is showing signs of being more disturbed than we originally thought.

Her current therapist is not making much headway due to the fact that mom has poisoned her against trusting therapy. It's hard to walk away from someone who knows us and the case so well but I think even the therapist is tired of BPDm, so there's that.

I'll keep you posted on what we find out... .and you do the same.