Friday, May 23, 2008

How Do You Know?

How do you know when it is time to take a break from therapy? We have been at attachment therapy and EMDR for over a year. We are using excellent therapists. We have been through many so unfortunately I know what to look for. They both had great success with our youngest. The older does not budge. He has made no changes. Maybe he is not ready. He seems stuck in this place of knowing in his head what is right and needs to happen but of being to afraid to do it. I'm wondering if we took the summer off. I continued to read about Beyond Consequences and try some of them out. Really working on the nurturing, attuned part of parenting for the summer and then start back up in the fall what impact it would have.....your thoughts oh wise ones?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

A very wise and wonderful friend (named, lets see....Brenda) once told me that as moms, we know our children best and we should never doubt our abilities as a mom to do what we think is best for our children. I found it to be great advice...thought you might too. :) Love ya, Denise R.

Brenda and Denise said...

Denise,

Awww. Thanks. I am doubting myself here. I am also doubting my ability to handle this without our therapist....scary.

Karen Deborah said...

I think you should listen to your intuition about it. It would drive me crazy to be in therapy all the time. How about some fun? Do your boys enjoy camping? Swimming? Something physical instead of mental? I hope I'm not missing the boat here, but maybe your onto something with giving them a break. worst case scenerio is you go back, what have you got to loose?

~Bren~ said...

I think it is a wise decision to step back sometimes. You have the tools you need. We have seen 11 therapists, Attachment therapy, done EMDR, and sexual abuse counseling and my child was becoming a career patient. She was literally getting "hooked" on therapy. Our attachment therapist encouraged us to take a break. I have seen such GREAT strides since we stopped therapy. Now, I am not saying I haven't gone for me...to help me deal with her, but it has been a couple of years since we have gone for her.
Follow your instincts. Like Denise and Karen said, you know your children and yourself.

Brenda said...

Karen Deborah and Bren,

Thanks. I have not heard back yet so I assume he will wait and talk it over with me on Tuesday. As for fun and exercise those are already key ingredients to me in recovery. They do often try to sabotage fun but we just keep trying.

Story of our Life said...

This is a really hard call. You need to go with your gut (as the others have said here).

From our own experiences we decided to "step back" since C wasn't budging one ounce. He refused to let 'me' in to his little world and all that other jazz. He also came to a point where he would walk the walk..talk and knew exactly what the "therapy" was teaching him and would tell me flat out he wasn't going to do it 'my way' just beacause M taught him to.

What worked best for "me" was to have an email dialogue w/M (our AT). I could call her at home and there were many weeks I made an appt just so I could see her and work up a plan to get over the hurdle at that particular time.

That approached seemed to work the best. he didn't really "like" therapy and therefore fought hard against it (thus why he is no longer with us). However, sometimes the best laid out plans were when our AT was working behind the scenes.

Make sense? I hope so.